et 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 Westminster Abbey 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 noticed
that Mr. Salford, who naturally does most of the talking, keeps tight
grip of the other old man's coat.

[Illustration: _Old Mr. Salford was a crab-apple of an old gentleman
who wandered all day in the Gardens._]

The two last places before you come to our gate are the Dog's Cemetery
and the chaffinches 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 our knuckles in our eyes.

II

PETER PAN

If you ask your mother whether she knew about Peter Pan when she was a
little girl, she will say, 'Why, of course I did, child'; and if you
ask her whether he rode on a goat in those days, she will say, 'What a
foolish question to ask; certainly he did.' Then if you ask your
grandmother whether she knew about Peter Pan when she was a girl, she
also says, 'Why, of course I did, child,' but if you ask her whether he
rode on a goat in those days, she says she never heard of his