She looked as if she thought I had omnipotently arranged the climax. I passed the question on to the professor.
“Tentatively,” he said, “I should conjecture it was an outlying island somewhat to the north or east of Martinique.”
“But does any one live on it?”
“That Dr. Ulswater and myself will take upon us to discover.”
“Well, I think it's a nice island, anyway. But there aren't any boats. How are we going to get on it?”
“Precisely!” said the professor. “A problem! I would suggest, perhaps, a bridge of—of palm trees, felled—” he kindled with light inflammable ideas—“felled in such a manner as to fall forward upon the ship, thus, being fastened, to form a secure connection with the shore.”
“I don't see how you can chop them from here,” said Mrs. Mink.
“True. That is a difficulty.”
There was a pause. A green and scarlet parrot was swearing at us from where he swung on a vine above the bank. I leaned on the rail and listened to the parrot and considered his point of view.
“Professor,” I said at last; “this is a world of compensations. There's compensation in your not understanding the dialect of that parrot. His clothes are handsome, but his language is bad. You are religious and ascetic, and he's a worldling. I'm a worldling, too, but I can swim, and I see compensations.”