Once there was an old hermit who lived under a drooping tree on the top of a really big hill.  All he owned in the world were his clothes, a fruitcake, a candlestick holder, and a goat.  The hill was covered with grass, and the goat was tied to the tree with a rope (which the hermit didn’t actually own but had merely “borrowed” from someone for an extended period of time).  The goat spent all day grazing and all night sleeping.  The hermit slept under the tree and used the goat as a pillow.  He had lived on top of the hill with the goat for sixteen years, three months, and five days now.  He didn’t remember exactly how he got there, but there he was so he might as well stay.  He didn’t go anywhere or do anything except eat persimmons from the drooping tree, because that’s what grew on it.  He often wished for a pomegranate tree, because when the persimmons weren’t ripe he couldn’t stand to eat them and so just starved for half a year.   Sometimes while he was starving he got out his fruitcake and candlestick holder and watched them.  (They never did much, but he watched them just the same.)  Then he put them away before he went to sleep.
 On the sixth day of the fourth month of the seventeenth year, he awakened to find a man in a brown suit carrying a briefcase standing before him.  The hermit sat up.  “Hullo,” he said.
 “Hullo,” said the stranger.
 “Beh-eh-eh,” bleated the goat and continued munching its grass.
 “What brings you to these parts?” the hermit asked.
 “I dunno,” the stranger said with a shrug.  “What about you?”
 “I don’t remember,” said the hermit.
 “Why not?”
 “I don’t remember that, either.”
 “Oh.”
 There was a pause.  The stranger in the brown business suit stared around at the hill meditatively.  His eyes fell upon the goat munching its grass contentedly.  The goat started and bleated pitifully in surprise as the eyes fell upon it and bounced off, but then the creature didn’t think much of it after that.  Eating grass was more important.  The stranger bent down and picked his eyes back up from where they had fallen and looked at the hermit again.
 “Is there anything I can do for you, specifically?” of the stranger the hermit inquired.
 The stranger thought.  “Um, maybe—well, actually, no.  Sorry.”
 “That’s all right.  Want to buy a fruitcake?”
 “You have a fruitcake?”
 “Yes.”
 “No.”
 “No what?”
 “No, I don’t want to buy it.”
 “Oh.”
 “That’s right.”
 “Well, do you happen to have a candlestick?”
 “Why?”
 “Because I haven’t got one.”
 “Oh.  Why haven’t you got one?”
 “I don’t know.  But I have a candlestick holder, see, and so I sort of figured I ought to have a candlestick to put it in.”
 “But then wouldn’t you need a match to light the candle?  What good would it do you otherwise?”
 “I never thought of that.  Do you have a candle and a match, then?”
 “No.  I don’t have either.”
 “Oh.  Well, then.”
 “Well, then,” the stranger echoed.
 The hermit considered.  “I suppose I should ask your name,” said he.
 “I suppose I should ask yours,” said the stranger.
 “So why, exactly, did you come visiting this way at all?” wondered the hermit out loud.  “Isn’t there anything you want at all?”
 “Well, now that you mention it, I would like to annex your goat.”
 “Oh, you would?”
 “Yes, I would.”
 The hermit watched while the stranger suited action to his stated desire.  He untied the end of the rope attached to the goat.  Then he slipped a finger through the goat’s collar and led it off down the hill and out of sight.
 “Beh-EH-eh-eh!” exclaimed the amicable goat and consented to be led quite amiably.
 The hermit watched them go until they finally disappeared.  Nearby the rope lay listless on the verdant ground, one end still tied to the drooping persimmon tree.
 “Hmm,” the hermit hummed thoughtfully.
 Time passed.
 The hermit got out his fruitcake and empty candlestick holder and watched them.  Then when the sun went down and it got dark beneath the drooping tree he put them away and went to sleep.  It took him a while longer, because he wasn’t used to not having the goat for a pillow, but eventually he fell asleep anyway.
 The next day he did pretty much the same thing.  Eventually the persimmons ripened and he got to eat again, and then the time of eating was over and he started starving and watching his fruitcake and candlestick holder again.
 About a year after the stranger annexed his goat the hermit was feeling hungry and fed up.  He was frustrated at not having a goat for a pillow.  More specifically, he was frustrated at not having his goat for a pillow.  He rather wanted his goat back.
