use looked so cosy and safe in the darkness, with
a bright light showing through its blinds, and the chimney smoking
beautifully, and Peter standing on guard. After a time he fell asleep,
and some unsteady fairies had to climb over him on their way home from
an orgy. Any of the other boys obstructing the fairy path at night they
would have mischiefed, but they just tweaked Peter's nose and passed on.

Chapter 7 THE HOME UNDER THE GROUND

One of the first things Peter did next day was to measure Wendy and John
and Michael for hollow trees. Hook, you remember, had sneered at the
boys for thinking they needed a tree apiece, but this was ignorance, for
unless your tree fitted you it was difficult to go up and down, and no
two of the boys were quite the same size. Once you fitted, you drew in
[let out] your breath at the top, and down you went at exactly the
right speed, while to ascend you drew in and let out alternately, and so
wriggled up. Of course, when you have mastered the action you are able
to do these things without thinking of them, and nothing can be more
graceful.

But you simply must fit, and Peter measures you for your tree as
carefully as for a suit of clothes: the only difference being that the
clothes are made to fit you, while you have to be made to fit the tree.
Usually it is done quite easily, as by your wearing too many garments
or too few, but if you are bumpy in awkward places or the only available
tree is an odd shape, Peter does some things to you, and after that you
fit. Once you fit, great care must be taken to go on fitting, and this,
as Wendy was to discover to her delight, keeps a whole family in perfect
condition.

Wendy and Michael fitted their trees at the first try, but John had to
be altered a little.

After a few days' practice they could go up and down as gaily as buckets
in a well. And how ardently they grew to love their home under the
ground; especially Wendy. It consisted of one large room, as all houses
should do, with a floor in which you could dig [for worms] if you wanted
to go fishing, and in this floor grew stout mushrooms of a charming
colour, which were used as stools. A Never tree tried hard to grow in
the centre of the room, but every morning they sawed the trunk through,
level with the floor. By tea-time it was always about two feet high, and
then they put a door on top of it, the whole thus becoming a table;
as soon as they cleared away, they sawed off the trun