“Let’s th-th-think of dinner,” says Mark. “It’s twelve o’clock. We haven’t eaten f-f-for two hours.”
Collins and Jiggins were cooking their dinner over a fire outside. They saw us looking out at them, and Jiggins called:
“Not hungry, boys? Oh no! Certainly not! If your appetites get to stirring around let us know. You will, won’t you? To be sure.”
“We c-can lend you some c-c-canned stuff,” says Mark, “if you haven’t all you n-need.”
That sort of made Collins’s face fall, but Jiggins went on grinning.
“No matter,” says he. “Can’t starve you out, eh? Don’t care. Keep you shut up, just the same. Can’t get out, eh? Windows stuck. Stuck tight. How d’you s’pose that happened?”
“I c-c-could tell you somethin’ else to do,” says Mark, “but I guess I won’t.”
“What’s that? What’s that?” Jiggins was paying attention. You could see by his face he had considerable respect for Mark. “Guess I’ll study over it a bit,” says he. “Study does it. Sure.” Then he began singing his tune again, “Tee-dum-dee. Deedle-deedle-dum.”
“There’s a way to do everything,” says Mark, “even to get out of this cabin.”
“To be sure,” says Jiggins. “No doubt. But find it, my boy. Find it. That’s the difficulty, eh? Easy to say, not easy to do.”