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really had a fairy godmother. There! That'll be something for you to remember when you

are an old man yourself."

"I bet she was a bad fairy," thought Digory; and added out loud. "But what about Polly?"

"How you do harp on that!" said Uncle Andrew. "As if that was what mattered! My first

task was of course to study the box itself. It was very ancient. And I knew enough even

then to know that it wasn't Greek, or Old Egyptian, or Babylonian, or Hittite, or Chinese.

It was older than any of those nations. Ah - that was a great day when I at last found out

the truth. The box was Atlantean; it came from the lost island of Atlantis. That meant it

was centuries older than any of the stone-age things they dig up in Europe. And it wasn't

a rough, crude thing like them either. For in the very dawn of time Atlantis was already a

great city with palaces and temples and learned men."

He paused for a moment as if he expected Digory to say something. But Digory was

disliking his Uncle more every minute, so he said nothing.

"Meanwhile," continued Uncle Andrew, "I was learning a good deal in other ways (it

wouldn't be proper to explain them to a child) about Magic in general. That meant that I

came to have a fair idea what sort of things might be in the box. By various tests I

narrowed down the possibilities. I had to get to know some - well, some devilish queer

people, and go through some very disagreeable experiences. That was what turned my

head grey. One doesn't become a magician for nothing. My health broke down in the end.

But I got better. And at last I actually knew."

Although there was not really the least chance of anyone overhearing them, he leaned

forward and almost whispered as he said:

"The Atlantean box contained something that had been brought from another world when

our world was only just beginning."

"What?" asked Digory, who was now interested in spite of himself.

"Only dust," said Uncle Andrew. "Fine, dry dust. Nothing much to look at. Not much to

show for a lifetime of toil, you might say. Ah, but when I looked at that dust (I took jolly

good care not to touch it) and thought that every grain had once been in another world - I

don't mean another planet, you know; they're part of our world and you could get to them

if you went far enough - but a really Other World - another Nature another universe -

somewhere you would never reach even if you travelled through the space of this

universe for ever and ever - a world that could be reached only by Magic - well!" Here

Uncle Andrew rubbed his hands till his knuckles cracked like fireworks.

"I knew," he went on, "that if only you could get it into the right form, that dust would

draw you back to the place it had come from. But the difficulty was to get it into the right

form. My earlier experiments were all failures. I tried them on guinea-pigs. Some of them

only died. Some exploded like little bombs -"