Fatty Coon waited until just the right moment. And then one of his paws darted suddenly into the water.
But instead of Fatty Coon catching the pickerel, someone else caught Fatty Coon.
His captor was no less a person than Timothy Turtle himself, who had been buried all this time in the mud almost under Fatty Coon's nose. That is, his body was buried. His head and neck he had left free, so that he might strike at a fish when one came his way. But he had seen something else that took his fancy. When Fatty's paw scooped into the water Timothy Turtle just had to grab it.
"Let me go!" Fatty Coon shrieked, for Mr. Turtle's cruel jaws hurt him terribly.
"Why, this is fun!" Timothy Turtle muttered thickly, as he took a firmer hold[p. 13] on Fatty's paw. "Besides, I've been wanting to talk with you for a long time."
"Then you'd better let me go," Fatty groaned, "because you can't talk well with your mouth full."
"I can say all I need to," Timothy Turtle grunted. "And I know that if I dropped your paw you'd run off."
"Hurry, then!" Fatty Coon begged him piteously. "Hurry and tell me what you have to say. And please talk fast!"
Timothy Turtle almost smiled.
"Am I hurting you?" he inquired.