The little boy fixedly bent his magic eye around the corner of the house, the little girl scrambling to him over the grass to clutch one of his arms, to listen fearfully for the setting of the monster's crutches at the end of each stride, to feel if the earth trembled, as it often distinctly did, under his awful tread.
Wider grew the eyes of both at each "Now he's nearer still!" of the little boy, until at last the girl must hide her head lest she see that awful face leering past the corner.

For, once the Gratcher's eye met yours fairly, he caught you in an instant and worked his will.

This was to pick you up and look at you on all sides at once with the eyes in his finger-ends, which tickled you so that you lost your mind.
But now, at the shrillest and tensest report of progress from the gifted watcher, all in a wondrous second of realisation, they turned to look into each other's eyes--and their ecstasy of terror was gone in the quick little self-conscious laughs they gave.

It was all at once as if two grown-ups had in a flash divined that they had been playing at a childish game under some spell.

The moment was not without embarrassment, because of their having caught themselves in the very act and frenzy of showing terror of this clumsy fiction.