 So, one day, the hermit just up and decided to go in search of his annexed goat.  He packed up his fruitcake and candlestick holder and tied the rope around his waist and got up from where he had been sitting for over seventeen years and started off down the hill and away from his drooping-tree home of a corresponding time period.
 It took him three weeks to get to the bottom of the hill.  (It was a really big one, after all.)  When he got there he came upon a boy playing tiddlywinks.
 “Ho there,” said the hermit.
 “Ho there, yourself,” said the boy, looking up.
 “Did you happen to see a goat and a man in a brown suit pass by here?”
 “Sure, mister.  ‘Bout a year ago.”
 “Thankee,” said the hermit, and continued on his way.
 A while later he entered a village.  Children played in the dusty street.  Adults bustled to and fro and to on errands.  None paid the old hermit much attention.  Various merchants were selling goods from market stalls and the like.  The hermit went up to a woman selling meat pies.  His mouth began to water.  He hadn’t had anything but persimmons in over seventeen years.
 He hailed the meat pie seller.  “Hullo, costermonger.”
 “What did you call me?” she demanded.
 “A costermonger.”
 “Well, you’re a grizzly old hermit.”
 “Yep, that’s right.”
 The woman selling meat pies was momentarily taken aback.  By who or what, she wasn’t sure, but she made her way forwards again.
 “Do you want a meat pie?” she asked.
 “Yes,” said the hermit.
 “That’ll be a haypenny.”
 The hermit didn’t respond.
 “Well?” said the costermonger.
 “I haven’t got a haypenny,” admitted the hermit.
 Have you got a penny, then?  You can buy two.”
 He shook his head.
 She put her hands on her hips.  “Haven’t you got any money at all?”
 “No, I don’t.”
 “You don’t?”
 “No.”
 “No, you don’t not, or no, you don’t?”
 “What?”
 “Never mind.  You can’t buy a meat pie without money.”
 “I know that.”
 “Then why did you want to buy one?”
 “I didn’t.”
 “You didn’t?”
 “No.  At least, I don’t think so.”
 “Then what did you want?”
 “I wanted a meat pie.”
 The woman sighed, irritated.  “Tell me once again, what exactly do you want?”
 “I want,” said the hermit slowly, enunciating each syllable, “a meat pie.  But I don’t want to buy one, because I haven’t any money.”
 “Oh.  Then go away.”
 The hermit stood there for a few moments.
 “Well?” she said at last.
 “Look, will you trade a meat pie for a fruitcake?” the hermit asked.
 “I detest fruitcake,” she said.
 “Will you trade anyway?”
 “No,” she said.
 “Oh.  Well, look, will you trade one for a candlestick holder?”
 “What candlestick holder?”
 “This one.”  He drew it out to show it to her.
 “I say, that’s a nice candlestick holder.”
 “It is that, I suppose.”
 “But where’s the candle?”
 “I don’t remember.  Oh, by the way, you haven’t seen a goat and a brown-suited stranger in these parts recently, have you?”
 “Oh, sure, about a year ago someone like that came through.  Had a goat with him.”
 “That’s what I said.”
 “Pardon?”
 “I’m looking for my goat.”
 “Well, where is your goat?”
 “I don’t know.  That’s why I’m looking for him.  I miss my pillow.”
 “Yes.”
 “What?”
 “Yes, I will trade a meat pie for your candlestick holder.”
 “Oh.  Okay.  Here.  Thank you.”
 “Your welcome,” she said, handing him the meat pie and taking the candlestick holder in return.  “Have a nice day.”
 “You too,” he said, and continued on his way.
 Towards the edge of the town the old hermit was accosted by a man of a pusillanimous disposition wearing a seedy hat and carrying a pitchfork who looked about seventeen years older than he would have looked seventeen years ago.
 “I say, that’s my rope you’ve got there,” said the man pusillanimously.
 “Is it?” inquired the hermit.
 “Yes, it is,” said the man.
 “I’ll be,” said the hermit.
 “Yes, you will.”
 “I will, what?” said the hermit, a bit confused.
 “You’ll be.  Actually, you are right now.”
 “I am?”
 “Yes.  At least, I think so.”
 “Well, I’ll be.”
 “No, you already are.”
 “Oh.”
 “Will you bite me?” asked the shrewd little man, looking out from beady eyes.
 “Excuse me?”
 “If I take it.”
 “Take what?”
 “The rope.”
 “Oh.  I dunno.  I suppose not.  I think I meant to return it, anyway.  Someday.  I used it to tie my goat up, you see.”
