“I had come to the surface, into the light of common day and the fresh sea-air, after long captivity in the sunless coral palaces and waving forests of the ocean bed. I had left behind me – what? Youth? Adolescence? Romance? The conjuring stuff of these things, ‘the Young Magician’s Compendium’, that neat cabinet where the ebony wand had its place besides the delusive billiard balls, the penny that folded double, and the feather flowers that could be drawn into a hollow candle.”
