(Under cover of this, OLIVER makes a great effort to get the book into
JILL’S desk, but it is no good.)

GOVERNESS (brushing aside JILL and advancing on OLIVER).  Thank you, I will take it.

OLIVER (looking at the title).  Oh yes, this is the one.

GOVERNESS.  And I will speak to your aunt at once about the behaviour of both of you. [She goes out.

OLIVER (gallantly). I don’t care.

JILL.  I did try to help you, Oliver.

OLIVER.  You wait.  Won’t I jolly well bag something of hers one day, just when she wants it.

JILL.  I’m afraid you’ll find the afternoon rather tiring without your book.  What will 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. . . .)