little Peter Pan, he sat down and cried, and even then he did
not know that, for a bird, he was sitting on his wrong part. It is a
blessing that he did not know, for otherwise he would have lost faith
in his power to fly, and the moment you doubt whether you can fly, you
cease forever to be able to do it. The reason birds can fly and we can't
is simply that they have perfect faith, for to have faith is to have
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.

"Look at your night-gown, if you don't believe me," Solomon said,
and with staring eyes Peter looked at his night-gown, 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 sha'n't be exactly a human?" Peter asked.

"No."

"Nor exac