a boat and slip it into the water, and it reaches
Peter Pan's island after dark.

We are on the way home now, though, of course, it is all pretence that
we can go to so many of the places in one day. I should have had to be
carrying David long ago and resting on every seat like old Mr. Salford.
That was what we called him, because he always talked to us of a lovely
place called Salford where he had been born. He was a crab-apple of
an old gentleman who wandered all day in the Gardens from seat to seat
trying to fall in with somebody who was acquainted with the town of
Salford, and when we had known him for a year or more we actually did
meet another aged solitary who had once spent Saturday to Monday in
Salford. He was meek and timid and carried his address inside his hat,
and whatever part of London he was in search of he always went to the
General Post-office first as a starting-point. Him we carried in triumph
to our other friend, with the story of that Saturday to Monday, and
never shall I forget the gloating joy with which Mr. Salford leapt at
him. They have been cronies ever since, and I notice that Mr. Salford,
who naturally does most of the talking, keeps tight grip of the other
old man's coat.

The two last places before you come to our gate are the Dog's Cemetery
and the chaffinch's nest, but we pretend not to know what the Dog's
Cemetery is, as Porthos is always with us. The nest is very sad. It
is quite white, and the way we found it was wonderful. We were having
another look among the bushes for David's lost worsted ball, and instead
of the ball we found a lovely nest made of the worsted, and containing
four eggs, with scratches on them very like David's handwriting, so we
think they must have been the mother's love-letters to the little ones
inside. Every day we were in the Gardens we paid a call at the nest,
taking care that no cruel boy should see us, and we dropped crumbs,
and soon the bird knew us as friends, and sat in the nest looking at us
kindly with her shoulders hunched up. But one day when we went, there
were only two eggs in the nest, and the next time there were none. The
saddest part of it was that the poor little chaffinch fluttered about
the bushes, looking so reproachfully at us that we knew she thought we
had done it, and though David tried to explain to her, it was so
long since he had spoken the bird language that I fear she did not
understand. He and I left the Gardens that day with o