Chương Chương 23 · MAGIC

?" he asked sharply.

Dickon's curly mouth spread in a cheerful grin.

"Tha's doin' Magic thysel'," he said. "It's same Magic as made these

'ere work out o' th' earth," and he touched with his thick boot a clump

of crocuses in the grass.

Colin looked down at them.

"Aye," he said slowly, "there couldna' be bigger Magic then that

there--there couldna' be."

He drew himself up straighter than ever.

"I'm going to walk to that tree," he said, pointing to one a few feet

away from him. "I'm going to be standing when Weatherstaff comes here. I

can rest against the tree if I like. When I want to sit down I will sit

down, but not before. Bring a rug from the chair."

He walked to the tree and though Dickon held his arm he was wonderfully

steady. When he stood against the tree trunk it was not too plain that

he supported himself against it, and he still held himself so straight

that he looked tall.

When Ben Weatherstaff came through the door in the wall he saw him

standing there and he heard Mary muttering something under her breath.

"What art sayin'?" he asked rather testily because he did not want his

attention distracted from the long thin straight boy figure and proud

face.

But she did not tell him. What she was saying was this:

"You can do it! You can do it! I told you you could! You can do it! You

can do it! You _can_!"

She was saying it to Colin because she wanted to make Magic and keep him

on his feet looking like that. She could not bear that he should give in

before Ben Weatherstaff. He did not give in. She was uplifted by a

sudden feeling that he looked quite beautiful in spite of his thinness.

He fixed his eyes on Ben Weatherstaff in his funny imperious way.

"Look at me!" he commanded. "Look at me all over! Am I a hunchback? Have

I got crooked legs?"

Ben Weatherstaff had not quite got over his emotion, but he had

recovered a little and answered almost in his usual way.

"Not tha'," he said. "Nowt o' th' sort. What's tha' been doin' with

thysel'--? hidin' out o' sight an' lettin' folk think tha' was cripple

an' half-witted?"

"Half-witted!" said Colin angrily. "Who thought that?"

"Lots o' fools," said Ben. "Th' world's full o' jackasses brayin' an'

they never bray nowt but lies. What did tha' shut thysel' up for?"

"Every one thought I was going to die," said Colin shortly. "I'm not!"

And he said it with such decision Ben Weatherstaff looked him over, up

and down, down and up.

"Tha' die!" he said with dry exultation. "Nowt o' th' sort! Tha's got

too much pluck in thee. When I seed thee put tha' legs on th' ground in

such a hurry I knowed tha' was all right. Sit thee down on th' rug a bit

young Mester an' give me thy orders."

There was a queer mixture of crabbed tenderness and shrewd understanding

in his manner. Mary had poured out speech as rapidly as she could as

they had come down the Long Walk. The chief thing to be remembered, she

had told him, was that Colin was getting well--getting well. The garden

was doing it. No one must let him remember about having humps and dying.

The Rajah condescended to seat himself on a rug under the tree.

"What work do you do in the gardens, Weatherstaff?" he inquired.

"Anythin' I'm told to do," answered old Ben. "I'm kep' on by

favor--because she liked me."

"She?" said Colin.

"Tha' mother," answered Ben Weatherstaff.

"My mother?" said Colin, and he looked about him quietly. "This was her

garden, wasn't it?"

"Aye, it was that!" and Ben Weatherstaff looked about him too. "She were

main fond of it."

"It is my garden now, I am fond of it. I shall come here every day,"

announced Colin. "But it is to be a secret. My orders are that no one is

to know that we come here. Dickon and my cousin have worked and made it

come alive. I shall send for you sometimes to help--but you must come

when no one can see you."

Ben Weatherstaff's face twisted itself in a dry old smile.

"I've come here before when no one saw me," he said.

"What!" exclaimed Colin. "When?"

"Th' last time I was here," rubbing his chin and looking round, "was

about two year' ago."

"But no one has been in it for ten years!" cried Colin. "There was no

door!"

"I'm no one," said old Ben dryly. "An' I didn't come through th' door. I

come over th' wall. Th' rheumatics held me back th' last two year'."

"Tha' come an' did a bit o' prunin'!" cried Dickon. "I couldn't make out

how it had been done."

"She was so fond of it--she was!" said Ben Weatherstaff slowly. "An' she

was such a pretty young thing. She says to me once, 'Ben,' says she

laughin', 'if ever I'm ill or if I go away you must take care of my

roses.' When she did go away th' orders was no one was ever to come

nigh. But I come," with grumpy obstinacy. "Over th' wall I come--until

th' rheumatics stopped me--an' I did a bit o' work once a year. She'd

gave her order first."

