The_Complete_Chronicles_of_Narnia_(volumes_1-7,_in_order_of_publication)

CAVE CAUSE IT-WAS DEAD AND AWING SO HAR . . . WOKE UP AND COU . . .
GET OFFF MI ARM OH BOTHER . . .
It was, however, clear to everyone that Eustace's character had been rather improved by
becoming a dragon. He was anxious to help. He flew over the whole island and found it
was all mountainous and inhabited only by wild goats and droves of wild swine. Of these
he brought back many carcasses as provisions for the ship. He was a very humane killer
too, for he could dispatch a beast with one blow of his tail so that it didn't know (and
presumably still doesn't know) it had been killed. He ate a few himself, of course, but
always alone, for now that he was a dragon he liked his food raw but he could never bear
to let others see him at his messy meals. And one day, flying slowly and wearily but in
great triumph, he bore back to camp a great tall pine tree which he had torn up by the
roots in a distant valley and which could be made into a capital mast. And in the evening
if it turned chilly, as it sometimes did after the heavy rains, he was a comfort to everyone,
for the whole party would come and sit with their backs against his hot sides and get well
warmed and dried; and one puff of his fiery breath would light the most obstinate fire.
Sometimes he would take a select party for a fly on his back, so that they could see
wheeling below them the green slopes, the rocky heights, the narrow pit-like valleys and
far out over the sea to the eastward a spot of darker blue on the blue horizon which might
be land.
The pleasure (quite new to him) of being liked and, still more, of liking other people, was
what kept Eustace from despair. For it was very dreary being a dragon. He shuddered
whenever he caught sight of his own reflection as he flew over a mountain lake. He hated
the huge batlike wings, the saw-edged ridge on his back, and the cruel, curved claws. He
was almost afraid to be alone with himself and yet he was ashamed to be with the others.
On the evenings when he was not being used as a hot-water bottle he would slink away
from the camp and lie curled up like a snake between the wood and the water. On such
occasions, greatly to his surprise, Reepicheep was his most constant comforter. The noble
Mouse would creep away from the merry circle at the camp fire and sit down by the
dragon's head, well to the windward to be out of the way of his smoky breath. There he
would explain that what had happened to Eustace was a striking illustration of the turn of
Fortune's wheel, and that if he had Eustace at his own house in Narnia (it was really a
hole not a house and the dragon's head, let alone his body, would not have fitted in) he
could show him more than a hundred examples of emperors, kings, dukes, knights, poets,
lovers, astronomers, philosophers, and magicians, who had fallen from prosperity into the
most distressing circumstances, and of whom many had recovered and lived happily ever
afterwards. It did not, perhaps, seem so very comforting at the time, but it was kindly
meant and Eustace never forgot it.
But of course what hung over everyone like a cloud was the problem of what to do with
their dragon when they were ready to sail. They tried not to talk of it when he was there,
but he couldn't help overhearing things like, "Would he fit all along one side of the deck?
And we'd have to shift all the stores to the other side down below so as to balance," or,
"Would towing him be any good?" or "Would he be able to keep up by flying?" and
(most often of all), "But how are we to feed him?" And poor Eustace realized more and