The Magic Showing

The Magic Shop by H.G. Wells.

I had seen the Magic Show. The Magic Shop by H.G. Wells.

I had seen the magic shop from afar several times.

I'd passed it once or twice, a shop window of alluring little objects.

Magic balls, magic hens, wonderful cones, ventriloquist dolls,

the material of the basket trick, packs of cards

that looked all right, and all that sort of thing. But never had I thought of going in until one day,

almost without warning, Jip holed me by my finger right up to the window, and so conducted himself

that there was nothing for it but to take him in.

I had not thought the place was there to tell the truth, a modest-sized frontage in Regent's

street, between the picture shop and the place where the chicks run about just out of patent incubators,

but there it was, sure enough. I had fancied it was down nearer the circus, or round

the corner in Oxford Street, or even in Hoban, always over the way, and a little inaccessible

it had been with something of a mirage in its position. But here it was now quite indisputably,

and the fat end of gyps-'s pointing finger made a noise upon the

glass. If I was rich, said Jip, dabbing a finger at the disappearing egg, I'd buy myself that,

and that, which was the crying baby, very human, and that, which was a mystery, and called,

so a neat card asserted, buy one, and astonish your friends.

Anything, said Chip, will disappear onto one of those cones.

I've read about it in a book.

And there, Dada, is the vanishing hapenny,

...