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the boys who has not sought safety in his tree, is seen for a moment near the lagoon, and STARKEY'S pistol is at once upraised. The captain twists his hook in him.)

      STARKEY (abject). Captain, let go

      !HOOK. Put back that pistol, first.

      STARKEY. 'Twas one of those boys you hate; I could haveshot him dead.

      HOOK. Ay, and the sound would have brought Tiger Lily's redskins on us. Do you want to lose your scalp?

      SMEE (wriggling his cutlass pleasantly). That is true. Shall I after him, Captain, and tickle him with Johnny Corkscrew? Johnny is a silent fellow.

      HOOK. Not now. He is only one, and I want to mischief all the seven. Scatter and look for them. (The boatswain whistles his instructions, and the men disperse on their frightful errand. With none to hear save SMEE, HOOK becomes confidential.) Most of all I want their captain, Peter Pan. 'Twas he cut off my arm. I have waited long to shake his hand with this. (Luxuriating.) Oh, I 'll tear him!

      SMEE (always ready for a chat). Yet I have oft heard you say your hook was worth a score of hands, for combing the hair and other homely uses.

      HOOK. If I was a mother I would pray to have my children born with this instead of that (his left arm creeps nervously behind him. He has a galling remembrance). Smee, Pan flung my arm to a crocodile that happened to be passingby.

      SMEE. I have often noticed your strange dread of crocodiles.

      HOOK (pettishly). Not of crocodiles but of that one crocodile. (He lays bare a lacerated heart.) The brute liked my arm so much, Smee, that he has followed me ever since, from sea to sea, and from land to land, licking his lips for the rest of me.

      SMEE (looking for the bright side). In a way it is a sort of compliment.

      HOOK (with dignity). I want no such compliments; I want Peter Pan, who first gave the brute his taste for me. Smee, that crocodile would have had me before now, but by a lucky chance he swallowed a clock, and it goes tick, tick, tick, tick inside him; and so before he can reach me I hear the tick and bolt. (He emits a hollow rumble.) Once I heard it strike six within him.

      SMEE (sombrely). Some day the clock will run down,and then he'll get you.

      HOOK (a broken man). Ay, that is the fear that haunts me.(He rises.) Smee, this seat is hot; odds, bobs, hammer and tongs, I am burning.

      (He has been sitting, he thinks, on one of the island mushrooms, which are of enormous size. But this is a hand-painted one placed here in times of danger to conceal a chimney. They remove it, and tell-tale smoke issues; also, alas, the sound of children's voices.)

      SMEE. A chimney!

      HOOK (avidly). Listen! Smee, 'tis plain they live here, beneath the ground. (He replaces the mushroom. His brain works tortuously.)

      SMEE (hopefully). Unrip your plan, Captain.

      HOOK. To return to the boat and cook a large rich cakeof jolly thickness with sugar on it, green sugar. There can be but one room below, for there is but one chimney. The silly moles had not the sense to see that they did not need a door apiece. We must leave the cake on the shore of the mermaids' lagoon. These boys are always swimming about there, trying to catch the mermaids. They will find the cake and gobble it up, because, having no mother, they don't know how dangerous 'tis to eat rich damp cake. They will die!

      SMEE (fascinated). It is the wickedest, prettiest policy ever I heard of,

      HOOK (meaning well). Shake hands on 't.

      SMEE. No, Captain, no.

      (He has to link with the hook, but he does not join in the song.)

      HOOK. Yo ho, yo ho, when I say 'paw,'

       By fear they're overtook,

       Naught's left upon your bones when you.

       Have shaken hands with Hook!

      (Frightened by a tug at his hand, SMEE is joining in the chorus when another sound stills them both. It is a tick, tick as of a clock, whose significance HOOK is, naturally, the first to recognise, 'The crocodile!' he cries, and totters from the scene. SMEE follows. A huge crocodile, of one thought compact, passes across, ticking, and oozes after them. The wood is now so silent that you may be sure it is full of redskins. TIGER LILY comes first. She is the belle of the Piccaninny tribe, whose braves would all have her to wife, but she wards them off witha hatchet. She puts her ear to the ground and listens, then beckons, and GREAT BIG LITTLE PANTHER and the tribe are around her, carpeting the ground. Far away some one treads on a dry leaf.')

      TIGER LILY. Pirates! (They do not draw their knives) the knives slip into their hands.) Have um scalps? What you say?

      PANTHER. Scalp um, oho, velly quick.

      THE BRAVES (in corroboration). Ugh, ugh, wah.

      (A fire is lit and they dance round and over it till they seem part of the leaping flames. TIGER LILY invokes Manitou; the pipe of peace is broken; and they crawl off like a long snake that has not fed for many moons. TOOTLES peers after the tail and summons the other boys, who issue from their holes.)

      TOOTLES. They are gone.

      SLIGHTLY (almost losing confidence in himself). I do wish Peter was here.

      FIRST TWIN. H'sh! What is that? (He is gazing at the lagoon and shrinks back.) It is wolves, and they are chasing Nibs!

      (The baying wolves are upon them quicker than any boy can scuttle down his tree.)

      NIBS (falling among his comrades). Save me, save me!

      TOOTLES. What should we do?

      SECOND TWIN. What would Peter do?

      SLIGHTLY. Peter would look at them through his legs; let us do what Peter would do.

      (The boys advance backwards, looking between their legs at the snarling red-eyed enemy, who trot away foiled.)

      FIRST TWIN (swaggering). We have saved you, Nibs. Did you see the pirates?

      NIBS (sitting up, and agreeably aware that the centre of interest is now to pass to him). No, but I saw a wonderfuller thing, Twin. (All mouths open for the information to be dropped into them.) High over the lagoon I saw the loveliest great white bird. It is flying this way. (They search the firmament.)

      TOOTLES. What kind of a bird, do you think?

      NIBS (awed). I don't know; but it looked so weary, and as it flies it moans 'Poor Wendy.'

      SLIGHTLY (instantly). I remember now there are birds called Wendies.

      FIRST TWIN (who has flown to a high branch). See, it comes, the Wendy! (They all see it now.) How white it is! (A dot of light is pursuing the bird malignantly.)

      TOOTLES. That is Tinker Bell. Tink is trying to hurt theWendy. (He makes a cup of his hands and calls) Hullo,Tink! (A response comes down in the fairy language.) She says Peter wants us to shoot the Wendy.

      NIBS. Let us do what Peter wishes.

      SLIGHTLY. Ay, shoot it; quick, bows and arrows.

      TOOTLES (first with his bow). Out of the way, Tink; I'll shoot it. (His bolt goes home, and WENDY, who has been fluttering among the tree-tops in her white nightgown, falls straight to earth. No one could be more proud than TOOTLES.) I have shot the Wendy; Peter will be so pleased. (From some tree on which TINK is roosting comes the tinkle we can now translate, 'You silly ass.' TOOTLES falters.) Why do you say that? (The others feel that he may have blundered, and draw away from TOOTLES.)

      SLIGHTLY (examining the fallen one more minutely). This is no bird; I think it must be a lady.

      NIBS (who would have preferred it to be a bird). And Tootles has killed her.

      CURLY. Now I see, Peter was bringing her to us. (They wonder for what object.)

      SECOND TWIN. To take care of us? (Undoubtedly for some diverting purpose.)

      OMNES (though every one of them had wanted to

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