or a man to wish to be a boy again.
Chimp and his companions spent a large part of their time in wishing to
be men: the other side was not to be believed. But he pulled himself
together with the thought that to humour this old lunatic might be
funny, and would last only a week. After all, to find a cracked man on
the island was better than to find no man at all, now that Ballantyne
had been proved to be so wrong. And just then the boy caught a glimpse
of the Hermit's anxious eager eyes. 'All right,' he said quickly, 'I'm
game. But it'll be rather difficult, you know.'

'Difficult!' exclaimed the Hermit, with an expression of mingled pain
and alarm. 'How? Not seriously, I trust?'

'Oh no!' said Chimp; 'but you're rather old, you see, and boys are not
in the habit of wearing beards three feet long; although,' he added
encouragingly, noting the look of disappointment on the Hermit's face,
'I don't see why they shouldn't. Why, there was a fellow at our school
who had whiskers before he was fourteen, and we shaved them too. Tied
him down and cut off one side one day and the other the next. After that
he bought a razor.'

'Is--is that action typical of the boy?' the Hermit asked.

'Well, they get up to larks now and then,' Chimp admitted.

'As time is short,' said the Hermit, 'I am disposed to begin this
morning--at once. That is not too soon for you, I hope, Alexander Joseph
Ch----?'

'Oh, please don't,' Chimp interrupted. 'You know, boys don't call each
other by all their names like that; they either stick to the last one or
invent a nickname.'

'I am sorry to have hurt your feelings,' said the Hermit. 'If you will
tell me your nickname I will call you by it.'

'I think,' replied Chimp, unwilling to explain his own, 'that perhaps
we'd better begin now and give each other fresh ones.'

'Very well,' said the Hermit, after a minute's thought, 'I shall call
you Simian, or, for the sake of brevity, Sim.'

'Simeon?' cried Chimp. 'Oh, that's not the thing at all! A nickname
should describe a fellow, you know--it shouldn't be just another
ordinary name.'

'Yes,' replied his apprentice, 'and I mean to call you Sim, an
abbreviation of Simian. And what will you call me?'

Chimp pondered awhile. 'I shall call you,' he said at length,
'Billykins, because of your long goat's beard.'

And thus began the Hermit's apprenticeship.

'It is too hot for footer,' said Chimp, after he had collected his
thoughts, 'so we will make