"It wouldn't have been as wick as it is if tha' hadn't done it," said

Dickon. "I did wonder."

"I'm glad you did it, Weatherstaff," said Colin. "You'll know how to

keep the secret."

"Aye, I'll know, sir," answered Ben. "An' it'll be easier for a man wi'

rheumatics to come in at th' door."

On the grass near the tree Mary had dropped her trowel. Colin stretched

out his hand and took it up. An odd expression came into his face and he

began to scratch at the earth. His thin hand was weak enough but

presently as they watched him--Mary with quite breathless interest--he

drove the end of the trowel into the soil and turned some over.

"You can do it! You can do it!" said Mary to herself. "I tell you, you

can!"

Dickon's round eyes were full of eager curiousness but he said not a

word. Ben Weatherstaff looked on with interested face.

Colin persevered. After he had turned a few trowelfuls of soil he spoke

exultantly to Dickon in his best Yorkshire.

"Tha' said as tha'd have me walkin' about here same as other folk--an'

tha' said tha'd have me diggin'. I thowt tha' was just leein' to please

me. This is only th' first day an' I've walked--an' here I am diggin'."

Ben Weatherstaff's mouth fell open again when he heard him, but he ended

by chuckling.

"Eh!" he said, "that sounds as if tha'd got wits enow. Tha'rt a

Yorkshire lad for sure. An' tha'rt diggin', too. How'd tha' like to

plant a bit o' somethin'? I can get thee a rose in a pot."

"Go and get it!" said Colin, digging excitedly. "Quick! Quick!"

It was done quickly enough indeed. Ben Weatherstaff went his way

forgetting rheumatics. Dickon took his spade and dug the hole deeper and

wider than a new digger with thin white hands could make it. Mary

slipped out to run and bring back a watering-can. When Dickon had

deepened the hole Colin went on turning the soft earth over and over. He

looked up at the sky, flushed and glowing with the strangely new

exercise, slight as it was.

"I want to do it before the sun goes quite--quite down," he said.

Mary thought that perhaps the sun held back a few minutes just on

purpose. Ben Weatherstaff brought the rose in its pot from the

greenhouse. He hobbled over the grass as fast as he could. He had begun

to be excited, too. He knelt down by the hole and broke the pot from the

mould.

"Here, lad," he said, handing the plant to Colin. "Set it in the earth

thysel' same as th' king does when he goes to a new place."

The thin white hands shook a little and Colin's flush grew deeper as he

set the rose in the mould and held it while old Ben made firm the earth.

It was filled in and pressed down and made steady. Mary was leaning

forward on her hands and knees. Soot had flown down and marched forward

to see what was being done. Nut and Shell chattered about it from a

cherry-tree.

"It's planted!" said Colin at last. "And the sun is only slipping over

the edge. Help me up, Dickon. I want to be standing when it goes. That's

part of the Magic."

And Dickon helped him, and the Magic--or whatever it was--so gave him

strength that when the sun did slip over the edge and end the strange

lovely afternoon for them there he actually stood on his two

feet--laughing.

Chapter 23. MAGIC

Dr. Craven had been waiting some time at the house when they returned to

it. He had indeed begun to wonder if it might not be wise to send some

one out to explore the garden paths. When Colin was brought back to his

room the poor man looked him over seriously.

"You should not have stayed so long," he said. "You must not overexert

yourself."

"I am not tired at all," said Colin. "It has made me well. To-morrow I

am going out in the morning as well as in the afternoon."

"I am not sure that I can allow it," answered Dr. Craven. "I am afraid

it would not be wise."

"It would not be wise to try to stop me," said Colin quite seriously. "I

am going."

Even Mary had found out that one of Colin's chief peculiarities was that

he did not know in the least what a rude little brute he was with his

way of ordering people about. He had lived on a sort of desert island

all his life and as he had been the king of it he had made his own

manners and had had no one to compare himself with. Mary had indeed

been rather like him herself and since she had been at Misselthwaite had

gradually discovered that her own manners had not been of the kind which

is usual or popular. Having made this discovery she naturally thought it

of enough interest to communicate to Colin. So she sat and looked at him

curiously for a few minutes after Dr. Craven had gone. She wanted to

make him ask her why she was doing it and of course she did.

