Pomp’s face was wonderful in its change.
“Wha de hookum line?” he said.
“Yes, you can’t catch fish like that.”
Scratching the head when puzzled must be a natural act common to all peoples, for the boy gave his woolly sconce a good scratch with first one hand and then the other.
“Dat berry ’tupid,” he said at last; “Pomp no ’tink of dat. What we do now?”
I stood musing for a few minutes as puzzled as he was. Then the bright thought came, and I took the lighter of the two canes, cut off the most pliant part, and then tearing my silk neckerchief in thin strips, I split the end of the cane, thrust in the haft of the knife, so that it was held as by a fork, and bound the cane tightly down the length of the knife-handle, and also below, so that the wood should split no farther; and as the knife was narrow in blade, and ran to a sharp point, we now had a formidable lance, with shaft fully twelve feet long.
“There!” I said triumphantly in turn, as I looked at Pomp.
“’Tick um froo de fis?” he said.
“Yes. We must find some deep pool, and see if we cannot spear something, so as to be food for the day.”
“Mass’ George ’tick um fis, Pomp find um.”