It was the first time Mary had heard of them, either, but even at this stage she had begun to realize that, queer as he was, Colin had read about a great many singular things and was somehow a very convincing sort of boy. When he held up his head and fixed his strange eyes on you it seemed as if you believed him almost in spite of yourself though he was only ten years old⁠—going on eleven. At this moment he was especially convincing because he suddenly felt the fascination of actually making a sort of speech like a grownup person.

“The great scientific discoveries I am going to make,” he went on, “will be about Magic. Magic is a great thing and scarcely anyone knows anything about it except a few people in old books⁠—and Mary a little, because she was born in India where there are fakirs. I believe Dickon knows some Magic, but perhaps he doesn’t know he knows it. He charms animals and people. I would never have let him come to see me if he had not been an animal charmer⁠—which is a boy charmer, too, because a boy is an animal. I am sure there is Magic in everything, only we have not sense enough to get hold of it and make it do things for us⁠—like electricity and horses and steam.”