Avon Fantasy Reader No. 8 — page 85: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

THE OTHER WING Sh 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!” : 3 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, swag- gering 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 ram- bling 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; narrow, | 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 ad- ) venture born of naughtiness h¢ 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 dodr 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. : ne | “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. “It’s Grand- Ss eomi (9)