"That's the trick!" he exclaimed triumphantly. "It takes a lot of doing, I admit; but with a little practice one soon learns the knack of it. Now for breakfast: cold boiled fowl, taro bread and eggs roasted in hot ashes—how will that do?"
"Scrumptious!" declared Burgoyne. "You must be rated chef of this establishment, old son."
Mostyn shook his head.
"It's all very fine when you do it for fun," he said. "When it's a matter of routine it's deadly monotonous. I vote we take turns."
"I might poison the lot of us," objected Alwyn.
"I'll risk that as far as I'm concerned," declared Peter cheerfully. "Now, then, let's search for eggs. There are dozens under the bushes. This island's like Covent Garden or Leadenhall Market. It's a wonder to me how these birds get here. Few of them seem to be able to fly."
With keen appetites, the four castaways sat down to breakfast. Deftly Peter extricated the eggs from the warm embers and distributed them amongst the hungry crew. Then in the height of his culinary triumph came the anti-climax. Every egg was addled.
"We're not running a parliamentary election, Mr. Mostyn," declared Hilda, when the high-flavoured relics of by-gone days were consigned to the sea.
"Aren't we, though?" rejoined Peter. "Burgoyne was proposing the election of a chef. I'm disqualified straight away, so that's all right."
"I believe you knew they were duds," said Alwyn.