en the tax-collector comes let's tell him we're self-supporting,
and play on him with the hose.... Well, perhaps, as you say,
we couldn't very well have a hose, as that comes from the main;
but we could sink a well in this chalk, and a lot could be
done with water-jugs.... Let this really be Beacon House.
Let's light a bonfire of independence on the roof, and see house
after house answering it across the valley of the Thames! Let us begin
the League of the Free Families! Away with Local Government! A fig
for Local Patriotism! Let every house be a sovereign state as this is,
and judge its own children by its own law, as we do by the Court
of Beacon. Let us cut the painter, and begin to be happy together,
as if we were on a desert island."

"I know that desert island," said Michael Moon; "it only
exists in the `Swiss Family Robinson.' A man feels a strange
desire for some sort of vegetable milk, and crash comes down
some unexpected cocoa-nut from some undiscovered monkey.
A literary man feels inclined to pen a sonnet, and at once
an officious porcupine rushes out of a thicket and shoots out
one of his quills."

"Don't you say a word against the `Swiss Family Robinson,'"
cried Innocent with great warmth. "It mayn't be
exact science, but it's dead accurate philosophy.
When you're really shipwrecked, you do really find what you want.
When you're really on a desert island, you never find it a desert.
If we were really besieged in this garden, we'd find a hundred
English birds and English berries that we never knew were here.
If we were snowed up in this room, we'd be the better for reading
scores of books in that bookcase that we don't even know are there;
we'd have talks with each other, good, terrible talks, that we shall
go to the grave without guessing; we'd find materials for everything--
christening, marriage, or funeral; yes, even for a coronation--
if we didn't decide to be a republic."

"A coronation on `Swiss Family' lines, I suppose," said Michael, laughing.
"Oh, I know you would find everything in that atmosphere. If we wanted
such a simple thing, for instance, as a Coronation Canopy, we should
walk down beyond the geraniums and find the Canopy Tree in full bloom.
If we wanted such a trifle as a crown of gold, why, we should be
digging up dandelions, and we should find a gold mine under the lawn.
And when we wanted oil for the ceremony, why I suppose a great storm
would wash everything on shore, and