His time is short for lazing.
Perhaps this is the reason why, when Peter isn't eating, he wants to
loaf around and watch other people work. Anyway, Peter is a tremendous
eater, and now that he wanted to grow fat, he felt that he must eat more
than ever. So he began at once to eat and eat and eat. But there was one
very important thing that Peter had forgotten. He had quite forgotten
that it was now late in the fall, and the tender, young, green things
which Peter dearly loves to eat were gone. He could no longer go down to
the sweet clover patch and fill himself full to bursting. Farmer Brown
had taken away all the cabbages and carrots and turnips that had made
his garden so attractive to Peter.
So now Peter had to hunt for what he had to eat. That made a great deal
of running about, and it is very hard work to grow fat when one runs
about. The more Peter ate, the more he had to hunt for his food; and the
more he had to hunt for his food, the more he had to run about; and the
more he had to run about, the more he hurried and the faster he ran.
Now, of course running takes fat off.
"Oh, dear!" cried Peter Rabbit. "Getting fat is not as easy as I
thought!"