"I am an anachronism," said the dragon, "don't you know what that is?--well, I am one born out of my age. I am a survival of anything but the fittest. _You_ are the masters now, you miserable floppy-looking race of mankind. _You_ can shoot me, you can blow me up with dynamite, you can poison me, you can stuff me--Oh, oh--you can put me into a cage in the Zoological Gardens, you have flying dragons in the sky who could drop on me suddenly and crush me. You have the power. We great creatures of bygone ages have only been able to creep into the rocks and caves to hide from your superior cleverness and your wily machinations. We must perish while you go on like the brook for ever." So saying he began to shed great tears, that dropped on the floor splash, splash, like the water from the rocks. The boys felt embarrassed: this was not their idea of manly conduct, and considerably lowered their opinion of dragons in general. "Do not betray me, young sirs," went on the dragon in a pathetic and weepy voice, "I have managed so far to lie here concealed though multitudes of people have passed this way and never perceived me." "I tell you what," said Helmut touched by the dragon's evident terror, "let's make friends with him, boys; he's given us a nice ride for nothing; we will present him with the flag of truce." Turning to the dragon he said: "Allow us to give you a banana and a roll in token of our friendship and esteem." "O," said the dragon brightening up, "I like bananas. People often throw the skins away here. I prefer them to orange peel. I live on such things, you must know, the cast-off refuse of humanity," he said, becoming tragic again. They presented him with the banana, and he ate it skin and all, it seemed to give him an appetite. He appeared to recover his spirits, and the boys thought it would be better to look for the way out. The cavern seemed quite smooth and round, except for the cracks through which the daylight came; they could not discover the passage by which they had entered. The dragon's eyes were beginning to look bloodthirsty; remembrances of his former strength shot across his dulled brains. He could crush and eat these little boys after all and nobody would be the wiser. Little boys tasted nicer than bananas even. Meanwhile Wolf and Werner had stuck their flags through the holes in the rocks, so that they were visible from the outside. Now little Adolf had gone straight home, and had told awful tales of the games the others were up to, and he conducted the four mothers to the Dragon's Gorge where they wandered up and down looking for their boys. Adolf observed the flags sticking up on the rocks, and drew attention to them. The Dragon's Gorge resounded with the cries of "Helmut! Wolf! Werner!"