Guided Sleep Meditation & Sleep Hypnosis from Sleep Cove - Mystery Sleep Story - The Magic Shop

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Starting point is 00:02:12 We'll join a father and a son in Victorian Britain as they peer through the window of a magic shop where the young boy wants to go in and explore. If you're new to the podcast, get cosy in bed and preferably listen to the episode with headphones on. And don't forget to follow and subscribe to the podcast, so you can keep up to date with all notifications on new episodes.

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Starting point is 00:04:00 And let's begin. The Magic Shop by H.G. Wells I'd seen the magic shop from afar several times. I'd passed it once or twice, a shop of alluring little objects, magic balls, magic hens, wonderful cones, ventriloquist dolls,

Starting point is 00:04:23 packs of cards that looked all right, and all the sort of thing. But never had I thought of going in until one day, almost without warning, Gip my son hoard me by the finger right up to the window and so conducted himself

Starting point is 00:04:41 that there was nothing for it but to take him in. I had not thought the place was there to tell the truth, a modest size frontage in Regent Street between the picture shop and the place where the chicks run about just out of the patent incubators.

Starting point is 00:04:59 But there it was enough. I'd fancied it was down nearer the circus, or around the corner in Oxford Street, or even in Holburn. Always over the way, a little inaccessible it had been, with something of the mirage in its position, but here it was now, quite indisputably, and the fat end of Gipp's pointing finger made a noise upon the glass. If I was rich, said Gip, pointing a finger at a trick called the disappearing egg, I'd buy myself that and also that.

Starting point is 00:05:39 He pointed to another trick called the crying baby, very human. And I would also want that. He pointed to a mystery that had a card next to it which read, buy one and astonish your friends. "'Anything,' said Gip, "'will disappear under one of those cones. "'I've read about it in a book. "'And there, Dada, is the vanishing half-penny,

Starting point is 00:06:08 "'only they've put it this way up, "'so we can't see how it's done. "'Gip, dear boy, inherits his mother's breeding, "'and he did not propose to enter the shop "'or worry in any way. "'Only, you know, quite unconsciously, "'he'd loked my finger doorward, and he made his interest clear.

Starting point is 00:06:29 That, he said, and pointed to the magic bottle. And why do you want that? I said. At which promising inquiry he looked up to me with a sudden radiance. I could show it to Jesse, he said, thoughtfully as ever of others. It's less than a hundred days to your birthday gibles, I said, and laid my hand on the door-hand. Gip made no answer, but his grip tightened on my finger, and we walked into the shop.

Starting point is 00:07:04 It was no common shop this. It was a magic shop, and all the prancing precedence Gip could have taken in the matter of mere toys was wanting. He left the burthen of the conversation to me. It was a little narrow shop, not very well lit, and the door-bearer. pinned again with a plaintive note as we closed it behind us. For a moment or so we were alone and could glance about us. There was a tiger in papyr-mache on the glass case that covered the low counter, a grave kind-eyed tiger that wagged his head in a methodical manner. There were several crystal spheres, a china hand holding magic cards, a stock of magic fish-balls in various sizes

Starting point is 00:08:00 and an modest magic hat that shamelessly displayed its springs. On the floor were magic mirrors, one to make you look long and thin, and one to swell your head and vanish your legs, and want to make you look short and fat, and while we were laughing at these, the shopmen, as I suppose came in.

Starting point is 00:08:25 At any rate, there he was behind the counter, a curious sallow dark man, with one ear larger than the other, and a chin like the toecap of a boot. What can we have the pleasure? He asked, spreading his long magic fingers on the glass case, and so with a start we were aware of him.

Starting point is 00:08:52 I want, I said, to buy my little boy a few simple magic tricks. "'Ledger domain?' he asked. "'Mechanical, domestic?' "'Anything amusing,' said I. "'Hm,' said the shopman, "'and scratched his head for a moment as if thinking. "'Then quite distinctively he drew from his head a glass ball.

