"I was just going to ask you if—ah! here's your little boy," he said to Ted's father. Then, sitting down again, he drew Ted between his knees and looked kindly at the small innocent face. He was very fond of children, but he did not know much about them, and Ted, looking and feeling rather overawed, stood more silently than usual, staring seriously at the visitor.
He was very tall and very big. Whether he quite came up to Ted's idea of a "diant" I cannot tell. But queer fancies began to chase each other round the boy's brain. There had been a good deal to excite and upset the little fellow—at no time a strong child—that day, and his dream when lying asleep on the grass had added to it all. And now, as he stood looking up at big Mr. Brand, a strange confusion of ideas filled his mind—of giants tall enough to reach the sky, to catch and bring down some of the cloud-wings Ted wished so for, interspersed with wondering if it was "fissy oil" that had made this big man so very big. If he, Ted, were to take a great, great lot of fissy oil, would he grow as big and strong? Would he be able to cut the grass like David perhaps, to run faster than Percy—to—to I don't know what—for at this moment Mr. Brand's voice brought him back from his fancies.
"What an absent-minded little fellow he is," Mr. Brand was saying, for he had been speaking to Ted two or three times without the child's paying any attention.
"Not generally," said Ted's mother. "He is usually very wide-awake to all that is going on. What are you thinking of, Ted, dear?"
"Yes," said Mr. Brand. "Tell us what you've got in your head. Are you thinking that I'm a very tiny little man—the tiniest little man you ever saw?"
"No," said Ted solemnly, without the least smile, at which his mother was rather surprised. For, young though he was, Ted was usually very quick at seeing a joke. But he just said "No," and stared again at Mr. Brand, without another word.
"Then what were you thinking—that I'm the very biggest man you ever did see?"
"Ses," said Ted, gravely still, but with a certain light in his eyes which encouraged Mr. Brand to continue his questions.
"And what more? Were you wishing you were as big as I am?"
Ted hesitated.