n
disgrace. "They are perfectly safe, aren't they? Every one of the little
angels sound asleep in bed. Listen to their gentle breathing."

Here Michael, encouraged by his success, breathed so loudly that they
were nearly detected. Nana knew that kind of breathing, and she tried to
drag herself out of Liza's clutches.

But Liza was dense. "No more of it, Nana," she said sternly, pulling
her out of the room. "I warn you if bark again I shall go straight for
master and missus and bring them home from the party, and then, oh,
won't master whip you, just."

She tied the unhappy dog up again, but do you think Nana ceased to bark?
Bring master and missus home from the party! Why, that was just what she
wanted. Do you think she cared whether she was whipped so long as her
charges were safe? Unfortunately Liza returned to her puddings, and
Nana, seeing that no help would come from her, strained and strained at
the chain until at last she broke it. In another moment she had burst
into the dining-room of 27 and flung up her paws to heaven, her most
expressive way of making a communication. Mr. and Mrs. Darling knew at
once that something terrible was happening in their nursery, and without
a good-bye to their hostess they rushed into the street.

But it was now ten minutes since three scoundrels had been breathing
behind the curtains, and Peter Pan can do a great deal in ten minutes.

We now return to the nursery.

"It's all right," John announced, emerging from his hiding-place. "I
say, Peter, can you really fly?"

Instead of troubling to answer him Peter flew around the room, taking
the mantelpiece on the way.

"How topping!" said John and Michael.

"How sweet!" cried Wendy.

"Yes, I'm sweet, oh, I am sweet!" said Peter, forgetting his manners
again.

It looked delightfully easy, and they tried it first from the floor and
then from the beds, but they always went down instead of up.

"I say, how do you do it?" asked John, rubbing his knee. He was quite a
practical boy.

"You just think lovely wonderful thoughts," Peter explained, "and they
lift you up in the air."

He showed them again.

"You're so nippy at it," John said, "couldn't you do it very slowly
once?"

Peter did it both slowly and quickly. "I've got it now, Wendy!" cried
John, but soon he found he had not. Not one of them could fly an inch,
though even Michael was in words of two syllables, and Peter did not
know A from Z.

Of course Peter had be