A regiment of Lancers came charging down the Broad Walk , armed with holly-leaves , with which they jag the enemy horribly in passing . Peter heard the little people crying everywhere that there was a human in the Gardens after Lock-out Time , but he never thought for a moment that he was the human . He was feeling stuffier and stuffier , and more and more wistful to learn what he wanted done to his nose , but he pursued them with the vital question in vain ; the timid creatures ran from him , and even the Lancers , when he approached them up the Hump , turned swiftly into a side-walk , on the pretence that they saw him there . -LSB- Illustration : A band of workmen , who were sawing down a toadstool , rushed away , leaving their tools behind them -RSB- Despairing of the fairies , he resolved to consult the birds , but now he remembered , as an odd thing , that all the birds on the weeping-beech had flown away when he alighted on it , and though this had not troubled him at the time , he saw its meaning now . Every living thing was shunning him . Poor 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 for ever to be able to do it . The reason birds can fly and we ca n'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 nightgown , if you do n'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 . -LSB- Illustration : Put his strange case before old Solomon Caw -LRB- missing from book -RRB- -RSB- ' I think I shall go back to mother , ' he said , timidly .
` Good-bye , ' replied Solomon XXXXX with a queer look .
Caw Lancers Pan Peter Solomon first holly-leaves night nightgown weeping-beech