"What are you looking at me for?" he said.

"I'm thinking that I am rather sorry for Dr. Craven."

"So am I," said Colin calmly, but not without an air of some

satisfaction. "He won't get Misselthwaite at all now I'm not going to

die."

"I'm sorry for him because of that, of course," said Mary, "but I was

thinking just then that it must have been very horrid to have had to be

polite for ten years to a boy who was always rude. I would never have

done it."

"Am I rude?" Colin inquired undisturbedly.

"If you had been his own boy and he had been a slapping sort of man,"

said Mary, "he would have slapped you."

"But he daren't," said Colin.

"No, he daren't," answered Mistress Mary, thinking the thing out quite

without prejudice. "Nobody ever dared to do anything you didn't

like--because you were going to die and things like that. You were such

a poor thing."

"But," announced Colin stubbornly, "I am not going to be a poor thing. I

won't let people think I'm one. I stood on my feet this afternoon."

"It is always having your own way that has made you so queer," Mary went

on, thinking aloud.

Colin turned his head, frowning.

"Am I queer?" he demanded.

"Yes," answered Mary, "very. But you needn't be cross," she added

impartially, "because so am I queer--and so is Ben Weatherstaff. But I

am not as queer as I was before I began to like people and before I

found the garden."

"I don't want to be queer," said Colin. "I am not going to be," and he

frowned again with determination.

He was a very proud boy. He lay thinking for a while and then Mary saw

his beautiful smile begin and gradually change his whole face.

"I shall stop being queer," he said, "if I go every day to the garden.

There is Magic in there--good Magic, you know, Mary. I am sure there

is."

"So am I," said Mary.

"Even if it isn't real Magic," Colin said, "we can pretend it is.

_Something_ is there--_something_!"

"It's Magic," said Mary, "but not black. It's as white as snow."

They always called it Magic and indeed it seemed like it in the months

that followed--the wonderful months--the radiant months--the amazing

ones. Oh! the things which happened in that garden! If you have never

had a garden, you cannot understand, and if you have had a garden you

will know that it would take a whole book to describe all that came to

pass there. At first it seemed that green things would never cease

pushing their way through the earth, in the grass, in the beds, even in

the crevices of the walls. Then the green things began to show buds and

the buds began to unfurl and show color, every shade of blue, every

shade of purple, every tint and hue of crimson. In its happy days

flowers had been tucked away into every inch and hole and corner. Ben

Weatherstaff had seen it done and had himself scraped out mortar from

between the bricks of the wall and made pockets of earth for lovely

clinging things to grow on. Iris and white lilies rose out of the grass

in sheaves, and the green alcoves filled themselves with amazing armies

of the blue and white flower lances of tall delphiniums or columbines

or campanulas.

"She was main fond o' them--she was," Ben Weatherstaff said. "She liked

them things as was allus pointin' up to th' blue sky, she used to tell.

Not as she was one o' them as looked down on th' earth--not her. She

just loved it but she said as th' blue sky allus looked so joyful."

The seeds Dickon and Mary had planted grew as if fairies had tended

them. Satiny poppies of all tints danced in the breeze by the score,

gaily defying flowers which had lived in the garden for years and which

it might be confessed seemed rather to wonder how such new people had

got there. And the roses--the roses! Rising out of the grass, tangled

round the sun-dial, wreathing the tree trunks and hanging from their

branches, climbing up the walls and spreading over them with long

garlands falling in cascades--they came alive day by day, hour by hour.

Fair fresh leaves, and buds--and buds--tiny at first but swelling and

working Magic until they burst and uncurled into cups of scent

delicately spilling themselves over their brims and filling the garden

air.

Colin saw it all, watching each change as it took place. Every morning

he was brought out and every hour of each day when it didn't rain he

spent in the garden. Even gray days pleased him. He would lie on the

grass "watching things growing," he said. If you watched long enough, he

declared, you could see buds unsheath themselves. Also you could make

the acquaintance of strange busy insect things running about on various

unknown but evidently serious errands, sometimes carrying tiny scraps of

straw or feather or food, or climbing blades of grass as if they were

trees from whose tops one could look out to explore the country. A mole

throwing up its mound at the end of its burrow and making its way out at

last with the long-nailed paws which looked so like elfish hands, had

absorbed him one whole morning. Ants' ways, beetles' ways, bees' ways,

frogs' ways, birds' ways, plants' ways, gave him a new world to explore

and when Dickon revealed them all and added foxes' ways, otters' ways,

ferrets' ways, squirrels' ways, and trout's and water-rats' and badgers'

ways, there was no end to the things to talk about and think over.

