_TO L. F. G._
Once upon a time there was a schoolboy called Chimp. Chimp was not his
name: his name was Alexander Joseph Chemmle. Chimp was short for
chimpanzee, an animal which his schoolfellows agreed that he was like.
Chimp usually spent his holidays in his uncle's family; but one summer
he travelled on a visit to his father, who was British Consul in a
foreign port, so far away that the boy had only a few days at home
before it was time again to join the steamer for England.
Chimp, who was always adventurous, had been at sea for only a week on
the return journey, when one evening at dusk he lost his hold as he was
clambering out to the end of the main crosstrees, and fell overboard.
The other passengers were listening to a concert in the saloon
('screeching' Chimp had called it, when he took refuge in the chief
engineer's room), and, work being over, the crew were for'ard smoking,
so that there was no one except the first officer and the man at the
wheel to hear the shout that Chimp sent up from the water. As a matter
of fact both men heard it, but it caused them to do no more than say to
themselves at the same moment, 'There's that boy again! Up to some
mischief, I'll be bound.' No help, therefore, came to Chimp. The great
black ship glided by, the screw threshed the water into blinding foam,
and when he could see and think again, Chimp was alone in the ocean.
Chimp was a good swimmer. He struck out at once vigorously in the
direction of the island which they had passed at sundown. The sea was as
smooth as a pond and quite warm, and after several minutes had passed,
the boy turned over on his back and floated comfortably, moving his arms
just enough to give him an impetus towards the shore. Although he was
upset by the accident which had so suddenly substituted the water for
the ship (and it was nearing supper time, and there were always ices for
supper!), Chimp was not a boy at all given to fear, and he could think
of his new plight with composure. His first calm thought was regret for
the mongoose which he was taking back to school, 'although,' as he said
to himself, 'the chances are, Porker 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
turned to the shore again and explored the coast. At the end of three
hours he said disgustedly, 'What a liar Ballantyne was!' and was just
sinking down exhausted, when his heart gave a big _plump!_ and stood
still, for there before him was a well-trodden path.
At first, hungry as he was, Chimp's feeling was grief at the discovery
that after all the island was not uninhabited, but his regret soon faded
before the anticipation of the meal he would devour in the abode to
which the pathway led, and he struck into it with new vigour, taking the
inland direction. The path rose with every step. At last, a mile or so
from the sea, it turned abruptly round a boulder, and Chimp suddenly
found himself in the presence of an elderly man with a long grey beard,
who was sitting at a table in the entrance of a cave, writing.
The meeting seemed to be the most unexpected thing that had ever
happened to either of them, for the elderly man rose with a start that
upset both ink and table, and Chimp caught himself looking round for
something to cling to for support. Not finding anything, he sat down on
the ground and stared at the elderly man. He would have liked to have
gone forward to pick up the ink-bottle, but dared not, on account of a
peculiar feeling in his knees. Meanwhile the elderly man stared at the
boy, and Chimp wondered if he ever would speak, and if it would be in
English when he did. After a long pause the elderly man picked up the
ink. Then looking at Chimp still more curiously through his spectacles,
he spoke.
'What are you?' he asked, in good English.
'My name,' said Chimp, 'is Alexander Joseph Chemmle.'
'No, no,' the elderly man replied, 'I mean, what are you--what? Not a
boy, are you? Not really and truly a boy! Oh say, say you are a boy!'
'Yes,' said Chimp, although for the moment, so intense and unreasonable
was the other's excitement about the matter, he almost doubted it. 'Yes,
I'm a boy.'
'A boy! a boy!' the elderly man exclaimed joyfully. 'Eureka!' Then he
grew calmer, and continued: 'Dear me, this is very interesting. A most
fortunate chance! A boy, you say. How extremely happy an accident. Now
what kind of boy might you be?'
Chimp was puzzled. 'I suppose,' he thought, 'I ought to call myself a
good boy, and yet that isn't exactly how Porker would describe me. And
what is more, good boys are such saps.' Then he spoke aloud: 'Well, sir,
I'm a fairish specimen of a boy, I think.'
'Good!' said the elderly man. 'Good! An average boy. So much the better.
And what does it feel like to be a boy?'
'Whew!' said Chimp to himself, 'I came for breakfast, and all I seem to
be getting is an exam.' However, he did his best to answer the question.
