drawers, and part of the picture of Lord Roberts pinned
against the wall. You have no idea how odd and unpleasant it is to look
at a glass and see everything reflected as usual, except yourself,
though you are right in front of it. Hildebrand felt as if he must have
vanished as well as the looking-glass boy. But he was reassured when he
looked down at his hands. They were still there, and still extremely
dirty. The second bell had rung, and he washed them hastily and went
down.

'How untidy your hair is!' said his mother; 'and oh, Hildebrand, what a
disagreeable expression, dear! and look at your eye! You've been
fighting again.'

'I couldn't help it,' said our hero sulkily; 'he called names. Anyway, I
gave him an awful licking. He's worse than I am. Potatoes, please.'

Next day Hildebrand had forgotten the words he had said at dinner. And
when Billson asked him if one licking was enough, and whether he,
Billson, was a liar or not, Hildebrand said:

'You can lick me and make me anything you like, but you _are_, all the
same, just as much as me,' and he began to cry.

And Billson called him schoolgirl and slapped his face--because Billson
knew nothing of the promise of the looking-glass boy, that whatever
Hildebrand said had happened should happen.

It was a dreadful fight, and when it was over Hildebrand could hardly
walk home. He was much more hurt than he had been the day before. But
Billson Minor had to be carried home. Only he was all right again next
day, and Hildebrand wasn't, so he did not get much out of this affair,
except glory, and the comfort of knowing that Billson and the other boys
would now be jolly careful how they called him anything but Pilkings,
which was his father's and his mother's name, and therefore his as well.

He had to stay in bed the next day, and his father punished him for
fighting, so he consoled himself by telling Ethel how he had found a pot
of gold in the cellar the day before, after digging in the hard earth
for hours, till his hands were all bleeding, and how he had hidden it
under his bed.

'Do let me see, Hildy dear,' she said, trying hard to believe him.

But he said, 'No, not till to-morrow.'

Next day he was well enough to go to school, but he thought he would
just take some candle-ends and have a look at the cellar, and see if it
was really likely that there was any gold there. It did not seem
probable, but he thought he would try, and he did. It was terribly hard