And this was not the half of the Magic. The fact that he had really once

stood on his feet had set Colin thinking tremendously and when Mary told

him of the spell she had worked he was excited and approved of it

greatly. He talked of it constantly.

"Of course there must be lots of Magic in the world," he said wisely

one day, "but people don't know what it is like or how to make it.

Perhaps the beginning is just to say nice things are going to happen

until you make them happen. I am going to try and experiment."

The next morning when they went to the secret garden he sent at once for

Ben Weatherstaff. Ben came as quickly as he could and found the Rajah

standing on his feet under a tree and looking very grand but also very

beautifully smiling.

"Good morning, Ben Weatherstaff," he said. "I want you and Dickon and

Miss Mary to stand in a row and listen to me because I am going to tell

you something very important."

"Aye, aye, sir!" answered Ben Weatherstaff, touching his forehead. (One

of the long concealed charms of Ben Weatherstaff was that in his boyhood

he had once run away to sea and had made voyages. So he could reply like

a sailor.)

"I am going to try a scientific experiment," explained the Rajah. "When

I grow up I am going to make great scientific discoveries and I am going

to begin now with this experiment."

"Aye, aye, sir!" said Ben Weatherstaff promptly, though this was the

first time he had heard of great scientific discoveries.

It was the first time Mary had heard of them, either, but even at this

stage she had begun to realize that, queer as he was, Colin had read

about a great many singular things and was somehow a very convincing

sort of boy. When he held up his head and fixed his strange eyes on you

it seemed as if you believed him almost in spite of yourself though he

was only ten years old--going on eleven. At this moment he was

especially convincing because he suddenly felt the fascination of

actually making a sort of speech like a grown-up person.

"The great scientific discoveries I am going to make," he went on, "will

be about Magic. Magic is a great thing and scarcely any one knows

anything about it except a few people in old books--and Mary a little,

because she was born in India where there are fakirs. I believe Dickon

knows some Magic, but perhaps he doesn't know he knows it. He charms

animals and people. I would never have let him come to see me if he had

not been an animal charmer--which is a boy charmer, too, because a boy

is an animal. I am sure there is Magic in everything, only we have not

sense enough to get hold of it and make it do things for us--like

electricity and horses and steam."

This sounded so imposing that Ben Weatherstaff became quite excited and

really could not keep still.

"Aye, aye, sir," he said and he began to stand up quite straight.

"When Mary found this garden it looked quite dead," the orator

proceeded. "Then something began pushing things up out of the soil and

making things out of nothing. One day things weren't there and another

they were. I had never watched things before and it made me feel very

curious. Scientific people are always curious and I am going to be

scientific. I keep saying to myself, 'What is it? What is it?' It's

something. It can't be nothing! I don't know its name so I call it

Magic. I have never seen the sun rise but Mary and Dickon have and from

what they tell me I am sure that is Magic too. Something pushes it up

and draws it. Sometimes since I've been in the garden I've looked up

through the trees at the sky and I have had a strange feeling of being

happy as if something were pushing and drawing in my chest and making me

breathe fast. Magic is always pushing and drawing and making things out

of nothing. Everything is made out of Magic, leaves and trees, flowers

and birds, badgers and foxes and squirrels and people. So it must be all

around us. In this garden--in all the places. The Magic in this garden

has made me stand up and know I am going to live to be a man. I am going

to make the scientific experiment of trying to get some and put it in

myself and make it push and draw me and make me strong. I don't know how

to do it but I think that if you keep thinking about it and calling it

perhaps it will come. Perhaps that is the first baby way to get it. When

I was going to try to stand that first time Mary kept saying to herself

as fast as she could, 'You can do it! You can do it!' and I did. I had

to try myself at the same time, of course, but her Magic helped me--and

so did Dickon's. Every morning and evening and as often in the daytime

as I can remember I am going to say, 'Magic is in me! Magic is making me

well! I am going to be as strong as Dickon, as strong as Dickon!' And

you must all do it, too. That is my experiment. Will you help, Ben

Weatherstaff?"

"Aye, aye, sir!" said Ben Weatherstaff. "Aye, aye!"

