so rough and the beach so hard to land at or get
off from, on account of the heavy ocean rollers coming in when the wind
is up at all, that the islanders can never make a long stay at the
islets--and so cannot get half the number of sealskins which might be
easily procured by any one stopping ashore there for any length of time.
I really thought, I assure you, of asking Captain Brown, when I went on
my next voyage with him, to land me at Inaccessible Island, with
provisions enough to last me six months or so, and to call for me on his
return voyage from the Cape, as he was wending his way back home again
here."

"And you would have gone there alone?"

"Yes; why not? But now, oh, Fritz, if you would only go with me, we
might settle at this place like regular Robinson Crusoes--as you said
just now--and make a pile of money, or, rather, of skins, in a year or
two!"

"The idea is feasible," said Fritz in a reflective way. "I'll talk to
Captain Brown, and see what he says of it." The elder brother had a
good deal of German caution in his composition; so that, although prompt
of action, he was never accustomed to undertake anything without due
deliberation.

Eric, on the contrary, all impulse, was thoroughly carried away by the
notion, now that he saw that Fritz, instead of ridiculing it, thought it
worth consideration.

The project of going to settle on a real uninhabited island, like
Robinson Crusoe, that hero of boyhood throughout the world, exceeded the
realisation of his wildest dreams, when first as a little chap he had
planned how he should go to sea as soon as he was big enough. Why, he
and Fritz would now be "Brother Crusoes," if his project were carried
out, as there seemed every likelihood of its being--crusoes of their own
free-will and not by compulsion, besides having the satisfaction of
knowing that within a certain period it would be in their power to end
their solitary island life; that is, should they find, either that it
did not come up to their expectations in a business point of view, or
that its loneliness and seclusion combined with the discomforts of
roughing it were more than they could bear.

It was a glorious plan!

This was Eric's conclusion, the more he thought of it; while Fritz, on
his part, believed that there was something in the suggestion--something
that had to be weighed and considered carefully--for, might he not
really conquer Fortune in this way?

Captain Brown did not th