Starting point is 00:09:19 "'Something in this way,' he said, and held it out. "'The action was unexpected. "'I had seen the trick done at entertainment's endless times, and it was part of the common stock of tricks that Cundras often did, but I had not expected it here. That's good, I said with a laugh. Isn't it? said the shopman.

Starting point is 00:09:44 Gip stretched out his disengaged hand to take the subject and found merely a blank palm. It's in your pocket now, said the shopman. And there it was. How much will that be? I asked. We make no charge for glass balls, said the shopman politely. We get them. He picked one out of his elbow as he spoke for free.

Starting point is 00:10:14 He produced another from the back of his neck and laid it beside its predecessor on the counter. Gip regarded his glass ball sagely and then directed a look of inquiry at the two on the counter, and finally brought his round-eyed scrutiny to the shopman, who replied, You may have these two, said the shopman,

Starting point is 00:10:39 and, if you don't mind, one from my mouth, so. Gip counselled me mutely for a moment, and then in profound silence, put away the four balls, resumed my reassuring finger, and nerved himself for the next event. We get all our smaller tricks in that way, the shopman remarked. I laughed in the manner of one who subscribes to jest.

Starting point is 00:11:08 Instead of going to the wholesale shop, I suppose, I said, of course it's cheaper. In a way, the shopman said, though we pay in the end, but not so heavily, as people suppose our larger tricks and our daily provisions, and all the other things we want, we get out of that hat. And you know, sir, if you excuse my saying it, there isn't a wholesale shop. Not for genuine magic good, sir. I don't know if you noticed our inscription, the genuine magic shop.

Starting point is 00:11:47 He drew a business card from his cheek and handed it to me. Genuine, he said, with a finger on the word, and added, There is absolutely no deception, sir. He seemed to be carrying out the joke. Pretty thoroughly, I thought. He turned to Jip with a smile of remarkable affability. You know you are the right sort of boy.

Starting point is 00:12:16 I was surprised at him knowing that, because in the interests of discipline, we keep it rather a secret at home. But Gip received it and flinted. unhingly silent, keeping a steadfast iron hymn. The shockkeeper continued, it's only the right sort of boy that gets through that doorway. And as if by a way of illustration,

Starting point is 00:12:40 there came a rattling at the door and a squeaking middle voice could be faintly heard. Dada, I want to go in there. Dada, I want to go in there. And then the accents of a downtrodden parent, urging consolations, said, it's locked Edward. But the door isn't locked, said I. It is, sir, said the shopman. Well, always for that sort of child. And as he spoke, we had a glimpse of the other youngster, a little white face pallid from sweet eating, and over-sappered food, and distorted by evil passions, a roofless little egotist, pouring at the enchanted pain.

Starting point is 00:13:30 It's no good, sir, they won't get in, said the shopman, as I moved with my natural helpfulness, doorward, and then the sport child was carried off howling. How did you manage that? I said, breathing a little more freely. Magic, said the shopman. with a careless wave of the hand, and behold, sparks of coloured fire flew out of his fingers, and vanished into the shadows of the shop. You were saying, he said, addressing himself to Gip,

Starting point is 00:14:08 before you came in that you would like to buy one of our, buy one and astonish your friend's boxes? Gip, after a gallant effort, said yes. It's in your pocket, and you're in your pocket. and leaning over the counter, he really had an extraordinary long body, this amazing person produced the article in the customary conjurer's manner. Paper, he said, and he took a sheet out of the empty hat with the springs. String, he said, and behold his mouth was a string box,

Starting point is 00:14:45 from which he drew unan-ending thread, which when he had tied his parcel he bit off and it seemed to me swallowed the ball of string and then he lit a candle at the nose of one of the ventriloquist dummies and stuck one of his fingers which had become sealing wax red into the flame and so sealed the parcel then there was the disappearing egg

Starting point is 00:15:14 he remarked and reduced one from within my coat breast and packed it, and also the crying baby very human. I handed each parcel to Gip as it was ready, and he clasped them to his chest. He said very little, but his eyes were eloquent. The clutch of his arms was eloquent. He was the playground of unspeakable emotions. These, you know, were real magics. Then, with a start, I discovered something moving about in my hat, something soft and jumpy.