"If you keep doing it every day as regularly as soldiers go through

drill we shall see what will happen and find out if the experiment

succeeds. You learn things by saying them over and over and thinking

about them until they stay in your mind forever and I think it will be

the same with Magic. If you keep calling it to come to you and help you

it will get to be part of you and it will stay and do things."

"I once heard an officer in India tell my mother that there were fakirs

who said words over and over thousands of times," said Mary.

"I've heard Jem Fettleworth's wife say th' same thing over thousands o'

times--callin' Jem a drunken brute," said Ben Weatherstaff dryly.

"Summat allus come o' that, sure enough. He gave her a good hidin' an'

went to th' Blue Lion an' got as drunk as a lord."

Colin drew his brows together and thought a few minutes. Then he cheered

up.

"Well," he said, "you see something did come of it. She used the wrong

Magic until she made him beat her. If she'd used the right Magic and had

said something nice perhaps he wouldn't have got as drunk as a lord and

perhaps--perhaps he might have bought her a new bonnet."

Ben Weatherstaff chuckled and there was shrewd admiration in his little

old eyes.

"Tha'rt a clever lad as well as a straight-legged one, Mester Colin," he

said. "Next time I see Bess Fettleworth I'll give her a bit of a hint o'

what Magic will do for her. She'd be rare an' pleased if th' sinetifik

'speriment worked--an' so 'ud Jem."

Dickon had stood listening to the lecture, his round eyes shining with

curious delight. Nut and Shell were on his shoulders and he held a

long-eared white rabbit in his arm and stroked and stroked it softly

while it laid its ears along its back and enjoyed itself.

"Do you think the experiment will work?" Colin asked him, wondering what

he was thinking. He so often wondered what Dickon was thinking when he

saw him looking at him or at one of his "creatures" with his happy wide

smile.

He smiled now and his smile was wider than usual.

"Aye," he answered, "that I do. It'll work same as th' seeds do when th'

sun shines on 'em. It'll work for sure. Shall us begin it now?"

Colin was delighted and so was Mary. Fired by recollections of fakirs

and devotees in illustrations Colin suggested that they should all sit

cross-legged under the tree which made a canopy.

"It will be like sitting in a sort of temple," said Colin. "I'm rather

tired and I want to sit down."

"Eh!" said Dickon, "tha' musn't begin by sayin' tha'rt tired. Tha' might

spoil th' Magic."

Colin turned and looked at him--into his innocent round eyes.

"That's true," he said slowly. "I must only think of the Magic."

It all seemed most majestic and mysterious when they sat down in their

circle. Ben Weatherstaff felt as if he had somehow been led into

appearing at a prayer-meeting. Ordinarily he was very fixed in being

what he called "agen' prayer-meetin's" but this being the Rajah's affair

he did not resent it and was indeed inclined to be gratified at being

called upon to assist. Mistress Mary felt solemnly enraptured. Dickon

held his rabbit in his arm, and perhaps he made some charmer's signal no

one heard, for when he sat down, cross-legged like the rest, the crow,

the fox, the squirrels and the lamb slowly drew near and made part of

the circle, settling each into a place of rest as if of their own

desire.

"The 'creatures' have come," said Colin gravely. "They want to help us."

Colin really looked quite beautiful, Mary thought. He held his head high

as if he felt like a sort of priest and his strange eyes had a wonderful

look in them. The light shone on him through the tree canopy.

"Now we will begin," he said. "Shall we sway backward and forward, Mary,

as if we were dervishes?"

"I canna' do no swayin' back'ard and for'ard," said Ben Weatherstaff.

"I've got th' rheumatics."

"The Magic will take them away," said Colin in a High Priest tone, "but

we won't sway until it has done it. We will only chant."

"I canna' do no chantin'," said Ben Weatherstaff a trifle testily. "They

turned me out o' th' church choir th' only time I ever tried it."

No one smiled. They were all too much in earnest. Colin's face was not

even crossed by a shadow. He was thinking only of the Magic.

"Then I will chant," he said. And he began, looking like a strange boy

spirit. "The sun is shining--the sun is shining. That is the Magic. The

flowers are growing--the roots are stirring. That is the Magic. Being

alive is the Magic--being strong is the Magic. The Magic is in me--the

Magic is in me. It is in me--it is in me. It's in every one of us. It's

in Ben Weatherstaff's back. Magic! Magic! Come and help!"

