One morning the Colonel announced that now the days had grown so short, and the Trio were so late coming to breakfast, and nobody did any work to speak of, it would be a good plan to have only two meals a day.
The motion was excessively unpopular, but it was carried by a plain, and somewhat alarming, exposition of the state of supplies.
"We oughtn't to need as much food when we lazy round the fire all day," said the Colonel. But Potts retorted that they'd need a lot more if they went on adoptin' the aborigines.
They knocked off supper, and all but the aborigine knew what it meant sometimes to go hungry to bed.
Towards the end of dinner one day late in December, when everybody else had finished except for coffee and pipe, the aborigine held up his empty plate.
"Haven't you had enough?" asked the Colonel mildly, surprised at Kaviak's bottomless capacity.
"Maw." Still the plate was extended.
"There isn't a drop of syrup left," said Potts, who had drained the can, and even wiped it out carefully with halves of hot biscuit.
"He don't really want it."
"Mustn't open a fresh can till to-morrow."