ill you do?

OLIVER. I suppose I shall have to think.

JILL. What shall you think about?

OLIVER. I shall think I'm on my desert island.

JILL. Which desert island?

OLIVER. The one I always pretend I'm on when I'm thinking.

JILL. Isn't there any one else on it ever?

OLIVER. Oo, lots of pirates and Dyaks and cannibals and--other people.

JILL. What sort of other people?

OLIVER. I shan't tell you. This is a special think I thought last
night. As soon as I thought of it, I decided to keep it for
(impressively) a moment of great emergency.

JILL (silenced). Oh! . . . Oliver?

OLIVER Yes?

JILL. Let me be on your desert island this time. Because I did try to
help you.

OLIVER. Well--well---- (Generously) Well, you can if you like.

JILL. Oh, thank you, Oliver. Won't you tell me what it's about, and
then we can both think it together this afternoon.

OLIVER. I expect you'll think all sorts of silly things that _never_
happen on a desert island.

JILL. I'll try not to, Oliver, if you tell me.

OLIVER. All right.

JILL (coming close to him). Go on.

OLIVER. Well, you see, I've been wrecked, you see, and the ship has
foundered with all hands, you see, and I've been cast ashore on a
desert island, you see.

JILL. Haven't I been cast ashore too?

OLIVER. Well, you will be this afternoon, of course. Well, you see, we
land on the island, you see, and it's a perfectly ripping island, you
see, and--and we land on it, you see, and. . . .

* * * * *

(But we are getting on too fast. When the good ship crashed upon the
rock and split in twain, it seemed like that all aboard must perish.
Fortunately OLIVER was made of stern mettle. Hastily constructing a
raft and placing the now unconscious JILL upon it, he launched it into
the seething maelstrom of waters and pushed off. Tossed like a
cockle-shell upon the mountainous waves, the tiny craft with its
precious freight was in imminent danger of foundering. But OLIVER was
made of stern mettle. With dauntless courage he rigged a jury-mast,
and placed a telescope to his eye. "Pull for the lagoon, JILL," cried
the dauntless OLIVER, and in another moment. . . .)

(As the raft glides into the still waters beyond the reef, we can see
it more clearly. Can it be JILL'S bed, with OLIVER in his pyjamas
perched on the rail, and holding up his bath-towel? Does he shorten
sail for a moment to thump his chest and say, "But OLIVER was made of
ster