'Them's pommes blanches, Frank,' said Dick, 'leastways that's what the Crows call 'em. I reckon they learnt it from the French Canadians. Turnips I call 'em, and mighty good they are. Try one.'
Frank wanted no second invitation—cooked and uncooked was much the same to him; anything would not come amiss which would fill up the terrible vacuum which he felt inside him.
'Shall I wake the young 'un, Dick?' he asked.
'No, let him sleep a bit. When these things are cooked a bit we'll wake him. He would make himself ill, bolting these pommes blanches raw, if you woke him now.'
'Yes,' assented Frank, 'poor old Towzer! I expect, if he dined with an ostrich to-day, he would eat his share even of mashed soda-water bottles!'
'His share!' exclaimed Wharton, 'he'd starve that ostrich.'
By-and-by, the pommes blanches being cooked, they woke the younger Winthrop, and, if they did not manage to satisfy his appetite, at any rate they finished the roots.
'Aren't there any more, Dick?' he asked.
'Not for supper,' replied the old man firmly.
'Well, then, let's begin breakfast, it is nearly morning,' urged the boy.