The Good Wolf looked thoughtful. He sat down and gently scratched his left ear with his hind foot.
"Do you want one?" he asked. "Let us make ourselves comfortable and talk it over."
So they sat down and Barty leaned against him with one arm round his neck and began to explain. "A desert island is a place where no one lives but you. There are no other people on it and there are no houses and no shops and you have to make yourself a hut to live in. And beautiful things grow wild—cocoanuts and big bunches of grapes. And there are goats and parrots you can tame so that they sit on your shoulder and talk to you."
"Do the goats sit on your shoulder and talk to you?" asked the Good Wolf, looking a little surprised.
"No, only the parrots," said Barty. "The goats follow you about and are friends with you. The only trouble sometimes is cannibals."
The Good Wolf shook his head. "I never saw a cannibal," he remarked.
"They are not nice," said Barty, "they are savage black men who want to eat people—but you can frighten them away with your gun," he ended quite cheerfully.
Then he told about Robinson Crusoe's man Friday and about everything else he could remember, and the story was so interesting and exciting that several times the Good Wolf quite panted. "Why, I should like it myself," he said, "I really should."
"If we only knew where there was a desert island," said Barty.
The Good Wolf looked thoughtful again and once more scratched his left ear with his right foot, but there was an expression on his face which made Barty open his eyes very wide.