wings.

Now, except by flying, no one can reach the island in the Serpentine,
for the boats of humans are forbidden to land there, and there are
stakes round it, standing up in the water, on each of which a
bird-sentinel sits by day and night. It was to the island that Peter
now flew to put his strange case before old Solomon Caw, and he
alighted on it with relief, much heartened to find himself at last at
home, as the birds call the island. All of them were asleep, including
the sentinels, except Solomon, who was wide awake on one side, and he
listened quietly to Peter's adventures, and then told him their true
meaning.

[Illustration: _Put his strange case before old Solomon Caw._]

'Look at your nightgown, if you don't believe me,' Solomon said; and
with staring eyes Peter looked at his nightgown, and then at the
sleeping birds. Not one of them wore anything.

'How many of your toes are thumbs?' said Solomon a little cruelly, and
Peter saw to his consternation, that all his toes were fingers. The
shock was so great that it drove away his cold.

'Ruffle your feathers,' said that grim old Solomon, and Peter tried
most desperately hard to ruffle his feathers, but he had none. Then he
rose up, quaking, and for the first time since he stood on the window
ledge, he remembered a lady who had been very fond of him.

'I think I shall go back to mother,' he said timidly.

'Good-bye,' replied Solomon Caw with a queer look.

But Peter hesitated. 'Why don't you go?' the old one asked politely.

'I suppose,' said Peter huskily, 'I suppose I can still fly.'

You see he had lost faith.

'Poor little half-and-half!' said Solomon, who was not really
hard-hearted, 'you will never be able to fly again, not even on windy
days. You must live here on the island always.'

'And never even go to the Kensington Gardens?' Peter asked tragically.

'How could you get across?' said Solomon. He promised very kindly,
however, to teach Peter as many of the bird ways as could be learned by
one of such an awkward shape.

'Then I shan't be exactly a human?' Peter asked.

'No.'

'Nor exactly a bird?'

'No.'

'What shall I be?'

'You will be a Betwixt-and-Between,' Solomon said, and certainly he was
a wise old fellow, for that is exactly how it turned out.

The birds on the island never got used to him. His oddities tickled
them every day, as if they were quite new, though it was really the
birds that were new. They cam