them and went even higher than they.

Peter screamed out, "Do it again!" and with great good nature they did
it several times, and always instead of thanking them he cried, "Do it
again!" which shows that even now he had not quite forgotten what it
was to be a boy.

At last, with a grand design burning within his brave heart, he begged
them to do it once more with him clinging to the tail, and now a
hundred flew off with the string, and Peter clung to the tail, meaning
to drop off when he was over the Gardens. But the kite broke to
pieces in the air, and he would have drowned in the Serpentine had he
not caught hold of two indignant swans and made them carry him to the
island. After this the birds said that they would help him no more in
his mad enterprise.

Nevertheless, Peter did reach the Gardens at last by the help of
Shelley's boat, as I am now to tell you.


The Thrush's Nest

Shelley was a young gentleman and as grown-up as he need ever expect
to be. He was a poet; and they are never exactly grown-up. They are
people who despise money except what you need for to-day, and he had
all that and five pounds over. So, when he was walking in the
Kensington Gardens, he made a paper boat of his bank-note, and sent it
sailing on the Serpentine.

It reached the island at night: and the look-out brought it to