He said it a great many times--not a thousand times but quite a goodly

number. Mary listened entranced. She felt as if it were at once queer

and beautiful and she wanted him to go on and on. Ben Weatherstaff began

to feel soothed into a sort of dream which was quite agreeable. The

humming of the bees in the blossoms mingled with the chanting voice and

drowsily melted into a doze. Dickon sat cross-legged with his rabbit

asleep on his arm and a hand resting on the lamb's back. Soot had

pushed away a squirrel and huddled close to him on his shoulder, the

gray film dropped over his eyes. At last Colin stopped.

"Now I am going to walk round the garden," he announced.

Ben Weatherstaff's head had just dropped forward and he lifted it with a

jerk.

"You have been asleep," said Colin.

"Nowt o' th' sort," mumbled Ben. "Th' sermon was good enow--but I'm

bound to get out afore th' collection."

He was not quite awake yet.

"You're not in church," said Colin.

"Not me," said Ben, straightening himself. "Who said I were? I heard

every bit of it. You said th' Magic was in my back. Th' doctor calls it

rheumatics."

The Rajah waved his hand.

"That was the wrong Magic," he said. "You will get better. You have my

permission to go to your work. But come back to-morrow."

"I'd like to see thee walk round the garden," grunted Ben.

It was not an unfriendly grunt, but it was a grunt. In fact, being a

stubborn old party and not having entire faith in Magic he had made up

his mind that if he were sent away he would climb his ladder and look

over the wall so that he might be ready to hobble back if there were any

stumbling.

The Rajah did not object to his staying and so the procession was

formed. It really did look like a procession. Colin was at its head with

Dickon on one side and Mary on the other. Ben Weatherstaff walked

behind, and the "creatures" trailed after them, the lamb and the fox cub

keeping close to Dickon, the white rabbit hopping along or stopping to

nibble and Soot following with the solemnity of a person who felt

himself in charge.

It was a procession which moved slowly but with dignity. Every few yards

it stopped to rest. Colin leaned on Dickon's arm and privately Ben

Weatherstaff kept a sharp lookout, but now and then Colin took his hand

from its support and walked a few steps alone. His head was held up all

the time and he looked very grand.

"The Magic is in me!" he kept saying. "The Magic is making me strong! I

can feel it! I can feel it!"

It seemed very certain that something was upholding and uplifting him.

He sat on the seats in the alcoves, and once or twice he sat down on the

grass and several times he paused in the path and leaned on Dickon, but

he would not give up until he had gone all round the garden. When he

returned to the canopy tree his cheeks were flushed and he looked

triumphant.

"I did it! The Magic worked!" he cried. "That is my first scientific

discovery."

"What will Dr. Craven say?" broke out Mary.

"He won't say anything," Colin answered, "because he will not be told.

This is to be the biggest secret of all. No one is to know anything

about it until I have grown so strong that I can walk and run like any

other boy. I shall come here every day in my chair and I shall be taken

back in it. I won't have people whispering and asking questions and I

won't let my father hear about it until the experiment has quite

succeeded. Then sometime when he comes back to Misselthwaite I shall

just walk into his study and say 'Here I am; I am like any other boy. I

am quite well and I shall live to be a man. It has been done by a

scientific experiment.'"

"He will think he is in a dream," cried Mary. "He won't believe his

eyes."

Colin flushed triumphantly. He had made himself believe that he was

going to get well, which was really more than half the battle, if he had

been aware of it. And the thought which stimulated him more than any

other was this imagining what his father would look like when he saw

that he had a son who was as straight and strong as other fathers'

sons. One of his darkest miseries in the unhealthy morbid past days had

been his hatred of being a sickly weak-backed boy whose father was

afraid to look at him.

"He'll be obliged to believe them," he said. "One of the things I am

going to do, after the Magic works and before I begin to make scientific

discoveries, is to be an athlete."

"We shall have thee takin' to boxin' in a week or so," said Ben

Weatherstaff. "Tha'lt end wi' winnin' th' Belt an' bein' champion

prize-fighter of all England."

Colin fixed his eyes on him sternly.

"Weatherstaff," he said, "that is disrespectful. You must not take

liberties because you are in the secret. However much the Magic works I

shall not be a prize-fighter. I shall be a Scientific Discoverer."

"Ax pardon--ax pardon, sir," answered Ben, touching his forehead in

salute. "I ought to have seed it wasn't a jokin' matter," but his eyes

twinkled and secretly he was immensely pleased. He really did not mind

being snubbed since the snubbing meant that the lad was gaining strength

and spirit.