"That fiend!" Mr. Darling would cry, and Nana's bark was the echo of
it, but Mrs. Darling never upbraided Peter; there was something in the
right-hand corner of her mouth that wanted her not to call Peter
names.

  They would sit there in the empty nursery, recalling fondly every
smallest detail of that dreadful evening. It had begun so
uneventfully, so precisely like a hundred other evenings, with Nana
putting on the water for Michael's bath and carrying him to it on
her back.

  "I won't go to bed," he had shouted, like one who still believed
that he had the last word on the subject, "I won't, I won't. Nana,
it isn't six o'clock yet. Oh dear, oh dear, I shan't love you any
more, Nana. I tell you I won't be bathed, I won't, I won't!"

  Then Mrs. Darling had come in, wearing her white evening-gown. She
had dressed early because Wendy so loved to see her in her
evening-gown, with the necklace George had given her. She was
wearing Wendy's bracelet on her arm; she had asked for the loan of it.
Wendy so loved to lend her bracelet to her mother.

  She had found her two older children playing at being herself and
father on the occasion of Wendy's birth, and John was saying:

  "I am happy to inform you, Mrs. Darling, that you are now a mother,"
in just such a tone as Mr. Darling himself may have used on the real
occasion.

  Wendy had danced with joy, just as the real Mrs. Darling must have
done.

  Then John was born, with the extra pomp that he conceived due to the
birth of a male, and Michael came from his bath to ask to be born
also, but John said brutally that they did not want any more.

  Michael had nearly cried. "Nobody wants me," he said, and of
course the lady in evening-dress could not stand that.

  "I do," she said, "I so want a third child."

  "Boy or girl?" asked Michael, not too hopefully.

  "Boy."

  Then he had leapt into her arms. Such a little thing for Mr. and
Mrs. Darling and Nana to recall now, but not so little if that was
to be Michael's last night in the nursery.

  They go on with their recollections.

  "It was then that I rushed in like a tornado, wasn't it?" Mr.
Darling would say, scorning himself; and indeed he had been like a
tornado.

  Perhaps there was some excuse for him. He, too, had been dressing
for the party, and all had gone well with him until he came to his
tie. It is an astounding thing to have to tell, but this man, though
he knew about stocks and shares, had no real mastery of his tie.
Sometimes the thing yielded to him without a contest, but there were
occasions when it would have been better for the house if he had
swallowed his pride and used a made-up tie.

  This was such an occasion. He came rushing into the nursery with the
crumpled little brute of a tie in his hand.

  "Why, what is the matter, father dear?"

  "Matter!" he yelled; he really yelled. "This tie, it will not
tie." He became dangerously sarcastic. "Not round my neck! Round the
bed-post! Oh yes, twenty times have I made it up round the bed-post,
but round my neck, no! Oh dear no! begs to be excused!"

  He thought Mrs. Darling was not sufficiently impressed, and he
went on sternly, "I warn you of this, mother, that unless this tie
is round my neck we don't go out to dinner to-night, and if I don't go
out to dinner tonight, I never go to the office again, and if I
don't go to the office again, you and I starve, and our children
will be flung into the streets."

  Even then Mrs. Darling was placid. "Let me try, dear," she said, and
indeed that was what he had come to ask her to do, and with her nice
cool hands she tied his tie for him, while the children stood around
to see their fate decided. Some men would have resented her being able
to do it so easily, but Mr. Darling was far too fine a nature for
that; he thanked her carelessly, at once forgot his rage, and in
another moment was dancing round the room with Michael on his back.

  "How wildly we romped!" says Mrs. Darling now, recalling it.

  "Our last romp!" Mr. Darling groaned.

  "O George, do you remember Michael suddenly said to me, 'How did you
get to know me, mother?'"

  "I remember!"

  "They were rather sweet, don't you think, George?"