“Keep quiet! He’s counting the grains of sand. He’s got up into the millions.”
“He’s thinking up a way to hypnotize the fish. Stare at them hard enough, and they’ll swim right up on the beach.”
“He’s copying King Canute. Telling the waves to go back.”
“He’s working out a time-table for the tides.”
Ben turned his head. “As a matter of fact, the thing I’m thinking about is a thousand times more interesting than anything you’ve guessed.”
The two voices were those of David and Tom.
“I’ve always said,” observed David, “that you can’t catch our Benjie napping. He seems to be sitting there like a bump on a log, but he’s really thinking of the most remarkable things.”
“I shouldn’t wonder,” nodded Tom, “if it was something utterly prodigious—like why the water’s wet or fish have scales.”
“No,” said Ben pleasantly, “I was wondering how I could get Peter Cotterell’s treasure chest out of the place where his servant James Sampson hid it. It’s rather too heavy for me to handle by myself.”
The other two stared. “Benjie oughtn’t to have come out here without a cork helmet,” said David. “I suppose he’s got a sunstroke.”