Page:Wet Magic - Nesbit.djvu/18

Wet Magic "What was what?" the others naturally asked.

"Did you put something alive in there?" Francis asked. "Of course not," said Mavis. "Why?"

"Well, I saw something move, that's all."

They all crowded around and peered over the glass walls. Nothing, of course, but the sand and the grass and the shells, the clinkers and the dahlias and the little suspended tin goldfish.

"I expect the goldfish swung a bit," said Bernard. "That's what it must have been."

"It didn't look like that," Francis answered. "It looked more like—"

"Like what?"

"I don't know—get out of the light. Let's have another squint."

He stooped down and looked again through the glass.

"It's not the goldfish," he said. "That's as quiet as a trout asleep. No—I suppose it was a shadow or something."

"You might tell us what it looked like," said Kathleen.

"Was it like a rat?" Bernard asked with interest.

"Not a bit. It was more like—"

"Well, like what?" asked three aggravated voices.

"Like Sabrina—only very, very tiny."

"A sort of doll—Sabrina," said Kathleen, "how awfully jolly!"

"It wasn't at all like a doll, and it wasn't jolly," said Francis shortly—"only I wish it would come again."

It didn't, however.

"I say," said Mavis, struck by a new idea, "perhaps it's a magic aquarium."

"Let's play it is," suggested Kathleen—"let's play it's a magic glass and we can see what we like in it. I see a fairy palace with gleaming spires of crystal and silver." 8