 “Did you?”
 “Yes, I did.”
 “Say, I saw a goat go by here about a year ago.  A guy in a brown suit was with ‘im.  Is that the one?”
 “Yep.”
 “Oh.  Well, nice talking to you.”  The man grabbed the rope from around the hermit’s waist and ran away.  The hermit stood a few moments and finished licking his fingers from his meal of meat pie.  Much better than persimmons for over seventeen years.  Well, actually less than that, because he didn’t eat them but for every half-year or so.  He tried to figure it out, but couldn’t divide seventeen in his head.  So he kept walking.
 Before long he came to a forest.  It reminded him of his drooping tree, because it only had one tree in it.  He drank some water from a brook flowing beside it.  He leaned over too far, though, and fell into the brook.
 The brook turned out to be more of a river than a brook, because it was pretty deep after all.  Luckily the hermit was mostly skin and bones which were lighter than water so he floated.  (He did get wet, though.)
 It was quite comfortable floating on his back so he stayed that way.  After a while the brook-river turned a trifle dusky and entered a quite tenebrous wood.  Spiders watched him from cobwebs on the river bank and yellow, slitted eyes watched him from the trees.
 “Just passing through,” he said to the eyes.  “You haven’t happened to see a goat, perchance, have you?”
 The eyes stared at him.
 “Oh.  I suppose you can’t talk.  Well, um, let me see.  Blink once for no, twice for you’re not sure, three times for maybe, and eighteen times for yes.”
 All the eyes blinked eighteen times.
 “About a year ago?”
 Eighteen more times.
 “Thanks for your help,” said the old hermit, and floated out of the gloomy woods into a decidedly and lazily lacustrine landscape and begin to float three times faster.
 While the hermit was trying to unknot his twisted tongue he floated into a really big lake, rather like his hill in that it was really big.  More like a freshwater sea, really, or even an ocean.  It was quite warm, too.  The breeze that now played over the water was quite refreshing.
 The hermit floated for a few days and eventually washed up on the shore of an island.  The island wasn’t very big, though, and he tumbled right over to the other shore and washed out to see again.  Soon after, however, he washed up on the shore of a bigger island and stayed there.
 The hermit stood up and looked about him.  In the powdery sand which sparkled in the sun he spied what were clearly goat-tracks, with patent-leather shoe tracks beside them.
 “Ah-ha!” he muttered, and followed the tracks.
 Before long he stumbled across an eskimo sitting in the noonday sun with his parka on.
 “Oops, sorry about that,” said the hermit, getting to his feet and helping the eskimo to regain his former upright sitting position.”
 “That’s all right,” said the eskimo.  “I’m used to it.  Only a year ago a goat and a man in a brown suit stumbled across me, too.”
 “Oh, well then, that’s all right,” said the hermit.  “I’m looking for the goat, you see.”
 “Are you, now.”
 “Yes, I am.  I didn’t like sleeping without a pillow.”
 “What do you sleep under?” asked the eskimo.
 “A drooping tree.”
 “Ah.  I sleep under an igloo.”
 “Where is it?”  The hermit looked around curiously.
 “Well, what I meant was, I sleep under an igloo, usually.”
 “Usually?”
 “That’s right.”
 “Is it?”
 “It is.”
 “Not left?”
 “Not left,” concurred the eskimo.
 The hermit was glad that the matter was cleared up.
 “Well, what do you do when you rarely don’t sleep under an igloo?” the hermit asked.
 “I don’t sleep under an igloo.”
 “Oh.”
 “You haven’t seen it, have you?”
 “Seen what?”
 “My igloo.”
 “No, I haven’t.  I just floated in on the tide a few minutes ago.”
 “That’s nice,” said the eskimo.
 “Hmm.  I suppose so.”  The hermit wasn’t completely sure, but it seemed plausible.
 “I only just built it yesterday,” said the eskimo dejectedly, “and now it’s gone.”
 “Odd,” said the hermit consolingly.  “What did you make it out of?”
 “Ice,” said the eskimo.  “Of course.”
 “Of course,” echoed the hermit.  “I say, are you ill?”
 “No, not really.  I’m just a little bit warm.  Blisteringly hot, really.”
 “Why don’t you take your parka off?”
 “I don’t know.  Say!”  The eskimo brightened.  “That sounds like a good idea.”
 “Glad to help,” said the hermit.  “Cheery-o.”
