“‘I appeal to your honour as a gentleman and a ghost!’ I cried; though I trembled in my remaining feathers, for, to tell the truth, he did not look overburdened either with honour or gentlemanliness. But he shook his head regretfully, and then they all departed together and went to a tailor-shop, I suppose, to buy themselves some up-to-date clothes. “‘Well,’ said the young man to me, ‘I’m sure I’m tremendously obliged to you, and I wish I could do something for you in return. But I can’t give you back your tail-feathers, and I don’t suppose it would be any use to even offer you a drink! You’ve really done me a great service.’ “‘Don’t mention it, sir!’ replied I, with a flourish. But just then I caught a glimpse of my reflection in the big mirror, and I blushed all over my beak and claws. However, I left the room slowly and with as much dignity as I could, and I heard the young man suppress a giggle as I went. I really could not blame him! “And that,” concluded the Owl Innkeeper, sadly and impressively, “is the true story of how I lost my tail-feathers!” “I think he was horrid to let you give up your tail-feathers just to save him!” exclaimed Bab, indignantly. “I think myself,” said the owl, “that he might have—well—protested.” “Hark!” said Meg. They noticed for the first time that the noise of wind and rain and thunder had died down. “The storm is over,” announced one of the owls at the door. “Come, brothers, it is high time to be off!” The cave was filled with the sound of rushing wings, and a minute later the three children found themselves again mounting their feathered steed. “Good-bye, good-bye!” called the Owl Innkeeper, from the entrance of the cave. “May you keep all your feathers until you are old, and always have plenty of mice for supper!”—which, after all, was the best sort of a wish he knew how to make! This time they were so tired that they fell asleep at once, with the fresh, damp winds blowing over them. And they seemed to have but just closed their eyes when Bizzybuzz waked them. As they stared about them sleepily, the air seemed full of a shining silver light. “Look!” said Bizzybuzz, pointing. “Look your last upon your own country for some time to come, for we have passed over the border, and are now in Make Believe Land.” Stretching far, far away—to the very edge of the world, it seemed—lay a country which in this clear pale light looked dark and dull and ugly. There were mountains there, but in the distance they seemed to be nothing but a lot of stupid little bumps. “That is your own country,—what some people call the Real World,” said Bizzybuzz. “Now look beneath you!” Beneath them were clouds of pink and gold and sky-blue and violet and pale green. Here and there a tall tower shot up, shining through the rainbow colours. In other places there was the gleam of silver water.