“Yes, sah, Colonel! Yes, sah!” and the colored man awoke with a skill perfected by long practice under similar circumstances.
“Shag, the fishing here is miserable!”
“Yes, sah, Colonel. Shall we-all move?”
“Might as well. I haven't had a nibble, and from the looks of everything—even the evidence of Mr. Walton himself—it ought to have been a most choice location. However, there will be other days, and—”
The colonel's voice was cut short by a shrill call from his delicate reel, and a moment later he had leaped to his feet and cried:
“Shag, I'm a most monumental liar!”
“Yes, sah, Colonel. Dat's whut yo' suah is!”
“I've got the biggest bite I ever had! Get that landing net and see if you can forget that you're a cross between a snail and a mud turtle!” cried the colonel excitedly.
“Yes, sah!”
Shag moved on nimble feet, and presently stood down on the shore, near the edge of the stream, while the colonel, on the bank above the eddy, played the fish that had taken his bait and sought to depart with it to some watery fastness to devour it at his leisure. But the hook and tackle held him.