“Are you quite sure you have never been there before?” he asked suddenly, and turned upon me a pair of eyes so scrutinising that, despite myself, I smiled.
“I’m sure of nothing, but I have no recollection of it.”
“I mean, you have never been there and found it as enjoyable as heaven.”
It was my turn now to return the stare.
“What do you mean?” I queried.
“I wish to know where you came from.”
“I am perfectly ignorant. If you wished me to find the way back to the place from whence I came I could not do so. I lived in a world at the other side of the magic mirror, and one day the mirror cracked and shivered from side to side and I alighted without premeditation on the earth, not even in my own habiliments but some which I borrowed for a masquerade. And being caught and taken seriously as a thief, and meeting with no intelligent person sharp enough to understand my case, I was branded forthwith and dispatched post haste to hell.”
“You are sure this world you spoke of was not given you by Vestasian?”
“Pardon me, I was not even king there.”
He laughed.