Next he turned away and saw the stick-rack in the

corner—this, he knew, he was allowed to touch. He had played with

these sticks before. There were twenty, perhaps, all told, with

curious carved handles, brought from every corner of the world; many

of them cut by his father’s own hand in queer and distant places. And,

among them, Tim fixed his eye upon a cane with an ivory handle, a

slender, polished cane that he had always coveted tremendously. It was

the kind he meant to use when he was a man. It bent, it quivered, and

when he swished it through the air it trembled like a riding-whip, and

made a whistling noise. Yet it was very strong in spite of its elastic

qualities. A family treasure, it was also an old-fashioned relic; it

had been his grandfather’s walking stick. Something of another century

clung visibly about it still. It had dignity and grace and leisure in

its very aspect. And it suddenly occurred to him: “How grandpapa must

miss it! Wouldn’t he just love to have it back again!”

How it happened exactly, Tim did not know, but a few minutes later

he found himself walking about the deserted halls and passages of the

house with the air of an elderly gentleman of a hundred years ago,

proud as a courtier, flourishing the stick like an Eighteenth Century

dandy in the Mall. That the cane reached to his shoulder made no

difference; he held it accordingly, swaggering on his way. He was off

upon an adventure. He dived down through the byways of the Other Wing,

inside himself, as though the stick transported him to the days of the

old gentleman who had used it in another century.

It may seem strange to those who dwell in smaller houses, but in

this rambling Elizabethan mansion there were whole sections that, even

to Tim, were strange and unfamiliar. In his mind the map of the Other

Wing was clearer by far than the geography of the part he travelled

daily.

He came to passages and dim-lit halls, long corridors of stone

beyond the Picture Gallery; nar-row, wainscoted connecting-channels

with four steps down and a little later two steps up; deserted

chambers with arches guarding them—all hung with the soft March

twilight and all bewilderingly unrecognised. With a sense of adventure

born of naughtiness he went carelessly along, farther and farther into

the heart of this unfamiliar country, swinging the cane, one thumb

stuck into the arm-pit of his blue serge suit, whistling softly to

himself excited yet keenly on the alert—and suddenly found himself

opposite a door that checked all further advance. It was a green baize

door. And it was swinging.

He stopped abruptly, facing it. He stared, he gripped his cane more

tightly, he held his breath.

“The Other Wing!” he gasped in a swallowed whisper. It was an

entrance, but an entrance he had never seen before. He thought he knew

every door by heart; but this one was new. He stood motionless for

several minutes, watching it; the door had two halves, but one half

only was swinging, each swing shorter than the one before; he heard

the little puffs of air it made; it settled finally, the last

movements very short and rapid; it stopped. And the boy’s heart, after

similar rapid strokes, stopped also—for a moment.

“Some one’s just gone through,” he gulped. And even as he said it

he knew who the some one was. The conviction just dropped into him.