Starting point is 00:15:55 I whipped it off, and a ruffled pigeon, no doubt a confederate, dropped out and ran on the counter and went, I fancy, into a cardboard box behind the Papiameshé tiger. Tutt, said the shopman, dexterously relieving me of my headdress. careless bird and as I live it's nasty he shook my hat and shook out into his extended hand two or three eggs a large marble a watch about half a dozen of the inevitable glass balls and there crumpled and crinkled paper more more and more talking all the time of the way in which people neglect to brush their hats in inside, as well as outside, politely of course, but with a certain personable application.

Starting point is 00:16:54 All sorts of things accumulate, sir, not just you, of course, nearly every customer, astonishing what they carry about them with their hats. The crumpled paper rose and billowed on the counter, more and more and more, until he was nearly hidden from us, until he was all. altogether hidden, and still his voice went on and on. We never must know what the fair semblance of a human being may conceal, sir. And we know better than brushed exteriors and white tombs. His voice stopped abruptly, exactly like when you hit a neighbour's gramophone with a well-eemed brick,

Starting point is 00:17:40 the same instant silence, and the rustle of the paper stopped, and everything was still. What have you done with my hat? I said after an interval. There was no answer. I stared at Gip and Gip stared at me and there were our distortions in the magic mirrors looking very rum, grave and quiet.

Starting point is 00:18:06 I think we'll go now, I said. Will you tell me how much all this comes to? I say, I said on a rather louder note, I want the bill and my hat, please. It might have been a sniff from behind the paper pile. Let's look behind the counter Gip, I said. He's making fun of us.

Starting point is 00:18:29 I led Gip round the head wagging tiger, and what do you think there was behind the counter? No one at all. Only my hat on the floor and a common cundrous, lop-eared white rabbit lost in meditation, and I looked as stupid and crumpled as only a conjurer's rabbit can do. I resumed my hat and the rabbit lolloped or lopped or so out of my way. Dada, said Gip in a guilty whisper.

Starting point is 00:19:04 What is it Gip? said I. I do like this shop, Dada. So should I, I said to myself, if the counter wouldn't suddenly extend itself to shut one off from the door. But I didn't call Gip's attention to that. Pussycat, he said with a handout to the rabbit, as it came lolloping pastas, Pussycat, do Gip her magic? And his eyes followed it as it squeezed through a door. I had certainly not remarked a moment before.

Starting point is 00:19:39 Then this door opened wider, and the man with one ear larger than the other appeared again. He was smiling still, but as I met mine with something between amusement and defiance, "'You'd like to see our showroom, sir?' he said with an innocent suavity. Gip tucked my finger forward, and I glanced at the counter and met the shopman's eye again. I was beginning to think that the magic just a little too genuine. We haven't very much time, I said. But somehow we were inside the showroom before I could finish that. All the goods are of the same quality, said the shopman, rubbing his flexible hands together.

Starting point is 00:20:29 And that is the best quality. Nothing in the place that isn't genuine magic, sir, and warranted thoroughly rum. Excuse me, sir. I felt him pull at something that clung to my coat sleeve, and then I saw he held a little wriggling red demon by the tail. The little creature bit and fought and tried to get at his hand, and in a moment he tossed it carelessly behind a counter.

Starting point is 00:21:02 No doubt the thing was just a twisted rubber, toy, and his gesture was exactly that of a man who handles some petty biting bit of vermin. I glanced at Gip, but Gip was looking at a magic rocking horse. I was glad he hadn't seen the thing. I say, I said an undertone of indicating Gip and the red demon with my eyes. You haven't many things like that about, have you? None of ours, sir. Probably you brought it in with you, said the shopman, also in it undertone,

Starting point is 00:21:41 and with a more dazzling smile than ever, astonishing what people will carry about with them and awares. And then he said to Gip, do you see anything you fancy here? There were many things that Gip fancied here. He turned to this astonishing tradesman with mingled confidence and respect. Is that a magic sword? he said. A magic toy sword. It neither bends, breaks, nor cuts the fingers. It renders the bearer invincible in battle against anyone under 18.