'Why, sir,' he said aloud, 'as long as you don't get too many lines and
swishings, it feels good to be a boy. But swishing makes it feel bad
sometimes.'
'Lines?' inquired the other. 'Swishings? What are they?'
'Why,' said Chimp, 'when Porker canes you, that's swishing, and lines
are passages from Virgil which you have to copy out if you make
howlers--I mean, if you make mistakes.'
'Yes, yes,' said the elderly man, a little vaguely. 'And so it's good to
be a boy?' he added.
A happy thought struck Chimp. 'It is good,' he replied; 'but there are
other times when it's bad, besides those I mentioned. When--when you're
hungry, for instance.'
'Ah!' exclaimed the elderly man, rising from the table. 'I was
forgetting. You must pardon me, Alexander Joseph Chemmle. I have, I
fear, nothing to offer you but biscuits and tinned meats. Do you care
for tinned meats? I keep most kinds.'
'I like bloater paste,' Chimp said. 'I always take a pot or two back to
school.'
'Ah!' cried his host eagerly, 'you like bloater paste best? That's
famous! So do I. A community of taste!'
He disappeared into the cave, and in a minute or so came forth again,
bearing the bloater paste and a plate in one hand, and the biscuits and
a knife in the other. 'Now,' he said, 'fall to, and while you are eating
these I must try to find something else. Tinned pears--do you like
them?'
Chimp mumbled that he did. He was eating with more enjoyment than he
ever had eaten in his life. Ambrosia was nothing to bloater paste.
'It is wonderful--our tastes coincide in everything,' said the elderly
man as he entered the cave again. He returned with a tin of pears and
some marmalade, a jug of water and a glass. Then he sat on a camp stool
and observed his guest.
It was not until Chimp was well forward with the pears that his host
spoke again. 'I am sorry, Alexander Joseph Chemmle,' he said, 'to have
kept you waiting so long, for I take it that this is not your customary
appetite--that you were, in fact, unusually, if not painfully, hungry.
But I was so interested by the sight of a real boy that I could think of
nothing else. You see, I have never met with a boy before.'
Chimp opened his eyes as wide almost as his mouth. 'But,' he began in
his astonishment, 'they are as common as dirt, boys are. There's heaps
of them--loads.'
'True,' the other made answer, 'true. But when one abandons the world,
and, embracing the profession of the eremite, devotes one's life to
solitude and reflection, one is deprived of the pleasure of intercourse
with so attractive a personality as that of the average boy.'
'Ye-es,' dubiously from Chimp. 'But,' he added, 'you were a boy yourself
once.'
'No,' the Hermit made reply. 'Never.'
'Never a boy!' Chimp exclaimed. 'Well, that beats everything.'
'Never,' repeated the recluse. 'You see,' he remarked in explanation, 'I
was articled by my parents to a hermit at a very tender age--to the
learned man, in fact, who preceded me in the tenancy of this modest
cell. We plunged immediately into the fascinating study of metaphysics,
and the period of boyhood slipped by unnoticed.'
Chimp whistled,--he had no words adequate to the occasion.
'For many years,' the Hermit continued, 'I did not feel the loss of this
experience, being deeply engrossed in other subjects; but now, in the
fall of life, I find myself regretting it keenly. Much as I love my
studies, much as I am attached to the solitary life, I sometimes think
it a finer thing to have been a boy even than to have been a hermit.'
Chimp thought it would be kind of him to say something cheery, yet could
hit upon nothing but, 'Oh no, not at all,' just as if the Hermit had
apologised for treading on his toe; yet it seemed to please the old man.
'However,' he broke off, 'this is by the way. Come, Alexander Joseph
Chemmle, tell me about your adventures; how did you find your way to
this island? How is it you are alone? Tell me everything.'
Chimp, wincing a little at the appalling formality of the Hermit's mode
of address, began. By the time his story was finished it was evening,
for the Hermit asked numberless questions which sent Chimp off on
numberless side tracks of narrative. At the end of the recital the
bloater paste was produced again, and Chimp again ate heartily.
'Now,' said the Hermit, 'I will show you something of the island.'
So saying, he took his staff and they set forth. First they visited the
spring whence the Hermit brought water, and then climbing to a peak of
rock, the Hermit described the island as it lay beneath them.
'There,' said he finally, indicating the little creek to which the
footpath led, 'that is where the boat lands that once a year brings me
my provisions. It puts off from my Aunt Amelia's yacht--_The Tattooed
Quaker_. My Aunt Amelia is the only relative that remains to me. It is
she who supplies the tinned meats and the pears. She really has
admirable taste, although her choice in names may be a little fantastic.
In addition to the provisions, it is my aunt's custom to send a letter
beseeching me to return in the yacht to England, and declaring that if I
do not, that particular supply of food will be the last. For forty years
she has done this. She is a noble woman, my Aunt Amelia.'
'When is the boat due?' Chimp asked, thinking more of its possible
effect upon himself than upon the Hermit.
'Soon, soon,' the old man replied, with something very like a sigh. 'In
a fortnight's time, in fact.'
'What a pity!' said Chimp. 'And I say, sir,' he added, 'how decent to be
you. Only there ought to be some niggers.'
The Hermit sighed. They walked back without speaking, and not ten
minutes had passed before Chimp was sound asleep in a corner of the
cave, while the Hermit lay gazing at the stars.
On awaking, Chimp found that the cave was empty. For a moment he thought
himself still dreaming, but the table laid for breakfast recalled him to
facts, and he fell to thinking of the Hermit. 'Rum old beggar!' he
mused. 'A screw loose somewhere, I guess.' When the Hermit returned, it
was plain that the old man had something on his mind, as the saying is.
He spoke not at all at breakfast, except, when laying the table, to
remark that potted ham and chicken make a pleasing variety upon bloater
paste. But after breakfast, placing one seat in the shade for Chimp and
one for himself, he talked.
'I have been thinking deeply, Alexander Joseph Chemmle,' he began.
'During the night I have reviewed my life, and now more than ever I am
conscious of the limiting influence exerted upon a philosopher by the
loss of boyhood. The suspicion has been with me for years: it is now a
certainty. You are not likely, my young friend, to be with me long, for
_The Tattooed Quaker_ will, of course, carry you back to England next
week. But in the intervening time I want you, so far as is within your
power, to make a boy of me. I put myself unreservedly in your hands.
Consider me your apprentice. Will you do this?' The Hermit watched
Chimp's face anxiously.
Chimp was staggered completely. A screw loose, he had thought; but
surely it was the height of madness for 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 a start with a little cricket practice.
Cricket,' he explained, 'is a game--the best game in the world. You
ought to see W. G. and Ranji. But of course you don't know who they are.
Oh dear, oh dear, what you are missing out here! W. G., that's W. G.
Grace, the champion of the world. Your beard, Billykins, must have been
rather like his a few years ago. And Ranji, that's Ranjitsinhji.'
'Yes, yes,' the Hermit remarked feebly, depressed by the weight of his
stupendous ignorance.
Chimp went on with fine authority. 'Now, while I am cramming this sock
with stuff to make a ball, you be sharpening these sticks for wickets.
You've got a knife, I suppose?'
The Hermit admitted that he had not.
'What!' cried Chimp; 'no knife? Why, you'll never be a boy without a
knife. Let me look at your pockets?'
The Hermit had but one pocket, and a handkerchief was all it held.
'Awfully clean,' was Chimp's contemptuous comment. 'And nothing else?
Oh, this will never do! Look at mine now,' and turning out his pockets,
he displayed a double-bladed knife containing several implements,
including a corkscrew and an attachment for extracting stones from
horses' feet, a piece of string, a watch spring, twenty or thirty shot,
a button, a magnet, a cog-wheel, a pencil, a match-box, a case of
foreign stamps all stuck together with salt water, a whistle, a
halfpenny with a hole in it, and a soaked and swollen cigar which the
Captain had given him.
'Are all these things quite necessary?' the Hermit asked humbly.
'No,' said Chimp, 'not quite all. The knife is, and the string is, and a
fellow likes his smoke, you know. Collecting stamps is rather decent,
but you needn't unless you want to. There's butterflies and birds' eggs,
if you like. The other things are useful: the more you have the better
for you.'
'String,' said the Hermit, 'I possess--but no pocket-knife. But if you
permit it, I will carry my table-knife in future. 'Tis a simple weapon,
I know: but on the other hand you see that on this island the
opportunities of extracting stones from horses' hoofs are rare.'
'I suppose it must do,' said Chimp doubtfully. 'But you must add a few
other things, or we shan't have anything to swap. Boys are great at
swapping, you know.'
'Swapping?' the Hermit asked.
'Yes: when you want one thing, giving another for it. For instance, if
you had a white rat' (the Hermit shuddered) 'and I gave you a brass
cannon for it, that would be a swap.'
'Very well,' the Hermit replied seriously, 'I will add a few things;
but, if you don't mind, not rats of any colour, nor in fact any live
stock.'
'Just as you like,' said the magnanimous Chimp. 'You wouldn't do for
Billy Lincolne though: he usually carries half a dozen frogs in his
trousers' pockets.'
When the cricket gear was complete, Chimp stepped out twenty-two yards
and pitched the stumps. 'You go in first,' he said.
The Hermit seized the bat.
'Now all you have to do at first,' Chimp continued, 'is to keep the ball
out of the wicket. Hit it any way you like, and hold your bat straight.'
The Hermit obeyed to the letter. To Chimp's intense astonishment he
punished the bowling all round, pulling off balls to square leg in a
shameless fashion.
Chimp was kept busy, and at last he grew almost vexed. 'Well, you mayn't
have much science,' he cried, as, nearly out of breath, he flung himself
down after some miles of running, 'but you've got a gorgeous eye. Why,
you hit everything. You've played before, haven't you?' he added
suspiciously.
The Hermit smiled again. 'A little,' he admitted. 'Yes, my late
instructor, the sage to whom I was confided by my parents many, many
years ago, he and I occasionally had a game together. It was our only
recreation. I thought it hardly worth while to mention it, expecting
that all skill had left me.'
'By jingo! though, it hasn't,' Chimp exclaimed. 'You're a regular W. G.
in your way. But, I say, another time you know how to do a thing you
might let a fellow know first.'
'This is too silly,' was Chimp's persistent thought during the next few
days, but he kept up the game of make-believe like a hero. As a matter
of fact, it was sound amusement to explore the island and plunge on
sudden impulses into a score of high-spirited enterprises, although the
presence of the old man panting at his side touched him rather sadly now
and then. The Hermit, however, endured stolidly and pluckily, and
neither of them ever let the time appear to drag.
Chimp and his apprentice bathed together, and hunted for anemones among
the rocks; they gave chase to butterflies and lizards; they told
stories; they even pretended to be Robinson Crusoe and Friday, the part
of Friday falling to the Hermit.
'You see, Billykins,' Chimp said, 'you are better suited to the part:
you can make such a whacking footprint.'
'I think I am progressing well, Simian,' remarked Chimp's apprentice at
breakfast one morning, 'although I must admit that many impulses and
movements that come naturally to you are acquired by me with difficulty.
Last evening's attempt at leap-frog, for example, has left me so stiff
that I can hardly move, and I assure you that it has never before
occurred to me to climb that tree all the years I have known it. Perhaps
in a week or so, when my hands are healed, I may try again. But I can
see, Sim, that it must be very good to be a boy--very, very good.'
'Why yes, Billykins,' Chimp broke in, 'but you don't know really
anything about it yet. And I'm afraid you can't know on this island.
There isn't the company and there isn't the means. I can't even make you
an apple-pie bed, when you sleep in a single blanket; and a booby-trap
needs a door. And when there are only two people, and no one else to
laugh, it's no fun to stick a cactus in a fellow's chair. Tuck, too!
What do you know about tuck? What can you know about tuck when there's
no shop for chocolate and Turkish Delight and things like that? Tinned
stuff is all very well, but it gets jolly tedious. And birds'-nesting,
and ratting, and setting night lines, and dodging game-keepers, and
breaking into orchards! You haven't even elastic to make a catty with,
or so simple a contrivance as a fish-hook. Still we might rig up a bow
and arrow.'
'But,' the Hermit objected, 'there is nothing to shoot.'
'Oh yes!' said Chimp, 'sea-gulls.'
'We can't eat sea-gulls,' his apprentice replied. Then anxiously, 'Boys
don't eat sea-gulls, do they?'
'Why, no, Billykins; but that isn't the thing. Bringing them down is the
thing. It's sport.'
That evening after tea, Chimp approached his apprentice with a troubled
expression.
