“Well, suppose he does!” said the other, who resembled his companion, minus the stupid look; for if the keen, dark-grey eyes were truth-tellers of what was behind them, he was, as the men in his company said, sharp as a needle.
“S’pose he does!” said the young man addressed as Bobby—otherwise Robert Dickenson, second lieutenant in Her Majesty’s —th Mounted Infantry. “Well, that’s a cool way of talking. Suppose he does! Why, suppose one of the great magnified efts swallows the bait?”
“Suppose he does. What then?”
“Why, he’ll be more likely to pull me in than let me pull him out.”
“No doubt about it, if the line doesn’t break.”
“What should I do then, Drew, old man?”
“I don’t know what you’d do, my little man. I know what I should do.”
“Yes. What?”
“Let go.”
“Ah, I didn’t think of that,” said the young officer quite calmly. “I say, though, if it turned out to be a hippopotamus?”