Here Grandfather Pickerel stopped and reflected for a moment. Presently he added:
"Regarding objects that seem to drop out of the sky, I think of one exception—grasshoppers"—the little pickerels smacked their lips at mention of this delectable morsel—"which may either fly into the pool from a distance or leap in from the bank.
"I now come," said the patriarch, "to the most deadly danger with which we have to deal. I refer to the powerful fascination which seems to be exercised over us by those big two-legged creatures in tattered straw hats, carrying long, crooked poles over their shoulders, who come down to the pool and lure us to destruction with grubs impaled on sharp iron hooks. I don't know how to account for it," said Grandfather Pickerel, shaking his head and turning pale about the gills, "except on the theory of hypnotism—"
"Oh, here comes papa!" interrupted Baby Pickerel.
But the others were gazing in consternation at the patriarch, who was now white clear to the tip of his tail and shaking with terror. He was staring upward with wild, distended eyes. The others looked also and understood. The big man was there with his crooked pole. They felt themselves drawn toward him. He was throwing something into the pool.
"Back! Back!" shouted Grandfather Pickerel. "Back for your lives!" But the warning was too late. Father Pickerel, approaching from the middle of the river, jumped at the white grub, and all was over. The bereaved Pickerel family saw him dangling helplessly at the end of the big man's line, then disappearing into the unknown world where there is nothing to swim in.
"Back under the rocks, all of you!" thundered Grandfather Pickerel. "There is only one thing to be done. I must have that hook, or soon there'll be none left to tell the tale. Thank heaven, I have two sound teeth in my head yet."