'I think I ought to tell you, Billykins,' he goaded himself to say,
'that some boys fall in love. Not all, mind. I never did it myself--I
think it's footle--but lots and lots do. I suppose you'd like to try it,
you're so thorough; though I don't see how you're going to manage
exactly.'
'You mean,' said the Hermit, 'on an island so poor in opportunities?
Yes, it would be difficult. Still, give me the outline.'
'Well, Billykins, it isn't very clear,' said Chimp. 'I believe though,
that the fellow feels sort of jolly inside while it's going on. But it
never lasts long.'
'And it's not compulsory?' the Hermit asked in some trepidation.
'Oh no, Billy, not at all.'
'Then we will dismiss love along with sport,' was the Hermit's decision.
Thus, in games and rambles and conversation, the time passed by, until
it was the evening before the day that would bring _The Tattooed
Quaker_, and Chimp and his apprentice were sitting before the cave,
watching the sinking sun.
'Well,' said the Hermit, 'only a few more hours, Sim, and you will be on
the way home again. Then I must to work once more. My great work on Man
and his place in Society, scientifically considered, awaits me. But I
shall miss you, Sim,' the old man added; 'you have been a very pleasant
chapter in my life. Don't forget me altogether, will you; and you'll pay
my Aunt Amelia a visit, won't you, and tell her about me?'
Chimp had a little difficulty in replying. He felt girlish, that is to
say, gulpy and tearful. At last, 'Why don't you come back too?' he
asked.
'I?' said the Hermit. 'Oh no, there is no place for Hermits in your
country.'
'I don't know about that,' said Chimp, speaking more naturally again.
'You might make a lot of money showing yourself in caravans at fairs.
People would go miles to see a hermit. I paid a penny once to see a fat
woman, and there was no end of a squash in the tent. You must come. I'll
take you to my uncle's, where I live in the vacs. and Jim--that's my
cousin--Jim and me'll give you a ripping time.'
The Hermit smiled sadly. 'No, no,' he said. After a short silence he
spoke again. 'Tell me, Sim--I ask merely out of curiosity--are boys
always contented with their surroundings?'
'Not by a long chalk,' Chimp answered. 'They're always running away.'
'Ah!' said the Hermit. 'How often have you run away?'
'Well, not at all, so far,' said Chimp, 'although Goring minor and I did
get all ready to bunk once, only Mother Porker copped us on the landing.
But we meant it, I can tell you. We were going to walk to Portsmouth,
sleeping under hay ricks, and hide ourselves as stowaways on board a
man-of-war, and show up when we got to sea, and do something heroic to
please the Captain, and after that win loads of prize-money and come
back covered with glory. Boys often do that in books. But old Mother
Porker copped us on the landing.'
'Bed-time,' said the Hermit.
When they rose the next morning, there, in the offing, heading straight
for the island, was _The Tattooed Quaker_. They hurried to the peak, and
the Hermit waved his handkerchief. The signal was seen on deck, and an
answering flag scurried up to the mast-head. After breakfast Chimp and
his apprentice walked down to the creek to welcome the yacht's boat.
The Captain looked at Chimp in amazement. 'What, Master Augustus!' he
said when he had shaken hands with the Hermit and delivered Aunt
Amelia's letter, 'what! have you got a pupil, then?'
'No,' replied the Hermit, 'he's not my pupil, he's your passenger'; and
so saying, he introduced Chimp, and then stood aside to see what his
aunt had to say; while the crew waited for the Captain's orders to move
the stores from the boat to the cave.
When the Hermit had finished reading, he returned the letter to its
envelope and slipped it into his pocket.
'Well, Master Augustus, are you coming back with us?' said the Captain,
exactly as he had asked the question for the past forty years.
The Hermit laughed in negative reply, exactly as he had laughed once a
year for the past forty years.
'Now then, my men, be quick,' said the Captain.
In the boat was a large hamper in which to convey the stores over the
rocks to the cave. Two of the sailors held it at each end, and the
Hermit accompanied them, while Chimp and the Captain strolled away
together. Three times the hamper was borne from the boat to the cell.
There then remained only a dozen or so of parcels, which the men might
easily carry in their hands. This time the Hermit did not accompany
them.
