"Oh, hurrah!" he cried. "Now we really have done it."
And he clasped the book very tightly with the turquoise and ruby clasps.
"Oh, my precious Hippogriff," he cried. "You are the bravest, dearest, most beautiful—"
"Hush," whispered the Hippogriff modestly. "Don't you see that we are not alone?"
And indeed there was quite a crowd round them on the Pebbly Waste: the Prime Minister and the Parliament and the Soccer Players and the Orphanage and the Manticora and the Rocking Horse, and indeed everyone who had been eaten by the Dragon. You see, it was impossible for the Dragon to take them into the book with him—it was a tight fit even for one Dragon—so, of course, he had to leave them outside.
They all got home somehow, and all lived happy ever after.
When the King asked the Manticora where he would like to live he begged to be allowed to go back into the book. "I do not care for public life," he said.
Of course he knew his way onto his own page, so there was no danger of his opening the book at the wrong page and letting out a Dragon or anything. So he got back into his picture and has never come out since: That is why you will never see a Manticora as long as you live, except in a picture-book. And of course he left the kitties outside, because there was no room for them in the book—and the milk cans too.
Then the Rocking Horse begged to be allowed to go and live on the Hippogriff's page of the book. "I should like," he said, "to live somewhere where Dragons can't get at me."