Starting point is 00:22:18 Half a crown to seven and sixpence, according to size. The collection includes for juvenile knights, a very useful shield of safety, sandals of swiftness, and a helmet of ephemens. Invincibility. Oh, Tata, can I have it? Gassed Gip. I tried to find out what they cost,

Starting point is 00:22:41 but the shopman did not heed me. He had got Gip now. He had got him away from my finger. He had embarked upon the exposition of all his confounded stock, and nothing was going to stop him. Now I saw with a qualm of distrust and something very like jealousy

Starting point is 00:23:00 that Gip had hold of this person, his finger, as usually he had hold of mine. No doubt the fellow was interesting, I thought, and an interestingly faked a lot of stuff. Really good fake stuff, still. I wondered after them, saying very little, but keeping an eye on this certain fellow. After all, Gip was enjoying it, and no doubt when the time came to go we should be able to go quite easily. It was a long rambling place, that showroom, a gallery broken up by stands and by stalls and by pillars, with archways leading off to other departments,

Starting point is 00:23:47 in which the queerest-looking assistants loathed and stared at one, and with perplexing mirrors and curtains. So perplexing indeed were these, that I presently was unable to make out the door by which we had come in. The shopman showed Gip, magic trains that ran without steam or clockwork, and some very, very valuable boxes of soldiers that came alive directly when he took off the lid and said a magic word. I couldn't quite catch the magic word, but Gip, who has his mother's ears, got it in no time.

Starting point is 00:24:27 and the shopman said Bravo and he put the men back into the box unceremoniously and handed it to Gip Now do it said the shopman And in a moment Gip made them all alive again

Starting point is 00:24:44 By using the magic word Will you take the box? Asked the shopman We'll take the box said I Unless you charge its full value In which case I fear I may not be able to afford it.

Starting point is 00:25:00 Dear Hart, no, said the shopman, and he swept the little men back again into the box and shut the lid, and waved the box in the air, and there it was in brown paper, tied up, and with Gipp's full name and address written on the paper. The shopman laughed at my amazement. This is genuine magic, he said, the real thing. It's a little too genuine for my taste, I said again. After that, he started showing Kip more tricks, odder tricks, and still odder the way they were done. He explained them and he turned them inside out, and there was a dear little chap, nodding his busy bit of a head in the sagest manner.

Starting point is 00:25:50 I did not follow as well as I might. hey presto said the magic shopman and then they would become clear small hey presto from the boy but I was distracted by other things it was being born in upon just how tremendously rum a place this was

Starting point is 00:26:11 it was so to speak inundated by a sense of rumness there was something a little strange about the fixtures even about the ceiling about the floor, about the casually distributed chairs. I had a strange feeling that whenever I wasn't looking at them straight, they went disorganised again and moved about

Starting point is 00:26:35 and played a noiseless puss in the corner behind my back. And the cornice had a serpentine design with masks. Masks altogether too expressive for proper plaster. Then abruptly my attention was quite. caught by one of the odd-looking assistants. He was some way off and evidently unaware of my presence. I saw a sort of three-quarter length of him over a pile of toys and through an arch, and you know he was leaning against a pillar in an idle sort of way,

Starting point is 00:27:13 doing the most horrible things with his features. The particular horrid thing he did with his nose. He did it just as though. he was idle and wanted to amuse himself. First of all, it was a short blobby nose, and then suddenly he shot it out like a telescope, and then out it flew, and became thinner and thinner until it was like a long, red, flexible whip, like a thing in a nightmare it was. He flourished it about and flung it forth as a fly-fisher flings his last. My instant thought was that Gip mustn't see him.

Starting point is 00:27:57 I turned about and there was Gip quite preoccupied by the shopman and thinking no evil. They were whispering together and looking at me. Gip was standing on a little stool and the shopman was holding a sort of big drum in his hand. Hide in seat, Dada, cried Gip, you're here. And before I could do anything to be around, vent it, the shopman had clapped the big drum over him. I saw what was up directly.

