r wouldn't let me keep it,' Porker
being the way in which Chimp spoke of Dr. Cyril Bigley Plowden,
Principal of Witherson College. His second feeling was keenness to play
Robinson Crusoe in earnest. Chimp and other boys had often on
half-holidays made believe that an island in the river was Juan
Fernandez, but the game usually began with one fight to decide who
should be Robinson, and ended with another to check the arrogance of
Friday. Now, however, he was but an hour or so from an uninhabited
island (of course it was uninhabited) and bothered by no rival for chief
honours. He decided that to fall into the sea from a steamer at night
was a lark. But a little while afterwards he thought of sharks and
remembered, with something of a pang, good times in England; then he
wondered what would happen on the ship when they missed him; then he
glowed at the anticipation of the other boys' envy when they learned
where he had been; then he thought of sharks again; and then his feet
touched the bottom.

When Chimp at last crawled out of the water, he was nigh dead beat. In
the soft still light which the moon poured down he could see beyond the
beach a dark strip which seemed to promise a bed. He staggered blindly
over the stones to this refuge, found that it was grass, and, sinking
upon it, was in a moment asleep.

The sun was high and hot when Chimp awoke. For a moment he looked around
him bewildered, wondering why the dream would not finish: then he
remembered everything. At the same moment he was conscious, as he
afterwards expressed it, that he had had nothing to eat for a hundred
years. Chimp stood up, yawned the stiffness out of his bones, and set
forth to seek for food and claim his kingdom. He made at once for the
highest ground and gathered the island in a bird's-eye view. It seemed
to be about eight miles long and three broad, mainly rock, bare and red
as a brick. There were a few trees and some wide patches of rank grass.
Not a sign of human life was to be seen, but swift green lizards shot
across the ground at Chimp's feet, a million grasshoppers shrilled into
his ears, and white gulls with cruel eyes hovered and wheeled above him.
The prospect did not cheer Robinson Crusoe II., but he set out for the
interior of the island, searching every miniature valley for a spring,
every tree and shrub for fruit. But he sought in vain. Then recollecting
stories of the toothsomeness of turtles' eggs baked in the sand, Chimp
turn