You must see for yourselves that it will be difficult to followour adventures unless you are familiar with the KensingtonGardens, as they now became known to David. They are in London,where the King lives, and you go to them every day unless you arelooking decidedly flushed, but no one has ever been in the wholeof the Gardens, because it is so soon time to turn back. Thereason it is soon time to turn back is that you sleep from twelveto one. If your mother was not so sure that you sleep fromtwelve to one, you could most likely see the whole of them.

The Gardens are bounded on one side by a never-ending line ofomnibuses, over which Irene has such authority that if she holdsup her finger to any one of them it stops immediately. She thencrosses with you in safety to the other side. There are moregates to the Gardens than one gate, but that is the one you go inat, and before you go in you speak to the lady with the balloons,who sits just outside. This is as near to being inside as shemay venture, because, if she were to let go her hold of therailings for one moment, the balloons would lift her up, and shewould be flown away. She sits very squat, for the balloons arealways tugging at her, and the strain has given her quite a redface. Once she was a new one, because the old one had let go, andDavid was very sorry for the old one, but as she did let go, hewished he had been there to see.

The Gardens are a tremendous big place, with millions andhundreds of trees, and first you come to the Figs, but you scornto loiter there, for the Figs is the resort of superior littlepersons, who are forbidden to mix with the commonalty, and is sonamed, according to legend, because they dress in full fig. These dainty ones are themselves contemptuously called Figs byDavid and other heroes, and you have a key to the manners andcustoms of this dandiacal section of the Gardens when I tell youthat cricket is called crickets here. Occasionally a rebel Figclimbs over the fence into the world, and such a one was MissMabel Grey, of whom I shall tell you when we come to Miss MabelGrey's gate. She was the only really celebrated Fig.

We are now in the Broad Walk, and it is as much bigger than theother walks as your father is bigger than you. David wondered ifit began little, and grew and grew, till it was quite grown up,and whether the other walks are its babies, and he drew apicture, which diverted him very much, of the Broad Walk giving atiny walk an airing in a perambulator. In the Broad Walk youmeet all the people who are worth knowing, and there is usually agrown-up with them to prevent their going on the damp grass, andto make them stand disgraced at the corner of a seat if they havebeen mad-dog or Mary-Annish. To be Mary-Annish is to behave likea girl, whimpering because nurse won't carry you, or simperingwith your thumb in your mouth, and it is a hateful quality, butto be mad- dog is to kick out at everything, and there is somesatisfaction in that.

If I were to point out all the notable places as we pass up theBroad Walk, it would be time to turn back before we reach them,and I simply wave my stick at Cecco's Tree, that memorable spotwhere a boy called Cecco lost his penny, and, looking for it,found twopence. There has been a good deal of excavation goingon there ever since. Farther up the walk is the little woodenhouse in which Marmaduke Perry hid. There is no more awful storyof the Gardens by day than this of Marmaduke Perry, who had beenMary- Annish three days in succession, and was sentenced toappear in the Broad Walk dressed in his sister's clothes. He hidin the little wooden house, and refused to emerge until theybrought him knickerbockers with pockets.

You now try to go to the Round Pond, but nurses hate it, becausethey are not really manly, and they make you look the other way,at the Big Penny and the Baby's Palace. She was the mostcelebrated baby of the Gardens, and lived in the palace allalone, with ever so many dolls, so people rang the bell, and upshe got out of her bed, though it was past six o'clock, and shelighted a candle and opened the door in her nighty, and then theyall cried with great rejoicings, "Hail, Queen of England!" Whatpuzzled David most was how she knew where the matches were kept. The Big Penny is a statue about her.

Next we come to the Hump, which is the part of the Broad Walkwhere all the big races are run, and even though you had nointention of running you do run when you come to the Hump, it issuch a fascinating, slide-down kind of place. Often you stopwhen you have run about half-way down it, and then you are lost,but there is another little wooden house near here, called theLost House, and so you tell the man that you are lost and then hefinds you. It is glorious fun racing down the Hump, but youcan't do it on windy days because then you are not there, but thefallen leaves do it instead of you. There is almost nothing thathas such a keen sense of fun as a fallen leaf.

