“Oh! oh! wot a wopper,” cried Jim Scroggles, whose lean and lanky person seemed ill adapted to exist upon light fare.
“Well,” observed the captain, “the doctor and I shall make a careful calculation and let you know the result by supper-time, when the new system shall be commenced. What think you, Ailie, my pet, will you be able to stand it?”
“Oh yes, papa, I don’t care how much you reduce my allowance.”
“What! don’t you feel hungry?”
“No, not a bit.”
“Not ready for supper?”
“Not anxious for it, at any rate.”
“Och! I wish I wos you,” murmured Briant, with a deep sigh. “I think I could ait the foresail, av it wos only well biled with the laste possible taste o’ pig’s fat.”
By supper-time the captain announced the future daily allowance, and served it out.
Each man received a piece of salt junk—that is, salt beef—weighing exactly one ounce; also two ounces of broken biscuit; a small piece of tobacco, and a quarter of a pint of water. Although the supply of the latter was small, there was every probability of a fresh supply being obtained when it chanced to rain, so that little anxiety was felt at first in regard to it; but the other portions of each man’s allowance were weighed with scrupulous exactness, in a pair of scales which were constructed by Tim Rokens out of a piece of wood—a leaden musket-ball doing service as a weight.