Set in the aftermath of 'Diogenes, Won't You Please Go Home.' The title is taken from a famous story about the philosopher Diogenes, who liked to irritate his fellow citizens by wandering around with a lit lamp in broad daylight; when asked what he thought he was doing, he would say that he was searching for an honest man.
The Skipper plunked a coconut into the basket Gilligan was carrying with perhaps more force than was strictly necessary. Gilligan teetered a bit before regaining his balance, but didn't stop talking. He hadn't stopped talking for hours. There seemed to be a distinct possibility that he never would.
"Anyway, I've been thinking about it—you guys were right. It wasn't right of me to try and keep that diary a secret," he was saying. "Keeping it private, not letting you all know what I was writing… that was like being sneaky. And it couldn't ever be right to be sneaky around your friends. I was really being a heel about the whole thing, and I'm real sorry, and cross my heart—you don't have to worry that I'll ever do anything like that ever again."
He stopped for a breath, dropped another coconut into his basket, incidentally knocking himself off balance for a moment, then continued.
"Anyway, you guys, you don't have to worry, because I decided that I'm never going to try and be sneaky ever again. From now on, I'll always tell you all everything I'm thinking, because you're all such swell friends that I don't want you to have to wonder and get all upset like you were. It's like they used to tell us in scouts, how important it was to always be honest, and so I'm gonna…"
Mr. Howell wasn't even pretending to collect coconuts anymore; his eyes had gone glassy and stunned somewhere between the monologue about how good the coconut pie that might possibly be made from some of the coconuts they were collecting would taste and the anecdote about the beach bus driver's toupee; bellowing for silence had only elicited an extremely extended apology for the annoyance. The apology had segued, without missing a beat, into a long reminiscence about the school librarian back home, who apparently, in addition to saying 'Shhh' a great deal, had moonlighted as a tutor. The captain of the football team, in any case, had been overheard enthusiastically telling his teammates how much he had learned from her…
That was about the time when the Professor's temples had started pounding in earnest, and neither the monologue nor the headache seemed likely to stop anytime soon.
A blow from the Skipper's cap had been no more successful; Gilligan had flinched a bit, putting up his hands to protect his face. Which had, of course, necessitated dropping the basket. And as he was scrambling about to retrieve the fallen coconuts, he had again apologized… at length… before launching into a detailed description of an old '51 Ford that his cousin Rudolph had been attempting to restore to working order before he, Gilligan, had departed for the Navy. It wasn't easy to find the right parts, and they had spent many a Saturday crawling around the junkyard—just like this, Skipper—looking for salvageable components. Well, maybe not just like this, since they were going to eat these coconuts, and trying to eat a carburetor would give a person about the worst case of indigestion imaginable, and why did they call it a 'carbur-eighter,' anyway? Why not a 'carbur-niner' or a 'carbur-sevener'? Or maybe…
If ever the phrase 'be careful what you wish for; you just might get it,' had summed up a situation, the Professor thought, this was certainly the time. Gilligan's mysterious diary—his refusal to share his innermost thoughts and memories—had driven their little community half mad with frustrated curiosity. In retrospect, and in all fairness, he had to admit that the younger man had had every right to some small scrap of privacy, something to call his own. The Howells had their ersatz country club; Mary Ann had her garden. Ginger had her plays; he, himself, had his makeshift laboratory. Gilligan claimed nothing but the clothes on his back and a small notebook, and they had begrudged him even that much.
Well, if they had wanted to know what he was thinking, they were certainly finding out, and with a vengeance.
…With a vengeance? That spurred the Professor to wonder; how much of this appalling stream of consciousness was intended as precisely that? His fellow castaways had resented his attempt at privacy; very well. He would, willingly and cheerfully, give them precisely what they wanted, keeping no thought unexpressed and no secret unvoiced. If it turned out that they didn't like utter candor and unbroken transparency, who could they blame but themselves?
'Subtle' and 'Gilligan' were not words the Professor was in the habit of using in tandem, at least without a 'not' or similar term in the mix, but he was beginning to wonder. Still waters run deep, as his mother used to say, and wide eyes and a guileless smile, he was beginning to suspect, were masking deeper waters than he had believed.
He had an uncomfortable feeling that he would never know for certain, but as the chatter went on (and on, and on…) he thought he saw a glimmer of mostly-hidden glee in Gilligan's eyes that argued, quite persuasively, that underestimating this most unprepossessing of his fellow castaways was neither sensible… nor safe.