From the Hump we can see the gate that is called after Miss MabelGrey, the Fig I promised to tell you about. There were alwaystwo nurses with her, or else one mother and one nurse, and for along time she was a pattern-child who always coughed off thetable and said, "How do you do?" to the other Figs, and the onlygame she played at was flinging a ball gracefully and letting thenurse bring it back to her. Then one day she tired of it all andwent mad-dog, and, first, to show that she as really was mad-dog,she unloosened both her boot-laces and put out her tongue east,west, north, and south. She then flung her sash into a puddleand danced on it till dirty water was squirted over her frock,after which she climbed the fence and had a series of incredibleadventures, one of the least of which was that she kicked offboth her boots. At last she came to the gate that is now calledafter her, out of which she ran into streets David and I havenever been in though we have heard them roaring, and still sheran on and would never again have been heard of had not hermother jumped into a bus and thus overtaken her. It allhappened, I should say, long ago, and this is not the Mabel Greywhom David knows.

Returning up the Broad Walk we have on our right the Baby Walk,which is so full of perambulators that you could cross from sideto side stepping on babies, but the nurses won't let you do it.From this walk a passage called Bunting's Thumb, because it isthat length, leads into Picnic Street, where there are realkettles, and chestnut-blossom falls into your mug as you aredrinking. Quite common children picnic here also, and theblossom falls into their mugs just the same.

Next comes St. Govor's Well, which was full of water when Malcolmthe Bold fell into it. He was his mother's favourite, and he lether put her arm round his neck in public because she was a widow,but he was also partial to adventures and liked to play with achimney-sweep who had killed a good many bears. The sweep's namewas Sooty, and one day when they were playing near the well,Malcolm fell in and would have been drowned had not Sooty divedin and rescued him, and the water had washed Sooty clean and henow stood revealed as Malcolm's long-lost father. So Malcolmwould not let his mother put her arm round his neck any more.

Between the well and the Round Pond are the cricket-pitches, andfrequently the choosing of sides exhausts so much time that thereis scarcely any cricket. Everybody wants to bat first, and assoon as he is out he bowls unless you are the better wrestler,and while you are wrestling with him the fielders have scatteredto play at something else. The Gardens are noted for two kindsof cricket: boy cricket, which is real cricket with a bat, andgirl cricket, which is with a racquet and the governess. Girlscan't really play cricket, and when you are watching their futileefforts you make funny sounds at them. Nevertheless, there was avery disagreeable incident one day when some forward girlschallenged David's team, and a disturbing creature called AngelaClare sent down so many yorkers that--However, instead of tellingyou the result of that regrettable match I shall pass onhurriedly to the Round Pond, which is the wheel that keeps allthe Gardens going.

It is round because it is in the very middle of the Gardens, andwhen you are come to it you never want to go any farther. Youcan't be good all the time at the Round Pond, however much youtry. You can be good in the Broad Walk all the time, but not atthe Round Pond, and the reason is that you forget, and, when youremember, you are so wet that you may as well be wetter. Thereare men who sail boats on the Round Pond, such big boats thatthey bring them in barrows and sometimes in perambulators, andthen the baby has to walk. The bow-legged children in theGardens are these who had to walk too soon because their fatherneeded the perambulator.

You always want to have a yacht to sail on the Round Pond, and inthe end your uncle gives you one; and to carry it to the Pond thefirst day is splendid, also to talk about it to boys who have nouncle is splendid, but soon you like to leave it at home. Forthe sweetest craft that slips her moorings in the Round Pond iswhat is called a stick-boat, because she is rather like a stickuntil she is in the water and you are holding the string. Thenas you walk round, pulling her, you see little men running abouther deck, and sails rise magically and catch the breeze, and youput in on dirty nights at snug harbours which are unknown to thelordly yachts. Night passes in a twink, and again your rakishcraft noses for the wind, whales spout, you glide over buriedcities, and have brushes with pirates and cast anchor on coralisles. You are a solitary boy while all this is taking place,for two boys together cannot adventure far upon the Round Pond,and though you may talk to yourself throughout the voyage, givingorders and executing them with dispatch, you know not, when it istime to go home, where you have been or what swelled your sails;your treasure-trove is all locked away in your hold, so to speak,which will be opened, perhaps, by another little boy many yearsafterward.

But those yachts have nothing in their hold. Does anyone returnto this haunt of his youth because of the yachts that used tosail it? Oh, no. It is the stick-boat that is freighted withmemories. The yachts are toys, their owner a fresh-watermariner, they can cross and recross a pond only while the stick-boat goes to sea. You yachtsmen with your wands, who think weare all there to gaze on you, your ships are only accidents ofthis place, and were they all to be boarded and sunk by the ducksthe real business of the Round Pond would be carried on as usual.

