Edith Nesbit - The Magic World

Gustus was already at the tryst.

‘See here,’ he said, ‘I’m a-goin’ to do something brave and fearless, I am, like Lord Nelson and the boy on the fire-ship. You out with that spy-glass, an’ I’ll let you look at me . Then we’ll know where we are.’

‘But s’pose you turn into a giant?’

‘Don’t care. ‘Sides, I shan’t. T’other bloke didn’t.’

‘P’r’aps,’ said Edward, cautiously, ‘it only works by the seashore.’

‘Ah,’ said Gustus, reproachfully, ‘you’ve been a-trying to think, that’s what you’ve been a-doing. What about the elephant, my emernent scientister? Now, then!’

Very much afraid, Edward pulled out the glass and looked.

And nothing happened.

‘That’s number one,’ said Gustus, ‘now, number two.’

He snatched the telescope from Edward’s hand, and turned it round and looked through the other end at the great stones. Edward, standing by, saw them get smaller and smaller – turn to pebbles, to beach, to sand. When Gustus turned the glass to the giant grass and flowers on the sea-wall, they also drew back into themselves, got smaller and smaller, and presently were as they had been before ever Edward picked up the magic spy-glass.

‘Now we know all about it – I don’t think,’ said Gustus. ‘To-morrow we’ll have a look at that there model engine of yours that you say works.’

They did. They had a look at it through the spy-glass, and it became a quite efficient motor; of rather an odd pattern it is true, and very bumpy, but capable of quite a decent speed. They went up to the hills in it, and so odd was its design that no one who saw it ever forgot it. People talk about that rummy motor at Bonnington and Aldington to this day. They stopped often, to use the spy-glass on various objects. Trees, for instance, could be made to grow surprisingly, and there were patches of giant wheat found that year near Ashford that were never satisfactorily accounted for. Blackberries, too, could be enlarged to a most wonderful and delicious fruit. And the sudden growth of a fugitive toffee-drop found in Edward’s pocket and placed on the hand was a happy surprise. When you scraped the pocket dirt off the outside you had a pound of delicious toffee. Not so happy was the incident of the earwig, which crawled into view when Edward was enlarging a wild strawberry, and had grown the size of a rat before the slow but horrified Edward gained courage to shake it off.

It was a beautiful drive. As they came home they met a woman driving a weak-looking little cow. It went by on one side of the engine and the woman went by on the other. When they were restored to each other the cow was nearly the size of a cart-horse, and the woman did not recognise it. She ran back along the road after her cow, which must, she said, have taken fright at the beastly motor. She scolded violently as she went. So the boys had to make the cow small again, when she wasn’t looking.

‘This is all very well,’ said Gustus, ‘but we’ve got our fortune to make, I don’t think. We’ve got to get hold of a tanner – or a bob would be better.’

But this was not possible, because that broken window wasn’t paid for, and Gustus never had any money.

‘We ought to be the benefactors of the human race,’ said Edward; ‘make all the good things more and all the bad things less.’

And that was all very well – but the cow hadn’t been a great success, as Gustus reminded him.

‘I see I shall have to do some of my thinking,’ he added.

They stopped in a quiet road close by Dymchurch; the engine was made small again, and Edward went home with it under his arm.

It was the next day that they found the shilling on the road. They could hardly believe their good luck. They went out on to the shore with it, put it on Edward’s hand while Gustus looked at it with the glass, and the shilling began to grow.

‘It’s as big as a saucer,’ said Edward, ‘and it’s heavy. I’ll rest it on these stones. It’s as big as a plate; it’s as big as a tea-tray; it’s as big as a cart-wheel.’

And it was.

‘Now,’ said Gustus, ‘we’ll go and borrow a cart to take it away. Come on.’

But Edward could not come on. His hand was in the hollow between the two stones, and above lay tons of silver. He could not move, and the stones couldn’t move. There was nothing for it but to look at the great round lump of silver through the wrong end of the spy-glass till it got small enough for Edward to lift it. And then, unfortunately, Gustus looked a little too long, and the shilling, having gone back to its own size, went a little further – and it went to sixpenny size, and then went out altogether.

So nobody got anything by that.

And now came the time when, as was to be expected, Edward dropped the telescope in his aunt’s presence. She said, ‘What’s that?’ picked it up with quite unfair quickness, and looked through it, and through the open window at a fishing-boat, which instantly swelled to the size of a man-of-war.

‘My goodness! what a strong glass!’ said the aunt.

‘Isn’t it?’ said Edward, gently taking it from her. He looked at the ship through the glass’s other end till she got to her proper size again and then smaller. He just stopped in time to prevent its disappearing altogether.

‘I’ll take care of it for you,’ said the aunt. And for the first time in their lives Edward said ‘No’ to his aunt.

It was a terrible moment.

Edward, quite frenzied by his own courage, turned the glass on one object after another – the furniture grew as he looked, and when he lowered the glass the aunt was pinned fast between a monster table-leg and a great chiffonier.

‘There!’ said Edward. ‘And I shan’t let you out till you say you won’t take it to take care of either.’

‘Oh, have it your own way,’ said the aunt, faintly, and closed her eyes. When she opened them the furniture was its right size and Edward was gone. He had twinges of conscience, but the aunt never mentioned the subject again. I have reason to suppose that she supposed that she had had a fit of an unusual and alarming nature.

Next day the boys in the camp were to go back to their slums. Edward and Gustus parted on the seashore and Edward cried. He had never met a boy whom he liked as he liked Gustus. And Gustus himself was almost melted.

‘I will say for you you’re more like a man and less like a snivelling white rabbit now than what you was when I met you. Well, we ain’t done nothing to speak of with that there conjuring trick of yours, but we’ve ’ad a right good time. So long. See you ’gain some day.’

Edward hesitated, spluttered, and still weeping flung his arms round Gustus.

‘‘Ere, none o’ that,’ said Gustus, sternly. ‘If you ain’t man enough to know better, I am. Shake ’ands like a Briton; right about face – and part game.’

He suited the action to the word.

Edward went back to his aunt snivelling, defenceless but happy. He had never had a friend except Gustus, and now he had given Gustus the greatest treasure that he possessed.

For Edward was not such a white rabbit as he seemed. And in that last embrace he had managed to slip the little telescope into the pocket of the reefer coat which Gustus wore, ready for his journey.

It was the greatest treasure that Edward had, but it was also the greatest responsibility, so that while he felt the joy of self-sacrifice he also felt the rapture of relief. Life is full of such mixed moments.

And the holidays ended and Edward went back to his villa. Be sure he had given Gustus his home address, and begged him to write, but Gustus never did.

Presently Edward’s father came home from India, and they left his aunt to her villa and went to live at a jolly little house on a sloping hill at Chiselhurst, which was Edward’s father’s very own. They were not rich, and Edward could not go to a very good school, and though there was enough to eat and wear, what there was was very plain. And Edward’s father had been wounded, and somehow had not got a pension.