“We’re on a desert island in earnest,” Bert said. He was the last to give up.
“Don’t talk about desert, it reminds me of dessert,” I said.
“I’m not so much in earnest either,” Hervey began laughing. “Come on, follow your leader.” Then he started to jump up on the railing.
I said, “It’s a very good joke; he, he, ho, ho, and a couple of ha ha’s! But how about lunch? We can’t start a fire on this bridge without burning it up and besides we haven’t got any kindling.”
“The only way we can get off the bridge is to burn it up,” Hervey said. “The boy scout stood on the burning bridge——”
“Eating fish by the peck,” I said. “This is a new kind of a desert island—1921 model. We made it ourselves. But what care we? We have food. We care naught, quoth I.”
“What good is the food?” Pee-wee screamed. “You broke the bridge, that’s what you did! And now we’ve got to go hungry.”
“Go?” I said. “What do you mean by ‘go’? You mean we’ve got to stay here hungry. Our skeletons will be found on Merry-go-round Island——”
“Following their leader,” Hervey said.
“Along with the skeleton of a faithful fish,” Bert said. “That’s what happens to young boys when they go around too much.”