The boy turned and looked at him, and his eyes were like a great stream with the sun shining through. “And that’s just as real as me,” he said.
The man snapped the twig he held in his hand, the snake silently slipped through the brake and was gone, and the man stood up, yet paused a moment looking down at the shining world, then he got up.
“Goodbye,” he said, “I must go and look for my kingdom. I had one once but I lost it.”
“Shall you be able to get in?” asked the boy.
“Not just yet, perhaps,” he said, “but I can look at it till I find the way in.”
So he went back through the wood, remembering that it was written, “Out of the mouth of babes thou hast perfected praise.”
The Gresham Press,
UNWIN BROTHERS, LIMITED,
WOKING AND LONDON.
FOOTNOTES: