Now this morning Tregennis had at last put an end to the plaguey varmint. As this trouble was overcome it was taken by the men as a sign that further good luck loomed ahead.
Miss Margaret went into the kitchen before breakfast and found Mrs. Tregennis packing the basket of food for Tregennis to take to sea.
"It do look a lot, don't it, Miss? There isn't much room on the boat, so you has to get it packed up tight as can be. They did oughter be back on Wednesday morning, but I puts in for a bit longer than that in case."
"If you find your store of food running short, Tregennis," advised Miss Margaret, "remember that you ought to chew a great number of times, forty-five chews to each bit of food I think it is, and then the supplies will last all the longer."
"My dear life, Miss; 'e do just bolt his food."
"Can't seem to taste it, somehow, if I do keep it in my mouth," Tregennis explained.
"He do eat his food too fast, Miss; I never knoo anyone eat so fast as 'e; I be always a-tellin' 'e."
"Well, he must practise this morning. Are you going to give him ham for breakfast, Mrs. Tregennis?"
"'Am?--no, miss--I'll 'am 'en. He haven't been to sea and caught no fish. If he don't work neither shall he eat. That's in the Bible, isn't it, Miss?"
"Something like it," agreed Miss Margaret.
"Yes, 'tis there, for sure. If a man will not work neither shall he eat. It don't say nothin' about a woman in like case."
"Oh, well," interrupted Tregennis, smiling good-humouredly. "_Will_ not work; but I _will_ work when there's work to be done--the pity is so often we _can't_."
"You're both evading this question of chewing," Miss Margaret complained. "It's all the fashion now to chew. They say that if you follow this plan you only need half the usual amount of food. You see it all nourishes you then; otherwise half is wasted."
"Sakes! Tom, you remember that!" admonished Mrs. Tregennis. "'An you too, Tommy, my man. Come here an' listen to your Mammy. If there's goin' to be any savin' in it every bite as you puts into your mouth you chews on forty-five times---- If so be as you can count so far," she added, as an afterthought.
"One--two--three--four--_five_--six--seven," began Tommy, in a dreary, sing-song voice, with incatchings of the breath.