Starting point is 00:28:30 Take that off. I cried this instant. You'll frighten the boy, take it off. The shopman with an equal ears did so without a word and held the big cylinder towards me to show its emptiness, and the little stool was vacant. In that instant my boy had usur. disappeared. You know perhaps that sinister something that comes like a hand out of the unseen and grips your heart about. You know it takes your common sense away and leaves you tense and deliberate, neither showing slow nor hasty, neither angry nor afraid. So it was with me. I came up to this grinning shopman and kicked his stool aside. Stop this folly, I said, where is my boy? You see, he said, still displaying the drum's interior. There is no deception. I put out my hand to grip him, and he alluded me by a distrous movement. I snatched again and he turned from me and pushed open a door to escape. Stop, I said, and he laughed, receding. I leapt after him into utter darkness.

Starting point is 00:29:52 Thud Lord bless my art I didn't see you coming sir I was in Regent Street and I had collided with a decent looking working man and a yard away perhaps and looking a little perplexed with himself was Gip

Starting point is 00:30:11 there was some sort of apology and then Gip had turned and come to me with a bright little smile as though for a moment he had missed me He was carrying four parcels in his arm. He secured immediate possession of my finger. For the second, I was rather at a loss. I stared round to see the door of the magic shop,

Starting point is 00:30:36 and behold, it was not there. There was no door, no shop, nothing. Only the common pilaster between the shop where they sell pictures and the windows with the chest. I did the only thing possible in that mental discomfort I walked straight to the curbstone and held up my umbrella for a cab

Starting point is 00:31:02 when a cab pulled up I helped Kip in recalled my dress with an effort and gotten also something unusual proclaimed itself in my tailcoat pocket and I felt and discovered a glass ball with a petulant expression

Starting point is 00:31:21 I flung it into the street. Gip said nothing. For a space, neither of us spoke. Dada, said Gip at last. That was a proper shop. I came round with that to the problem of just how the whole thing had seemed to him. He looked completely undamaged.

Starting point is 00:31:45 So far, good he was neither scared nor unhinged. He was simply tremendously satisfied. were the afternoon's entertainment, and there in his arms were the full parcels. Confounded, what could be in them. I said, little boys can't go to shops like that every day. He received this with his usual stoicism, and for a moment I was sorry I was his father and not his mother, and couldn't they publicly kiss him.

Starting point is 00:32:20 After all, I thought the thing was. wasn't so very bad, but it was only when we opened the parcels that I really began to feel reassured. Three of them contained boxes of soldiers, quite ordinary led soldiers, but of so good a quality as to make Gip altogether forget that originally these parcels had been magic tricks of the only genuine sort, and the fourth contained a kitten, a little living white kitten in excellent health and appetite and temper. I saw this unpacking with the sort of provisional relief. I hung about in the nursery for a very long time indeed. That happened six months ago. And now I am beginning to believe it is all right.

Starting point is 00:33:15 The kitten had only the magic natural to all kittens and the soldiers seemed as steady a company as any colonel could desire. And Gip, the intelligent parent will understand that I have to go cautiously with Gip. For I went so far as this one day, I said, How would you like your soldiers to come alive, Gip, and march about by themselves? Mine do, said Gip. I have just to say a word. I know before I open the lid.

Starting point is 00:33:52 Then they march about alone. Oh quite, Dada, I shouldn't like them if they didn't do that. I displayed no becoming surprise, and since then I have taken occasion to drop in upon him once or twice unannounce when the soldiers were about, but so far I have never discovered them performing in anything like a magical manner. is so difficult to tell. There's also a question of finance.

Starting point is 00:34:23 I have an incurable habit of paying bills. I've been up and down Regent Street several times looking for that shop. I am inclined to think indeed that in the matter of honour is satisfied and that Gipp's name and address are known to them. I may very well leave it to these people, whoever they may be, descend in their bill in their own time.

Guided Sleep Meditation & Sleep Hypnosis from Sleep Cove - Mystery Sleep Story - The Magic Shop

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