“What, not dah?” cried Pomp.
“No.”
“All ’long side dat tree?”
“Oh, yes,” I cried; “what is it—a big fish?”
“No; dat nice lil ’gator, sah.”
“What? Why, we couldn’t eat alligator.”
“Oh, yes; eat um, got nuffum else,” cried Pomp, to my great disgust.
“But even if you would eat the nasty wretch, you can’t catch it.”
“No,” said Pomp. “Tell um fader can’t catch. Pomp wish dat, but lil ’gator, see um come on, cock um tail up and go right to de bottom. Oh, oh, Mass’ George, I so dreffle hungry. Feel as if um eatum own fader.”
There was something so comic in the poor fellow’s trouble that I could not forbear smiling as I went along to where Morgan was seated quietly enough by Sarah, and I felt something like anger and disgust as I saw that the former was eating something.