The old man in the Oriental-looking robe was being moved on by the police, and it was this that attracted to him and the parcel under his arm the attention of Mr. Sladden, whose livelihood1 was earned in the emporium of Messrs. Mergin and Chater, that is to say in their establishment.
Mr. Sladden had the reputation of being the silliest young man in Business; a touch of romance—a mere2 suggestion of it—would send his eyes gazing away as though the walls of the emporium were of gossamer3 and London itself a myth, instead of attending to customers.
Merely the fact that the dirty piece of paper that wrapped the old man's parcel was covered with Arabic writing was enough to give Mr. Sladden the idea of romance, and he followed until the little crowd fell off and the stranger stopped by the kerb and unwrapped his parcel and prepared to sell the thing that was inside it. It was a little window in old wood with small panes4 set in lead; it was not much more than a foot in breadth and was under two feet long. Mr. Sladden had never before seen a window sold in the street, so he asked the price of it.
"Its price is all you possess," said the old man.
"Where did you get it?" said Mr. Sladden, for it was a strange window.
"Did you possess much?" said Mr. Sladden.
"I had all that I wanted," he said, "except this window."
"It must be a good window," said the young man.
"It is a magical window," said the old one.
"I have only ten shillings on me, but I have fifteen-and-six at home."
The old man thought for a while.
"Then twenty-five-and-sixpence is the price of the window," he said.
It was only when the bargain was completed and the ten shillings paid and the strange old man was coming for his fifteen-and-six and to fit the magical window into his only room that it occurred to Mr. Sladden's mind that he did not want a window. And then they were at the door of the house in which he rented a room, and it seemed too late to explain.
The stranger demanded privacy when he fitted up the window, so Mr. Sladden remained outside the door at the top of a little flight of creaky stairs. He heard no sound of hammering.
And presently the strange old man came out with his faded yellow robe and his great beard, and his eyes on far-off places. "It is finished," he said, and he and the young man parted. And whether he remained a spot of colour and an anachronism in London, or whether he ever came again to Baghdad, and what dark hands kept on the circulation of his twenty-five-and-six, Mr. Sladden never knew.
Mr. Sladden entered the bare-boarded room in which he slept and spent all his indoor hours between closing-time and the hour at which Messrs. Mergin and Chater commenced. To the Penates of so dingy6 a room his neat frock-coat must have been a continual wonder. Mr. Sladden took it off and folded it carefully; and there was the old man's window rather high up in the wall. There had been no window in that wall hitherto, nor any ornament7 at all but a small cupboard, so when Mr. Sladden had put his frock-coat safely away he glanced through his new window. It was where his cupboard had been in which he kept his tea-things: they were all standing8 on the table now. When Mr. Sladden glanced through his new window it was late in a summer's evening; the butterflies some while ago would have closed their wings, though the bat would scarcely yet be drifting abroad—but this was in London: the shops were shut and street-lamps not yet lighted.
Mr. Sladden rubbed his eyes, then rubbed the window, and still he saw a sky of blazing blue, and far, far down beneath him, so that no sound came up from it or smoke of chimneys, a mediaeval city set with towers; brown roofs and cobbled streets, and then white walls and buttresses9, and beyond them bright green fields and tiny streams. On the towers archers11 lolled, and along the walls were pikemen, and now and then a wagon12 went down some old-world street and lumbered13 through the gateway14 and out to the country, and now and then a wagon drew up to the city from the mist that was rolling with evening over the fields. Sometimes folks put their heads out of lattice windows, sometimes some idle troubadour seemed to sing, and nobody hurried or troubled about anything. Airy and dizzy though the distance was, for Mr. Sladden seemed higher above the city than any cathedral gargoyle15, yet one clear detail he obtained as a clue: the banners floating from every tower over the idle archers had little golden dragons all over a pure white field.
He heard motor-buses roar by his other window, he heard the newsboys howling.
Mr. Sladden grew dreamier than ever after that on the premises16, in the establishment of Messrs. Mergin and Chater. But in one matter he was wise and wakeful: he made continuous and careful inquiries17 about the golden dragons on a white flag, and talked to no one of his wonderful window. He came to know the flags of every king in Europe, he even dabbled18 in history, he made inquiries at shops that understood heraldry, but nowhere could he learn any trace of little dragons or on a field argent. And when it seemed that for him alone those golden dragons had fluttered he came to love them as an exile in some desert might love the lilies of his home or as a sick man might love swallows when he cannot easily live to another spring.
As soon as Messrs. Mergin and Chater closed, Mr. Sladden used to go back to his dingy room and gaze though the wonderful window until it grew dark in the city and the guard would go with a lantern round the ramparts and the night came up like velvet19, full of strange stars. Another clue he tried to obtain one night by jotting20 down the shapes of the constellations21, but this led him no further, for they were unlike any that shone upon either hemisphere.
Each day as soon as he woke he went first to the wonderful window, and there was the city, diminutive22 in the distance, all shining in the morning, and the golden dragons dancing in the sun, and the archers stretching themselves or swinging their arms on the tops of the windy towers. The window would not open, so that he never heard the songs that the troubadours sang down there beneath the gilded23 balconies; he did not even hear the belfries' chimes, though he saw the jack-daws routed every hour from their homes. And the first thing that he always did was to cast his eye round all the little towers that rose up from the ramparts to see that the little golden dragons were flying there on their flags. And when he saw them flaunting24 themselves on white folds from every tower against the marvelous deep blue of the sky he dressed contentedly25, and, taking one last look, went off to his work with a glory in his mind. It would have been difficult for the customers of Messrs. Mergin and Chater to guess the precise ambition of Mr. Sladden as he walked before them in his neat frock-coat: it was that he might be a man-at-arms or an archer10 in order to fight for the little golden dragons that flew on a white flag for an unknown king in an inaccessible26 city. At first Mr. Sladden used to walk round and round the mean street that he lived in, but he gained no clue from that; and soon he noticed that quite different winds blew below his wonderful window from those that blew on the other side of the house.
