But of course it was daytime when they were in the Gardens , and then Tony did most of the talking . You could gather from his talk that he was a very brave boy , and no one was so proud of it as Maimie . She would have loved to have a ticket on her saying that she was his sister . And at no time did she admire him more than when he told her , as he often did with splendid firmness , that one day he meant to remain behind in the Gardens after the gates were closed . `` Oh , Tony , '' she would say , with awful respect , `` but the fairies will be so angry ! '' `` I daresay , '' replied Tony , carelessly . `` Perhaps , '' she said , thrilling , `` Peter Pan will give you a sail in his boat ! '' `` I shall make him , '' replied Tony ; no wonder she was proud of him . But they should not have talked so loudly , for one day they were overheard by a fairy who had been gathering skeleton leaves , from which the little people weave their summer curtains , and after that Tony was a marked boy . They loosened the rails before he sat on them , so that down he came on the back of his head ; they tripped him up by catching his bootlace and bribed the ducks to sink his boat . Nearly all the nasty accidents you meet with in the Gardens occur because the fairies have taken an ill-will to you , and so it behoves you to be careful what you say about them . Maimie was one of the kind who like to fix a day for doing things , but Tony was not that kind , and when she asked him which day he was to remain behind in the Gardens after Lock-out he merely replied , `` Just some day ; '' he was quite vague about which day except when she asked `` Will it be today ? '' and then he could always say for certain that it would not be to-day . So she saw that he was waiting for a real good chance . This brings us to an afternoon when the Gardens were white with snow , and there was ice on the Round Pond , not thick enough to skate on but at least you could spoil it for tomorrow by flinging stones , and many bright little boys and girls were doing that . When Tony and his sister arrived they wanted to go straight to the pond , but their ayah said they must take a sharp walk first , and as she said this she glanced at the time-board to see when the Gardens closed that night . It read half-past five . Poor ayah ! she is the one who laughs continuously because there are so many white children in the world , but she was not to laugh much more that day . Well , they went up the Baby Walk and back , and when they returned to the time-board she was surprised to see that it now read five o'clock for closing time .
But she was unacquainted with the tricky ways of the fairies , and so did not see -LRB- as XXXXX and Tony saw at once -RRB- that they had changed the hour because there was to be a ball to-night .
Gardens Lock-out Maimie accidents afternoon day daytime first night o'clock