“’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.
“That’ll do,” interposed Miss Margaret, hastily. “I am quite sure, Tommy Tregennis, that you can count up to forty-five very nicely indeed,” and, laughing, she went upstairs.
After breakfast the ladies came down to see the boats leave the harbour with the tide.