OUR THIRD BIRTHDAY

Evening Post, Volume CIX, Issue 126, 31 May 1930, Page 19

OUR THIRD BIRTHDAY

ALL is bustle in the Ring to-night, | for is it not the Ring's birthday? And doesn 't it feel exciting to ! be three years old? Like getting out of rompers and into trousers for the first time. Look, here come Irish Mary, Rory o'Moore, and Irish Eyes. Oh, when you see that trio, don't you want to say, "Begad" or "Bcgorrah!" or something quite as "shamrocky." There is a pause now, for the royal members of the Ring have come in the Butterfly carriage. First Princess Goldenheart, followed by Russian Princess and Princess Mhisti. ' ■ "Havers!" says a voice belonging •without a doubt to the Land of the Thistle.. "But ,it looks very much as if our mushroom has got lost with it a'!"— Scotch Lassie, of: course, and the maiden with her is Annie Laurie. Now the mushrooms are nearly all full. Lady Rowena, in fact, is nearly on the floor, and is, as she indignantly explains to her neighbours, Ivanhoe and Poilyanna, "being squashed to a pancake." Tinkorbell, too, is so squashed' that she lias to be supported by Peter Pan and Wendy. . ' Now comes the tinkle of tiny silver bells—Fairiel's coach, and a silenco falls on the Ring, broken by the usher's voice. "Fairiel!" and a blast on his trumpet. Then —one talks about not being able to hear a pin drop, but when Fairiel is being escorted across to her glittering 'throne you couldn't hear a twenty-ton block of iron drop, the noise is so ■ deafening. Everyone is cheering and clapping. Bunny Hugh nearly swallows the lolly he is eating, and^ Las Vegas has to bang him hardon the back, while Lydia of the Pines treads on Pollyanna's pet corn, and Poilyanna is so excited she doesn't even feel it. Silence is at last restored, and Pairiel- stands up in her beautiful raintow dress. "Dear Elves," she says, "I have loved writing the Ring for you these last three years, and I hope you have

enjoyed reading it just as much as I have writing it." "Hear! Hear!" from Saucy Sally. "Don't be saucy, Sally," remarks Sailor Boy, grinning as she straightens her sailor cap, and there is a general laugh. "And so, Chickadees," continues Fairiel. "I want you all to enjoy yourselves just as much as ever you can to-night," and she sits down. Peter Pan gets up and calls, "Elves! Three cheers for Fairiel!" They are given with a will, and then the fun of the evening starts. We are breathless by the time the games are over, so we have supper, a delicious fairy one, and then Pairiel says, with twinkling eyes, "And now for the cake, elves o' mine." Ten fairies come in, st ggering under the weight of a huge iced cake, with three big candles. There are little iced fairies and a silver initial for every member of' the King. The candles are burning with, a rainbow flame, and on the' top 'of 7 the cake is written in shining silver letters: 'To the Fairy King on their third birthday, .1930." "Oh!" breaks a cry from Daddic's Birdie and The Imp simultaneously, to be echoed by every other member of the Ring. The v chccring is deafening as pieces of the cako are handed to everybody. But now the Sunflower clock points to eleven o'clock. Caddie's Rosebud's head is nodding like a rosy, drowsy poppy, and Littlest, is already asleep snuggled up on Fairiel's lap, so she says, "Good-night, chicks, and rememler all the happy days which we must have, together again." . . . Home we go in the Cloud Coach, and some that won't pack in there, in Butterfly Carriage, flying through the dappled glades where the moon lies like pools of quicksilver until one_ after another, we find ourselves back in our cosy, warm beds. "PETER PAN." Wadestown.