“Then let’s go.”
“No, my lads, I’m not going to give you leave,” said the keeper, with a twinkle in his eyes; “but there’s a couple o’ rods and lines all right, under the thatch of the boat-house.”
“Yes, Bob, but what about bait?”
“Oh, I don’t know ’bout bait. P’r’aps there’s some big worms in the moss in that old tin pot in the corner.”
“Oh, Bob!” cried Mercer excitedly, while I felt my heart beat heavily.
“Yes, now I come to think of it, there is some worms in that tin pot, as I got to try for an eel or two.”
“Then we may go?”
“Nay, nay, don’t you be in a hurry. It won’t do. Why, if I was to let you two go, you might catch some fish, a big carp, or a perch, or one of they big eels.”
“Yes, of course we might.”
“And if you did, you’d go right back to the school and tell young Magglin, and he’d be setting night lines by the score all over the pond.”