uld not get to the ground except by
jumping much harder than he knew how to, and then he knew he would only
have fallen back again, just as you would fall back if you jumped up to
the ceiling. He could have fallen off the tree the other way, of course,
but then he would have fallen up into the sky, and there seemed to be
nothing there to stop his falling for ever and ever. So he held tight
and looked at the old man. And Diggory thought he looked nastier than
ever.

So he said: 'Well?'

And the old man said: 'Not at all! However, since you had the sense not
to fall off wrong way, I suppose you're the boy I want. Now, look here,
you throw me down those ten big apples, one by one, so that I can catch
them, and I'll let you go out by the Apple Door that no one but me has
the key of.'

'Why don't you pick them yourself?' Diggory asked.

'I'm too old; you know very well that old men don't climb trees. Come,
is it a bargain?'

'I don't know,' said the boy; 'there are lots of apples you can reach
without climbing. Why do you want these so particularly?'

As he spoke, he picked one of the apples and threw it up and caught it.
I say up, but it was down instead, because of the apple-tree being so
very much enchanted.

'Oh, _don't_!' the old man squeaked like a rat in a trap--'_don't_ drop
it! Throw it down to me, you nasty slack-baked, smock-frocked son of a
speckled toad!'

Diggory's blood boiled at hearing his father called a toad.

[Illustration: '"Take that," cried he, aiming an apple at the old man's
head.'--Page 307.]

'Take that!' cried he, aiming the apple at the old man's head.' I wish I
could get out of this tree.'

The apple hit the old man's head and bounced on to the grass, and the
moment that apple touched the ground Diggory found that he _could_ get
out of the tree if he liked, for he felt that he was now the proper way
up once more, and so was the tree.

'So,' he said, 'these are wish-apples, are they?'

'No, no, no, no!' shrieked the old man so earnestly that Diggory knew he
was lying. 'I've just disenchanted you, that's all. You see, most people
fall up out of the tree and you didn't, so I thought I'd let you go,
because I'm a nice kind old man, I am, and I wouldn't so much as hurt a
fly. They aren't wish-apples, indeed they aren't.'

'Really,' said Diggory. 'I wish you'd speak the truth.'

With that he picked the second apple and threw it. And the old man began
to speak the truth as hard as e