It was a dangerous moment; he was within measurable distance of revealing himself. For a moment his clothes felt far too large for him; and only just in time did he remember his ‘attitude,’ and the danger of being young when he really was old, and the absurdity of being anything else than a large, sedate man of forty-five. Only he wished that Nixie would not watch him so appealingly with those starry eyes of hers ... and look so strangely like the forms that haunted his own wild forests and streams on the other side of the Atlantic. He stiffened quickly, drew himself up, and turned to give his elderly attention to the chorus of explanation and introduction that was already rising about him with the sound and murmur of the sea. Something was happening. For the floor of the room, he now perceived, had become suddenly full of movement, as though the carpet had turned alive. He felt a rubbing against his legs and ankles; with a soft thud something leaped upon the table and covered his hand with smooth, warm fur, uttering little sounds of pleasure at the same time. On the top of the piano, a thing he had taken for a heap of toys rose and stretched itself into an odd shape of straight lines and arching curves. From the window-sill, where the sun poured in, a round grey substance dropped noiselessly down upon the carpet and advanced with measured and calculated step towards him; while, from holes and hiding-places undivined, three or four little fluffy things, with padded feet and stiff pointing tails, shot out like shadows and headed straight for a row of saucers that he now noticed for the first time against the farther wall. The whole room seemed to fill with soft and graceful movement; and, mingled with the voices of the children, he caught a fine composite murmur that was soothing as the sound of flowing wind and water. It was the sound and the movement of many animals. ‘Here they are,’ said a voice—‘some of them. The others are lost, or out hunting.’ For the moment Paul did not stop to ask how many ‘others’ there were. He stood rigidly still for fear that if he moved he might tread on something living. There came a scratching sound at the door, and Toby dashed forward to open it. ‘Silly, naughty babies!’ she cried, nearly tumbling over the fender in her attempt to seize two round bouncing things that came tearing into the room like a couple of yellow puddings. ‘Uncle Paul has come to see you all the way from America! And then you’re late like this! For shame!’