This was the question which they talked over every time they met, and they met continually. Edward’s aunt, who at home watched him as cats watch mice, rashly believed that at the seaside there was no mischief for a boy to get into. And the gentleman who commanded the tented camp believed in the ennobling effects of liberty. After the boot, neither had dared to look at anything through the telescope—and so they looked at it, and polished it on their sleeves till it shone again. Both were agreed that it would be a fine thing to get some money and look at it, so that [p37it would grow big. But Gustus never had any pocket-money, and Edward had had his confiscated to pay for a window he had not intended to break. [p 37 Gustus felt certain that some one would find out about the spy-glass and take it away from them. His experience was that anything you happened to like was always taken away. Edward knew that his aunt would want to take the telescope away to ‘take care of’ for him. This had already happened with the carved chessmen that his father had sent him from India. ‘I been thinking,’ said Gustus, on the third day. ‘When I’m a man I’m a-going to be a burglar. You has to use your headpiece in that trade, I tell you. So I don’t think thinking’s swipes, like some blokes do. And I think p’r’aps it don’t turn everything big. An’ if we could find out what it don’t turn big we could see what we wanted to turn big or what it didn’t turn big, and then it wouldn’t turn anything big except what we wanted it to. See?’ Edward did not see; and I don’t suppose you do, either. So Gustus went on to explain that teacher had told him there were some substances impervious to light, and some to cold, and so on and so forth, and that what they wanted [p38was a substance that should be impervious to the magic effects of the spy-glass. [p 38 ‘So if we get a tanner and set it on a plate and squint at it it’ll get bigger—but so’ll the plate. And we don’t want to litter the place up with plates the bigness of cartwheels. But if the plate didn’t get big we could look at the tanner till it covered the plate, and then go on looking and looking and looking and see nothing but the
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