ct on a long kind of tail it had,
glaring at them out of one red angry eye.

Ann was the first to recognize it. "Oh, oh," she cried, "it's not a
rock at all--it's Betsy's Warming-pan!"

The Pan, giving a deep throaty kind of growl, began to shuffle toward
them. "I'd like to have the warming of _you_ three," he snarled. "I'll
teach you to come sitting on top of me playing your tricks on my
rheumatic bones--waking me out of the first good nap I've had in
weeks!--I'll fix you--"

"We're really very sorry," Ann began. "We didn't mean to sit on you,
we thought--"

But the Warming-pan did not want to hear what Ann thought. He turned
round on her fiercely. "_You're_ the young person," he snapped, "who
made the polite remarks about my figure this evening? Eh, didn't you?
Can you deny it? Called me old-fashioned and 'country'--said nobody
ever used _me_ any more!--I'll teach you to talk about hot-water
bottles when _I'm_ through with you!" As he spoke he came closer and
closer to Ann, snorting and puffing and glaring at her out of his one
terrible eye. Although he was so round and waddled so clumsily,
dragging his long tail behind him, his appearance was quite dreadful.
He reminded Rudolf of the dragon in Peter's picture-book, and he
hastily tried to imagine how Saint George must have felt when
defending his princess. Clutching his sword, he thrust himself in
front of Ann and bravely faced the Warming-pan. "Run!" he called to
the others, "Fly!--and I will fight this monster to the death."

Ann, dragging Peter by the hand, made off as fast as she could go, and
the Pan tried his best to dodge Rudolf and rush after her. Again and
again Rudolf's sword struck him, but it only rattled on his
brassiness, and making a horrible face, he popped three live coals out
of his mouth which rolled on the ground unpleasantly close to Rudolf's
bare toes. Then they had it hot and heavy until at last the knight
managed to get his blade entangled with the dragon's long tail, and
tripped the creature up. Then, without waiting for his enemy to get
himself together again and heartily tired of playing Saint George,
Rudolf turned and ran after Ann and Peter. Long before he caught up to
them, however, he heard the Pan behind him, snorting and scolding.
Luckily it did not seem able to stop talking, so that it lost what
little breath it had and was soon obliged to halt. For some time
Rudolf caught snatches of its unpleasant remarks, such as--"Children