In August the evenings began to grow shorter: this was the very remark that the other employees made to him at the emporium, so that he almost feared that they suspected his secret, and he had much less time for the wonderful window, for lights were few down there and they blinked out early.
One morning late in August, just before he went to Business, Mr. Sladden saw a company of pikemen running down the cobbled road towards the gateway of the mediaeval city—Golden Dragon City he used to call it alone in his own mind, but he never spoke27 of it to anyone. The next thing that he noticed was that the archers were handling round bundles of arrows in addition to the quivers which they wore. Heads were thrust out of windows more than usual, a woman ran out and called some children indoors, a knight28 rode down the street, and then more pikemen appeared along the walls, and all the jack-daws were in the air. In the street no troubadour sang. Mr. Sladden took one look along the towers to see that the flags were flying, and all the golden dragons were streaming in the wind. Then he had to go to Business. He took a bus back that evening and ran upstairs. Nothing seemed to be happening in Golden Dragon City except a crowd in the cobbled street that led down to the gateway; the archers seemed to be reclining as usual lazily in their towers, and then a white flag went down with all its golden dragons; he did not see at first that all the archers were dead. The crowd was pouring towards him, towards the precipitous wall from which he looked; men with a white flag covered with golden dragons were moving backwards29 slowly, men with another flag were pressing them, a flag on which there was one huge red bear. Another banner went down upon a tower. Then he saw it all: the golden dragons were being beaten—his little golden dragons. The men of the bear were coming under the window; what ever he threw from that height would fall with terrific force: fire-irons, coal, his clock, whatever he had—he would fight for his little golden dragons yet. A flame broke out from one of the towers and licked the feet of a reclining archer; he did not stir. And now the alien standard was out of sight directly underneath30. Mr. Sladden broke the panes of the wonderful window and wrenched31 away with a poker32 the lead that held them. Just as the glass broke he saw a banner covered with golden dragons fluttering still, and then as he drew back to hurl33 the poker there came to him the scent34 of mysterious spices, and there was nothing there, not even the daylight, for behind the fragments of the wonderful window was nothing but that small cupboard in which he kept his tea-things.
And though Mr. Sladden is older now and knows more of the world, and even has a Business of his own, he has never been able to buy such another window, and has not ever since, either from books or men, heard any rumour35 at all of Golden Dragon City.
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1
livelihood
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| n.生计，谋生之道 | |
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mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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gossamer
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| n.薄纱，游丝 | |
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panes
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| 窗玻璃( pane的名词复数 ) | |
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possessed
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| adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的 | |
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dingy
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| adj.昏暗的，肮脏的 | |
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7
ornament
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| v.装饰，美化；n.装饰，装饰物 | |
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8
standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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9
buttresses
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| n.扶壁，扶垛( buttress的名词复数 )v.用扶壁支撑，加固( buttress的第三人称单数 ) | |
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10
archer
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| n.射手，弓箭手 | |
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archers
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| n.弓箭手，射箭运动员( archer的名词复数 ) | |
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12
wagon
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| n.四轮马车，手推车，面包车；无盖运货列车 | |
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13
lumbered
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| 砍伐（lumber的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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gateway
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| n.大门口，出入口，途径，方法 | |
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15
gargoyle
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| n.笕嘴 | |
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16
premises
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| n.建筑物，房屋 | |
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inquiries
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| n.调查( inquiry的名词复数 )；疑问；探究；打听 | |
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18
dabbled
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| v.涉猎( dabble的过去式和过去分词 )；涉足；浅尝；少量投资 | |
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velvet
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| n.丝绒，天鹅绒；adj.丝绒制的，柔软的 | |
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jotting
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| n.简短的笔记，略记v.匆忙记下( jot的现在分词 )；草草记下，匆匆记下 | |
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21
constellations
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| n.星座( constellation的名词复数 )；一群杰出人物；一系列（相关的想法、事物）；一群（相关的人） | |
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diminutive
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| adj.小巧可爱的，小的 | |
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gilded
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| a.镀金的，富有的 | |
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flaunting
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| adj.招摇的，扬扬得意的，夸耀的v.炫耀，夸耀( flaunt的现在分词 )；有什么能耐就施展出来 | |
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contentedly
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| adv.心满意足地 | |
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inaccessible
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| adj.达不到的，难接近的 | |
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27
spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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28
knight
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| n.骑士，武士；爵士 | |
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backwards
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| adv.往回地，向原处，倒，相反，前后倒置地 | |
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underneath
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| adj.在...下面，在...底下；adv.在下面 | |
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31
wrenched
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| v.（猛力地）扭( wrench的过去式和过去分词 )；扭伤；使感到痛苦；使悲痛 | |
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32
poker
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| n.扑克；vt.烙制 | |
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33
hurl
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| vt.猛投，力掷，声叫骂 | |
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34
scent
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| n.气味，香味，香水，线索，嗅觉；v.嗅，发觉 | |
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rumour
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| n.谣言，谣传，传闻 | |
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