He alighted gaily on the open sward, between the Baby's Palace and the
Serpentine, and the first thing he did was to lie on his back and
kick. He was quite unaware already that he had ever been human, and
thought he was a bird, even in appearance, just the same as in his
early days, and when he tried to catch a fly he did not understand
that the reason he missed it was because he had attempted to seize it
with his hand, which, of course, a bird never does. He saw, however,
that it must be past Lock-out Time, for there were a good many fairies
about, all too busy to notice him; they were getting breakfast ready,
milking their cows, drawing water, and so on, and the sight of the
water-pails made him thirsty, so he flew over to the Round Pond to
have a drink. He stooped, and dipped his beak in the pond; he thought
it was his beak, but, of course, it was only his nose, and, therefore,
very little water came up, and that not so refreshing as usual, so
next he tried a puddle, and he fell flop into it. When a real bird
falls in flop, he spreads out his feathers and pecks them dry, but
Peter could not remember what was the thing to do, and he decided,
rather sulkily, to go to sleep on the weeping beech in the Baby Walk.
At first he found some difficulty in balancing himself on a branch,
but presently he remembered the way, and fell asleep. He awoke long
before morning, shivering, and saying to himself, "I never was out in
such a cold night;" he had really been out in colder nights when he
was a bird, but, of course, as everybody knows, what seems a warm
night to a bird is a cold night to a boy in a nightgown.
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