Paths from everywhere crowd like children to the pond. Some ofthem are ordinary paths, which have a rail on each side, and aremade by men with their coats off, but others are vagrants, wideat one spot and at another so narrow that you can stand astridethem. They are called Paths that have Made Themselves, and Daviddid wish he could see them doing it. But, like all the mostwonderful things that happen in the Gardens, it is done, weconcluded, at night after the gates are closed. We have alsodecided that the paths make themselves because it is their onlychance of getting to the Round Pond.

One of these gypsy paths comes from the place where the sheep gettheir hair cut. When David shed his curls at the hair-dresser's,I am told, he said good-bye to them without a tremor, though Maryhas never been quite the same bright creature since, so hedespises the sheep as they run from their shearer and calls outtauntingly, "Cowardy, cowardy custard!" But when the man gripsthem between his legs David shakes a fist at him for using suchbig scissors. Another startling moment is when the man turnsback the grimy wool from the sheeps' shoulders and they looksuddenly like ladies in the stalls of a theatre. The sheep areso frightened by the shearing that it makes them quite white andthin, and as soon as they are set free they begin to nibble thegrass at once, quite anxiously, as if they feared that they wouldnever be worth eating. David wonders whether they know eachother, now that they are so different, and if it makes them fightwith the wrong ones. They are great fighters, and thus so unlikecountry sheep that every year they give Porthos a shock. He canmake a field of country sheep fly by merely announcing hisapproach, but these town sheep come toward him with no promise ofgentle entertainment, and then a light from last year breaks uponPorthos. He cannot with dignity retreat, but he stops and looksabout him as if lost in admiration of the scenery, and presentlyhe strolls away with a fine indifference and a glint at me fromthe corner of his eye.

The Serpentine begins near here. It is a lovely lake, and thereis a drowned forest at the bottom of it. If you peer over theedge you can see the trees all growing upside down, and they saythat at night there are also drowned stars in it. If so, PeterPan sees them when he is sailing across the lake in the Thrush'sNest. A small part only of the Serpentine is in the Gardens, forsoon it passes beneath a bridge to far away where the island ison which all the birds are born that become baby boys and girls. No one who is human, except Peter Pan (and he is only halfhuman), can land on the island, but you may write what you want(boy or girl, dark or fair) on a piece of paper, and then twistit into the shape of a boat and slip it into the water, and itreaches Peter Pan's island after dark.

We are on the way home now, though, of course, it is all pretencethat we can go to so many of the places in one day. I shouldhave had to be carrying David long ago and resting on every seatlike old Mr. Salford. That was what we called him, because healways talked to us of a lovely place called Salford where he hadbeen born. He was a crab-apple of an old gentleman who wanderedall day in the Gardens from seat to seat trying to fall in withsomebody who was acquainted with the town of Salford, and when wehad known him for a year or more we actually did meet anotheraged solitary who had once spent Saturday to Monday in Salford. He was meek and timid and carried his address inside his hat, andwhatever part of London he was in search of he always went to theGeneral Post-office first as a starting-point. Him we carried intriumph to our other friend, with the story of that Saturday toMonday, and never shall I forget the gloating joy with which Mr.Salford leapt at him. They have been cronies ever since, and Inotice that Mr. Salford, who naturally does most of the talking,keeps tight grip of the other old man's coat.

The two last places before you come to our gate are the Dog'sCemetery and the chaffinch's nest, but we pretend not to knowwhat the Dog's Cemetery is, as Porthos is always with us. Thenest is very sad. It is quite white, and the way we found it waswonderful. We were having another look among the bushes forDavid's lost worsted ball, and instead of the ball we found alovely nest made of the worsted, and containing four eggs, withscratches on them very like David's handwriting, so we think theymust have been the mother's love-letters to the little onesinside. Every day we were in the Gardens we paid a call at thenest, taking care that no cruel boy should see us, and we droppedcrumbs, and soon the bird knew us as friends, and sat in the nestlooking at us kindly with her shoulders hunched up. But one daywhen we went, there were only two eggs in the nest, and the nexttime there were none. The saddest part of it was that the poorlittle chaffinch fluttered about the bushes, looking soreproachfully at us that we knew she thought we had done it, andthough David tried to explain to her, it was so long since he hadspoken the bird language that I fear she did not understand. Heand I left the Gardens that day with our knuckles in our eyes.