Chapter Two.
Catching a Dorado.
For at that minute a slight sound from the schooner made him cast his eyes in that direction and see a lithe-looking lad of about his own age sliding down a rope into a little boat alongside, and then, casting off the painter, the boat drifted with the current to that in which Rob was seated.
“Had your nap?” said Rob.
“Yes,” replied the lad in good English, but with a slight Italian accent, as he fastened the little dinghy and stepped on board. “How many have you caught?”
Rob winced, and Shaddy chuckled, while Giovanni Ossolo, son of the captain of the Italian river schooner Tessa, looked sharply from one to the other, as if annoyed that the rough fellow should laugh at him.
“Shall I show him all you’ve caught, sir?” said Shaddy.
“Haven’t had a touch, Joe,” said Rob, an intimacy of a month on the river having shortened the other’s florid Italian name as above.
The Italian lad showed his teeth.
“You don’t know how to fish,” he said.