island mushrooms, which are of enormous size. But this is a hand-painted one placed here in times of danger to conceal a chimney. They remove it, and tell-tale smoke issues; also, alas, the sound of children’s voices.)
SMEE. A chimney!
HOOK (avidly). Listen! Smee, ’tis plain they live here, beneath the ground. (He replaces the mushroom. His brain works tortuously.)
SMEE (hopefully). Unrip your plan, Captain.
HOOK. To return to the boat and cook a large rich cake of jolly thickness with sugar on it, green sugar. There can be but one room below, for there is but one chimney. The silly moles had not the sense to see that they did not need a door apiece. We must leave the cake on the shore of the mermaids’ lagoon. These boys are always swimming about there, trying to catch the mermaids. They will find the cake and gobble it up, because, having no mother, they don’t know how dangerous ’tis to eat rich damp cake. They will die!
SMEE (fascinated). It is the wickedest, prettiest policy ever I heard of.
