Bobby began to laugh, too. He could see that the joke was, after all, on him.
"And that's your big trout—ho, ho!" shouted Fred. "An old eel. Kill him with a club, Bobby. You'll never get him untangled if you don't."
"And he'll wiggle then till the sun goes down. Just like a snake," declared Bobby, repeating a boyish superstition held infallible by the boys of Clinton.
"Oh, dear!" sighed Fred, at last pulling the wet shirt off. "I'm aching for laughing. What a mess that line's in."
"And how about your own!" demanded Bobby, on a broad grin again, and pointing into the branches of the tree where Fred had flung his shiner.
"We're a pair of fine fishermen—I don't think!" admitted Fred, in some disgust.
He got off the remainder of his wet clothing, and slipped on his trunks.
"You might as well do the same, Bobby," he advised, while he laid his clothing over the low bushes back from the bank of the creek, where the sun could get at them nicely. "Look at your shirt. All slime from that old eel."
"I wish he'd keep still a minute," said Bobby, with some impatience. "What were eels ever made for?"
"They're good eating, some folks think. But I'd just as lief eat snakes."