He saw , however , that it must be past Lock-out Time , for there were a good many fairies about , all too busy to notice him ; they were getting breakfast ready , milking their cows , drawing water , and so on , and the sight of the water-pails made him thirsty , so he flew over to the Round Pond to have a drink . He stooped and dipped his beak in the pond ; he thought it was his beak , but , of course , it was only his nose , and therefore , very little water came up , and that not so refreshing as usual , so next he tried a puddle and he fell flop into it . When a real bird falls in flop , he spreads out his feathers and pecks them dry , but Peter could not remember what was the thing to do , and he decided rather sulkily to go to sleep on the weeping-beech in the Baby Walk . At first he found some difficulty in balancing himself on a branch , but presently he remembered the way , and fell asleep . He awoke long before morning , shivering , and saying to himself , ' I never was out on such a cold night ' ; he had really been out on colder nights when he was a bird , but , of course , as everybody knows , what seems a warm night to a bird is a cold night to a boy in a nightgown . Peter also felt strangely uncomfortable , as if his head was stuffy ; he heard loud noises that made him look round sharply , though they were really himself sneezing . There was something he wanted very much , but , though he knew he wanted it , he could not think what it was . What he wanted so much was his mother to blow his nose , but that never struck him , so he decided to appeal to the fairies for enlightenment . They are reputed to know a good deal . -LSB- Illustration : When he heard Peter 's voice he popped in alarm behind a tulip -RSB- There were two of them strolling along the Baby Walk , with their arms round each other 's waists , and he hopped down to address them . The fairies have their tiffs with the birds , but they usually give a civil answer to a civil question , and he was quite angry when these two ran away the moment they saw him . Another was lolling on a garden chair , reading a postage-stamp which some human had let fall , and when he heard Peter 's voice he popped in alarm behind a tulip . To Peter 's bewilderment he discovered that every fairy he met fled from him . A band of workmen , who were sawing down a toadstool , rushed away , leaving their tools behind them . A milkmaid turned her pail upside down and hid in it . Soon the Gardens were in an uproar . Crowds of fairies were running this way and that , asking each other stoutly who was afraid ; lights were extinguished , doors barricaded , and from the grounds of Queen Mab 's palace came the rub-a-dub of drums , showing that the royal guard had been called out . 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 XXXXX , 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 .
Lancers Mab Time first milkmaid morning nights toadstool water-pails weeping-beech