"The coconut is a good, hard-wearing fruit, easy to handle, and amenable to discipline. Cut in half and hollowed out they make serviceable berets for schoolchildren. They make dependable doorstops and are miraculous as a missile. Boiled in their jackets they are delicious. Solomon Islanders climb trees for them. You can get milk out of them without having to get up at three o'clock in the morning and risk being kicked to death in the bails."