Oscar, pointing across the sea.

'Nonsense! Do you mean they are drowned?'

'No. They are gone to a country over there.'

'How do you know there is a country over there? Did you ever touch
it?'

Oscar shook his head.

'I thought so. Then there is no such place. Therefore your father and
mother have gone nowhere. Therefore they do not exist. And what
business have you to exist if you never had a father and mother?'

'I don't know what you mean,' said Oscar, 'and I don't care whether I
exist or not, so long as I do what is right, and am happy.'

At this Kanker laughed, a spluttering laugh, as if he had his mouth
full of water. 'Sit down here beside me,' he said, 'I want to ask you
some more questions.'

Oscar sat down beside him. He did not at all like Kanker, whose voice
was as harsh as his manners were impolite. And he was certainly ugly.
When Oscar did not look full at him he had something the appearance of
a gigantic crab, which was increased by his sidelong shuffle in
walking, and by the two great red hands that he carried hanging before
him, very much as a crab carries his claws. He held a sun-umbrella
over his head, a small book in one pocket, and a roll of measuring
tape in the other. Nevertheless, Kanker seemed to know so much, and to
be so positive about what he knew, that Oscar could not help thinking
he must be an important person; not the sort of person to be
contradicted, especially by a person who knew so little as Oscar did.
'For, after all,' Oscar thought, 'a great deal of what I supposed I
knew has only been told me. I do not know it as he knows things--by
touching them. It may be, as he says, that some things that seem to be
true are not true. I wonder whether he believes in the sun and the
stars? He can hardly have touched them! And I wonder why he wears
spectacles?'

'Why do I wear spectacles?' repeated Kanker; for Oscar had spoken the
last sentence aloud. 'To see with, of course! Nobody can see without
spectacles; and not only that, but nobody can see with any other
spectacles than these I have on.'

'Oh, you are mistaken there,' exclaimed Oscar; 'for I have never worn
spectacles, and I have always been able to see.'

'You never saw anything in your life,' replied Kanker, very
confidently. 'You only think you see. That is your hallucination. An
hallucination is when you think a thing is so, and it isn't. You are
blind, and probably deaf and dumb as well. What books do you read?'

'I