So the children entered the narrow, dark hall and Mr Papingay shut the front door behind them.
“This way,” he said, crushing past them and throwing open a door on the right. “Come inside and sit down a bit. This is my study. What do you think of it?”
As the question was asked before Jack and Molly were inside the room there was naturally a short interval before Molly could reply, politely:
“What a very—er—uncommon room.”
“All done by myself,” said the old man, waving his hand with a sweeping movement toward the walls.
The children followed the hand-sweep and saw rows upon rows of books painted round the walls. There was no doubt about them being painted. And they noticed also that the carpet, chairs, tables, curtains, and even the fireplace were all painted in this amazing room. Jack’s eyes travelled rapidly over the room, but not a single real thing could he see in it except himself, and Molly, and the old man standing in front of him; and he looked at the latter twice to make sure that he was real and not simply made of paint like the other things. But Mr Papingay was real enough with his spectacles and bald head. The only hair he possessed grew like a fringe at the back of his head, low down, just above the nape of his neck—and under his chin a little fringe of whiskers appeared; he had round, blue eyes and eyebrows set high that gave him a look of continual surprise; over a dark-coloured suit he wore a brown plaid dressing-gown, with long cord and tassels, and on his feet were a pair of very old red felt carpet slippers. And then Jack’s roving eye noticed that the buttons on his dressing-gown were painted on; but that was the only bit of paint about Mr Papingay.
“You see, it’s so handy making my own things,” he was explaining to Molly. “I can have any kind of things I like and change them as often as I like.”
“Don’t you find the chairs rather awkward to sit on?” inquired Jack.
“Not at all. Why should I?” replied the old man, slightly offended.
“Well—I—er—well, you see—they’re not real, are they?” Jack blundered on.