‘No fun in that,’ said Gustus. ‘Tell you what—it’s the spy-glass—that’s what it is. Ever see any conjuring? I see a chap at the Mile End Empire what made things turn into things like winking. It’s the spy-glass, that’s what it is.’
‘It can’t be,’ said the little boy who lived in a villa.
‘But it is,’ said the little boy who lived in a slum. ‘Teacher says there ain’t no bounds to the wonders of science. Blest if this ain’t one of ’em.’
‘Let me look,’ said Edward.
‘All right; only you mark me. Whatever you sets eyes on’ll grow and grow—like the flower-tree the conjurer had under the wipe. Don’t you look at me, that’s all. Hold on; I’ll put something up for you to look at—a mark like—something as doesn’t matter.’
[p36]
He fumbled in his pocket and brought out a boot-lace.
‘I hold this up,’ he said, ‘and you look.’
Next moment he had dropped the boot-lace, which, swollen as it was with the magic of the glass, lay like a snake on the stone at his feet.
So the glass was a magic glass, as, of course, you know already.
‘My!’ said Gustus, ‘wouldn’t I like to look at my victuals through that there!’