Peter Nimble and His Fantastic Eyes

One rainy morning, sent out to steal food and valuables, Peter comes across a crowd of onlookers near the docks, who are watching a traveling Haberdasher hawk his wares. Taking advantage of the distracted townsfolk, Peter weaves through the crowd, picking pockets. Suddenly, the Haberdasher addresses Peter directly, seeming to read his thoughts and know his business. Peter sees that the Haberdasher’s carriage is covered in tempered steel locks, “the sort of material used for guarding only the most valuable secrets” (15).

The Haberdasher is running a con: He sells leather skullcaps “guaranteed to remove all unsavory scents from their wearers” (15). The Haberdasher sends Peter into the crowd to smell the constable, who reeks of fish, beer, and flatulence; then, the Haberdasher gives Peter a skullcap. Understanding the man’s con game, Peter claims the smells have vanished. As the crowd pushes forward to purchase their own skullcaps, Peter offers to help collect money. When Peter has collected a pouchful of coins and the crowd disperses, the Haberdasher heads to the alehouse and leaves Peter to guard his carriage.

While the Haberdasher is away, Peter unlocks the carriage. Inside, he discovers a small box that “really did seem to have come from another world—someplace beyond the borders of the map” (21). He slips the box into his sack and returns to Seamus’s house. In the basement, he picks the lock and opens the mysterious box only to find six eggs inside. They appear to be ordinary eggs, but they smell valuable. Ravenous from the day’s activities, Peter cracks open an egg and swallows the yolk, but coughs it back up. Unable to see what’s before him, Peter cannot know that he has stumbled across “something too wonderful even to imagine” (26).

Peter goes out for his nightly burgling duties. He decides to steal the Haberdasher’s coin pouch, but when he arrives at the docks, the traveling salesman is long gone. While robbing a house later that evening, he hears a piercing scream. Stashing his stolen goods, he follows the scream to the town stables. There, Pencil Cookson—the meanest and most dangerous boy in town—and his gang are tossing a knife at an old mule. Slipping silently into the town jail, Peter steals a chain and shackles and, without the bullies ever noticing, he cuffs their ankles and fastens the other end of the chain to the town clock. Cookson seizes Peter by the throat, but at midnight, the clock chimes and the gears turn, dragging the gang through the street and leaving them dangling from the clock tower.

Back in the alley, Peter tends to the injured animal—not a mule after all, but the Haberdasher’s zebra. He mentions the eggs, and the zebra seems to respond. Picking up the egg box in its jaw, the zebra beckons Peter to open it. He does, and the zebra drops two egg yolks into Peter’s open palm and pulls the worn bandage from Peter’s empty eye sockets before promptly vanishing. Peter is suddenly overcome by a rush of memories: the roar of the open sea, being stuffed in a basket, a crow cruelly pecking out his eyes. At that moment, he realizes the egg yolks are really eyes. The box contains three pairs: gold, black onyx, and emerald. Peter gingerly slips the gold eyes into his sockets and disappears.