"It is so," said the author with a little quiver of happiness.
"But you are bound to say that, aren't you?"
"I wouldn't say it if I didn't think it, Miss Pridmore."
The quaint solemnity delighted her.
"Uncle George says the Island of San Pedro is an imitation of 'Robinson Crusoe,' but nothing will ever make me admit that, so you had better not admit it either. Please say it isn't, to save my reputation for omniscience."
"I had not read 'Robinson Crusoe' when I wrote the Island, and I suppose if I had I should have written it differently."
"It's a very good thing you hadn't. There's nothing like the Island anywhere to my mind. You can see and feel and hear and smell and taste that Island. It is so real that when poor Dick was put ashore by the drunken captain of the brigantine Excelsior I literally daren't go to bed. And my brother Jack says—and I always quote this to Uncle George—that no more lifelike picture of a windjammer—it is a windjammer, isn't it?——"
"That's right."
"And of an island in the Pacific could possibly be given."
"Well, I wouldn't quite say that myself," said the sailorman, with the blood singing in his ears.