Peggy didn’t know exactly what he meant, or what to do, but she whispered a wish that they might go still quicker, and the car rose in the air and raced along just a little above the level of the hedges.
“I think this is lovelier than anything we’ve done at all!” she shouted back to the Giant. “Oh, look! we’re coming to a town, I do believe! I wish I could drive through it just as though I was a real chauffeur. It would be so grand!”
“Steady, steady! Wishes don’t grow on blackberry bushes,” cried the Giant warningly, but at once the car slowed down, and dropped into the high road, and Peggy found herself dressed exactly like the girl she had seen, and driving slowly along at the rate of about fifteen miles an hour. At first she tried to steer the car herself, but when she found that it guided itself when left alone, and that the horn sounded and the gear changed much better by themselves, she leant back and amused herself by staring at the people, and then at the shops, as they reached the principal streets of the town.
Suddenly she noticed that all the people they passed were beginning to behave in the most extraordinary manner, some of them racing away down side streets, screaming, others beginning to chase the car and shout at the top of their voices. Once they came on a line of policemen all standing in a row across the road with notebooks in their hands, but the car made very short work of them, scattering them in all directions, and though Peggy turned round and saw them picking themselves up at once and evidently not hurt in the very least, such a roar went up from the crowds in the streets that she asked the Giant in great perplexity why they were all so angry. Hadn’t they ever seen a lady chauffeur before?
“I expect it’s partly because of me,” said the Giant comfortably. “I knocked a piece right off the General Post Office just now with my elbow. You’d better rise again, I think.”
Peggy wished—but to her horror nothing happened, except that the car began to slow down, and crowds and crowds of people from all directions at once pressed around it, shouting and shaking their fists at the Giant.
“Goodness me!” said the Giant, who had no sooner pushed away one lot than another came up. “The Magic’s gone wrong again! Turn the Ring quickly!”
Peggy did so, and the car rose with an awful jerk into the air and began to twist in and out amongst the chimney pots in an aimless sort of way till the Giant nearly toppled out, and Peggy felt quite giddy. At last she seized the wheel and tried to steer, and really felt they were making a little headway, when suddenly, without any warning, the car made a dart upwards, and then dropped on to the top of an ornamental steeple crowning the new Town Hall, where it stuck, the wheels turning madly.
“Now we are in a fix!” said the Giant uneasily. “I thought I’d remembered all about the wishing by now, but I’ve made a hash of it this time, and no mistake. You’d better wish we were safely home again. I can always manage that.”
“No, thank you!” said Peggy. “I did that yesterday before I’d used up all my wishes. I’m not going to do it again. I don’t mind it up here at all; I think it’s rather fun!”