After that they laughed at Peter for being so fond
of the kite, he loved it so much that he even slept with one hand on
it, and I think this was pathetic and pretty, for the reason he loved
it was because it had belonged to a real boy.
To the birds this was a very poor reason, but the older ones felt
grateful to him at this time because he had nursed a number of
fledglings through the German measles, and they offered to show him
how birds fly a kite. So six of them took the end of the string in
their beaks and flew away with it; and to his amazement it flew after
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.
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