"You're not angry with me for laughing at you this morning, are you, Ellison?"
"Angry? My dear old fellow, what on earth put that in your head? Why should I be angry? As it happens, you were quite right."
"That's the very reason I thought you might have been angry. We're never so easily put out of temper as when we're proved to be in the wrong. That's what is called the Refining Influence of Civilization."
"And what's to be done now? We can't live up here on this hillside forever. And, as far as I can see, we stand a very poor show of having anything given us down yonder."
"We must cut our tracks again, that's all. But how we're to get away, and where we're to go to is more than I can say. We've tried Adelaide, Melbourne, Sydney, and Brisbane; Rockhampton turned us out, Townsville and Cooktown proved as bad. Now Thursday Island turns its back on us. There's something rotten in the state of Denmark, my friend. Don't get cast-down over it, however; we've succeeded before, we'll do so again. As the proverb has it, 'Le desespoir redouble les forces.'"
"What do you propose?"
"Something practicable! I've been thinking. Don't laugh. It's a habit of mine. As I think best when I'm hungry, I become a perfect Socrates when I'm starving. Do you see that island over there?"
"Yes—Prince of Wales. What about it?"
"There's a pearling station round the bay. You can just catch a glimpse of it from here—a white roof looking out from among the trees. You see it? Very good! It belongs to an old man, McCartney by name, who is at present away with his boat, somewhere on the other side of New Guinea."
"Well, then, that stops our business right off. If the boss is away, how can it help us?"