Zanti again nor any one who spoke of London. He had
not, however, forgotten Mr. Zanti's talk of looking-glasses. As he grew and
his mind distinguished more clearly between fact and fancy, he saw that it
was foolish to suppose that one saw anything in looking-glasses but the
immediate view. Tables and chairs, walls and windows, dust and fire-places,
there was the furniture of a looking-glass. Nevertheless during his first
year at school he had, on occasions, climbed to his dormitory, seen that he
was alone and then gazed into his glass and thought of London ... London
in his young brain, being a place of romantic fog, pantomime, oranges,
fat, chivalrous old gentlemen, Queen Victoria and Punch and Judy. Nothing
had happened--of course nothing had happened--it was only very cold and
unpleasant up there all alone, and, at the end of it, a silly thing to do.
And then one night something did happen. He woke suddenly and heard in the
distance beyond the deep breathing of twenty-four sleepers, a clock strike
three. He turned and lay on his back; he was very sleepy and he did not
know why he had wakened. The long high room was dark, but directly opposite
him beyond the end of his bed, the light seemed to shine full on to the
face of his looking-glass. As he sat up in bed and looked at it seemed
to stand out like a sheet of silver.
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