When the last of the stores were safely within the cave the boatswain
blew his whistle as a signal that all was ready, and Chimp and the
Captain of _The Tattooed Quaker_ hurried back to the creek.
'Where is Master Augustus?' the Captain inquired. 'The young gentleman
wants to say good-bye to him.'
'He must be in the cave,' said Chimp. 'I'll run and see.'
But the cave was empty. Chimp climbed the rock before the entrance and
called, 'Bi-i-illykins, Bi-i-illykins!' No answer. 'I must have missed
him on his way back to the creek,' he thought, and hurried to the shore
again.
'Be quick!' cried the Captain. 'Time's up!'
'But I can't find him,' Chimp called, floundering from boulder to
boulder.
'Can't find him?' echoed the Captain. 'That's very rum. I suppose he
wants to avoid the pain of parting. Come along; we can't stay any longer
now.'
So with a heavy heart Chimp took his place in the boat and watched how
with every stroke of the oars the distance widened between himself and
the island.
'Weigh the anchor!' cried the Captain, the moment they were on board.
_The Tattooed Quaker_ was a superb yacht, and in the ardour of
exploration Chimp forgot the Hermit and everything else. He examined the
cabin and the berths, he made friends with the steward, he descended
into the lazarette, where peering into the refrigerator, he found half a
game pie, and forthwith devoured it. He conversed learnedly with the
engineers about the size of the cylinders; he decided which hammock
would best minister to his own comfort; he overhauled the Captain's
stock of books, and by the time these duties were accomplished _The
Tattooed Quaker_ was well out to sea, and the island was only a thin
line on the horizon. And then a feeling of sadness for the loss of poor
old Billykins, left there all alone again, took hold of the boy, and he
retired dismally to his hammock to mope.
After dinner, however, at which meal he revived marvellously, he was in
gay enough spirits to tell the story of the Hermit's apprenticeship. The
Captain was in ecstasies. 'What a yarn for the old lady!' he remarked
again and again. 'What a yarn!'
Suddenly, as they sat in the darkling cabin, there appeared in the
doorway a figure which seemed in the gloom to resemble an elderly man
with a long grey beard.
'Mercy! What's that?' the Captain shouted, leaping from his chair and
drawing back. 'Who are you? What do you want?'
The figure took a step into the room. 'Simian,' it said, 'don't you
recognise me?'
'Why, it's Billykins!' cried Chimp, running forward and seizing the
Hermit's hand.
'Great Heavens! Master Augustus!' exclaimed the Captain. 'Where did you
spring from?'
'From the hamper!' said the Hermit.
Chimp and the Captain stared at each other for a moment, and
then--'What!' roared the Captain, 'a stowaway! Well, you're something
like an apprentice, you are!' And he smote the table till the ship
trembled, and laughed like the north wind.
The Hermit waited patiently till the storm abated, while Chimp gazed at
him in wonderment and admiration.
Then, in the lulls of the Captain's merriment, he explained. 'You see,'
he said, 'this boy has changed me considerably. I see things with new
eyes. And when I was standing there by the boat, the desire to run away
and be for ever quit of the island and solitude came strongly upon me.'
'Oh, what a model apprentice!' the Captain exclaimed.
'So,' continued the Hermit, a little abashed, 'well--so I crawled into
the hamper.'
'Hooray!' cried Chimp; it's splendid. But aren't you hungry?'
'Hungry?' said the Captain, 'I should think he is. Steward!' he called,
'bring some supper for Master Augustus.'
The steward came running into the cabin and stood transfixed--all eyes.
His appearance set the Captain off again; 'Don't be scared,' he said;
'he's alive, right enough.'
'I didn't see the gentleman come aboard,' the steward found words to
say.
'No,' said the Captain, 'no more didn't I. No more didn't no one. Master
Augustus has his own way of coming aboard.'
At this the Hermit laughed too, and the spell being broken, the steward
brought supper as to a man of flesh and blood.
'So I'm a runaway, Sim,' the Hermit said cheerily when he had finished;
'and there was no Mother Porker to catch me on the landing.'
'Catch you? No! You're A1 at it!' Chimp replied.
'Yes,' resumed the Hermit, stretching his limbs, 'we're going to be
comrades again. But when we're in England, mind, no fairs, Sim, no
caravans.'
Chimp laughed.
'And we'll go and see Ranji,' said the Hermit.