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.'