And the old man said: 'Not at all! However, since you had the sense not to fall off wrong way, I suppose you're the boy I want. Now, look here, you throw me down those ten big apples, one by one, so that I can catch them, and I'll let you go out by the Apple Door that no one but me has the key of.'
'Why don't you pick them yourself?' Diggory asked.
'I'm too old; you know very well that old men don't climb trees. Come, is it a bargain?'
'I don't know,' said the boy; 'there are lots of apples you can reach without climbing. Why do you want these so particularly?'
As he spoke, he picked one of the apples and threw it up and caught it. I say up, but it was down instead, because of the apple-tree being so very much enchanted.
'Oh, _don't_!' the old man squeaked like a rat in a trap--'_don't_ drop it! Throw it down to me, you nasty slack-baked, smock-frocked son of a speckled toad!'
Diggory's blood boiled at hearing his father called a toad.
[Illustration: '"Take that," cried he, aiming an apple at the old man's head.'--Page 307.]
'Take that!' cried he, aiming the apple at the old man's head.' I wish I could get out of this tree.'
The apple hit the old man's head and bounced on to the grass, and the moment that apple touched the ground Diggory found that he _could_ get out of the tree if he liked, for he felt that he was now the proper way up once more, and so was the tree.
'So,' he said, 'these are wish-apples, are they?'
'No, no, no, no!' shrieked the old man so earnestly that Diggory knew he was lying. 'I've just disenchanted you, that's all. You see, most people fall up out of the tree and you didn't, so I thought I'd let you go, because I'm a nice kind old man, I am, and I wouldn't so much as hurt a fly. They aren't wish-apples, indeed they aren't.'
'Really,' said Diggory. 'I wish you'd speak the truth.'
With that he picked the second apple and threw it. And the old man began to speak the truth as hard as ever he could speak. It was like a child saying a lesson it has just learned, and is afraid of forgetting before it can get it said.
'I am a wicked magician. I have turned hundreds of people's heads in that tree so that they fall into the sky, and when they fall back again, as they have to do when the tide turns, I make them into apple-trees. I don't know why I do, but I like to. I suppose it's because I'm wicked. I never did anything useful with my magic, but I can hurt. And there's only one way out of this, and I don't mean to show it you.'