 “Hope you find your goat,” said the eskimo in a muffled voice from the depths of his parka, which he was in the process of taking off.
 The hermit continued on his search for his annexed goat.  Before long he came to deep dark hole in the ground.
 “Beh-EH-eh-eh,” bleated a goat from within the depths of the hole.
 “Stop eating my suit!” exclaimed a voice.
 The hermit crouched down by the hole.  “Hullo down there,” he called.
 “Hullo,” said the voice of the stranger.  “Is that you?”
 “Yes, it is.  You’ve got my goat.”
 “Do I, now.  I sort of noticed.”
 “I’d like to have him back, thank you.  You’ve annexed him long enough.”
 “Oh, well then, here you go.”  There was a scraping, pushing sound and the tumbling of pebbles and dirt and muffled bleats and grunts and then the hermit’s goat popped out of the hole.
 “Beh-eh-eh?” it bleated.
 “Yep,” said the hermit to the goat.  “Thank you kindly,” he said to the stranger in the pit.
 “Say, do you have anything to eat?” asked the stranger.  “I’ve been in this pit for a year.”
 “I have a fruitcake,” said the hermit.
 “I suppose it’ll have to do.”
 “Here you go,” said the hermit, and tossed the fruitcake down.
 “Much obliged,” said the stranger.
“Come, goat,” the hermit said to the goat.
 The hermit and the goat went.  Eventually they found a sparkling waterfall in the interior of the island with butterflies that fluttered by and around it.  It was all very pretty.  What’s more, there was a cave by the waterfall.  “A real live cave!” exclaimed the hermit when he saw it, because that’s where hermits are really supposed to live.  So the hermit sat in the opening of the cave, and watched the goat graze beside the waterfall, and they both lived happily every after.

* * * * * * * * *

 “Heigh ho,” called a voice down to the stranger in the brown goat-chewed suit in the pit.  “You haven’t seen an igloo hereabouts, have you?”
 “No, I haven’t,” replied the stranger.
 “Oh.  Well, dash it all.”
 “But I have chipped a tooth on this fruitcake.  It must be at least seventeen years old.  Probably more.”
 “Have you?”
 “Have I what?”
 “Chipped a tooth.”
 “Oh.  Yes, I have.”
 “Shall I find a dentist?”
 “That would be thoughtful of you.”
 “Then I shall go in search of a dentist and my igloo.  Till then.”
 “Till then.  Much obliged.”
 A while later another voice called down.
 “Excuse me, but have you seen a moral anywhere hereabouts?”
 “A moral?”
 “Yes, a moral.”
 “What kind of a moral?”
 “Gee, I dunno.  Just a moral, like a . . . you know what a moral is.”
 “Well, I suppose I do, after all.”
 “So?”
 “So what?”
 “Have you seen one?”
 “Seen a what?”
 “A moral.”
 “A moral.  No, I haven’t.”
 “You haven’t seen a single one?”
 “No.”
 “Oh.”
 “I don’t think there is one, in fact.”
 “There isn’t?”
 “I don’t think so.”
 “Well, how am I supposed to find a moral if there isn’t one?”
 “Um, you don’t, I guess.”
 “You guess?”
 “It’s an educated guess.”
 “Oh.  Well, then.  If you don’t really know.”
 “I don’t, but I don’t think there is one.”
 “A what?”
 “A moral.”
 “Oh.”
 “Well, good-bye.”
 “Are you leaving?”
 “No, I’m not.”
 “Well, then why did you say good-bye?”
 “I thought you were leaving.”
 “But I’m not.  At least, not yet.”
 “Oh.  Well, then.”
 “Say, would you like some lemonade?”
 “Lemonade?  Yes, that might be nice.  I believe I would like some lemonade.”
 “I would too.  I wish we had some.”
 “You mean we don’t?”
 “No, we don’t.”
 “Well, there’s fruitcake, if you like.”
 “Actually, I don’t.  I detest fruitcake.”
 “Why is that?  Does it need detesting?”
 “Why—I never really thought about that before.”
 “Why ever not?”
 “I haven’t the slightest idea.”
 “Oh.  Are you supposed to capitalize the word?”
 “What word?”
 “’Eskimo.’”
 “I can’t say I’m certain.  Do you know?”
 “No.  Can’t say it much bothers me either way, though.”
 “In that case, do you know what a costermonger is?”
 “A costermonger?  Someone who mongers costers, I suppose.”