Do you really think so, Peter?
Yes, I do.
I think it s perfectly sweet of you, she declared, and I ll get up
again, and she sat with him on the side of the bed. She also said she
would give him a kiss if he liked, but Peter did not know what she
meant, and he held out his hand expectantly.
Surely you know what a kiss is? she asked, aghast.
I shall know when you give it to me, he replied stiffly, and not to
hurt his feeling she gave him a thimble.
Now, said he, shall I give you a kiss? and she replied with a
slight primness, If you please. She made herself rather cheap by
inclining her face toward him, but he merely dropped an acorn button
into her hand, so she slowly returned her face to where it had been
before, and said nicely that she would wear his kiss on the chain
around her neck. It was lucky that she did put it on that chain, for it
was afterwards to save her life.
When people in our set are introduced, it is customary for them to ask
each other s age, and so Wendy, who always liked to do the correct
thing, asked Peter how old he was. It was not really a happy question
to ask him; it was like an examination paper that asks grammar, when
what you want to be asked is Kings of England.
I don t know, he replied uneasily, but I am quite young. He really
knew nothing about it, he had merely suspicions, but he said at a
venture, Wendy, I ran away the day I was born.
Wendy was quite surprised, but interested; and she indicated in the
charming drawing-room manner, by a touch on her night-gown, that he
could sit nearer her.
It was because I heard father and mother, he explained in a low
voice, talking about what I was to be when I became a man. He was
extraordinarily agitated now. I don t want ever to be a man, he said
with passion. I want always to be a little boy and to have fun. So I
24