Baker lit his pipe, looked up and down the river, and at his line. Then he shifted the line to his left hand, which he lifted to his left ear. With his right he made a winding movement close to his head, and said: "'Ullo! Exchange; put me on to Mr. Barble, please, miss."
To my intense amusement, and to Baker's obvious surprise, there was a sharp tug at the line. He remained for a while with his hand suspended near his right ear as though still on the handle of the old-fashioned telephone instrument. Then he gave a violent strike. But the barble—if indeed it was a barble—had had time to spit out the piece of soap and so escape.
Baker, still unaware of my presence, said: "Damn the fellow!" He shifted the line to his right hand, and went through the pantomime of getting on to the Exchange again, this time ringing with his left hand.
"'Ullo! Is that you, Exchange? Put me on to Mr. Barble again, please, miss."
No response from the fish.
"'Ullo! Exchange! What? No answer from Mr. Barble? Gone to lunch, eh?"
I moved off quietly up the river, and in course of time succeeded in catching a mud-fish weighing forty-eight pounds. I came back a couple of hours later, and found Baker had landed two immense fish of the same kind; one weighed fifty-three pounds and the other fifty-nine. He had also caught a poisonous looking eel. How he had landed these monsters he would not tell me; he contented himself with repeating: "My lad, you mustn't fish; you must angle."
When we reached the Zambesi, Baker almost neglected his cattle. He had never seen this grand river before. He at once got out a line and went "angling."
Coming down the river bank, I saw Baker standing on a rock a few yards from the bank.
Sitting on the bank was an old man, watching him.