“Do you despise me, Crichton? You are the best man amongst us.”
“On an island, my lady, perhaps; but in England, no.”
    The next school play of my experience was also drawn from the work of J. M. Barrie—The Admirable Crichton—but it wasn’t anywhere near as exciting as Peter Pan. When an aristocratic Pommie family is marooned on an island, the only useful member of the group proves to be the butler, Crichton, who generally takes charge, even to the point of winning the heart of Milady. But once they are rescued, they are obliged by the class system to return to their former stations. This telling piece about the absurdities of the class system seemed common sense to us kids—we could not understand why how the best man was not the man at the top. I was cast as a palm tree—the only role considered to be within my scope, but it wasn’t. I dropped my coconuts at all the wrong times.