“His uncle,” says Mark, pointing to me.
Collins looked more than ordinary interested. “Lemme see, you told me his name back on the train, didn’t you? I don’t remember it.”
“D-d-don’t b’lieve I did,” says Mark.
“It’s Hieronymous Alphabet Bell,” says I, and Mark reached out with his foot and kicked me. The grass was so high Collins couldn’t see him do it.
“Oh,” says Collins, and he waded to shore. “Want to see my fish?”
We looked at it. It was a beauty, slender and graceful-like, with pretty red spots all down its sides.
Collins sat down and talked to us about fish and bears and deer and the woods, and then, the first we knew, he’d got the conversation around to Uncle Hieronymous. Mark looked at me and scowled, but I couldn’t see why.
“He lives all alone, mostly,” I told Collins, when he asked.
“I hear he’s quite an interesting character,” Collins said. “Guess I’ll stop in and see him on my way down-stream. He won’t chase me out, will he?”
I was just going to tell him uncle would be glad to see him when Mark spoke up: