that matter do parents want to be bothered with children on a South
Sea holiday. In _Masterman Ready_ there is a horrid little boy called
Tommy, aged six, who is always letting the musket off accidentally, or
getting bitten by a turtle, or taking more than his share of the
cocoanut milk. As a grown-up I wondered why his father did not give
him to the first savage who came by, and so allow himself a chance of
enjoying his island in peace; but at Tommy's age I should have
resented just as strongly a father who, even on a desert-island, could
not bear to see his boy making a fool of himself with turtle and
gunpowder.


I am not saying that a boy would really be happy for long, whether on
a desert-island or elsewhere, without his father and mother. Indeed it
is doubtful if he could survive, happily or unhappily. Possibly
William Seagrave could have managed it. William was only twelve, but
he talked like this: "I agree with you, Ready. Indeed I have been
thinking the same thing for many days past.... I wish the savages
would come on again, for the sooner they come the sooner the affair
will be decided." A boy who can talk like this at twelve is capable
of finding the bread-fruit tree for himself. But William is an
exception. I claim no such independence for the ordinary boy; I only
say that the ordinary boy, however dependent on his parents, does like
to pretend that he is capable of doing without them, wherefore he
gives them no leading part in the imaginary adventures which he
pursues so ardently. If they are there at all, it is only that he may
come back to them in the last chapter and tell them all about it...
and be suitably admired.