“No, sir!”
“You won’t?”
“We won’t!”
“Very well! Now you alligators just listen! If you won’t be reasonable, we are going to knock this dam down, too. But to save you the trouble of building a fourth, we are going to shoot every blessed alligator around here. Yes, every single last alligator, women and children, big ones, little ones, fat ones, lean ones, and even that old codger sitting there with only two teeth left in his jaws!”
The old alligator understood that the officer was trying to insult him with that reference to his two teeth, and he answered:
“Young man, what you say is true. I have only two teeth left, not counting one or two others that are broken off. But do you know what those two teeth are going to eat for dinner?” As he said this the old alligator opened his mouth wide, wide, wide.
“Well, what are they going to eat?” asked one of the sailors.
“A little dude of a naval officer I see in a boat over there!”—and the old alligator dived under water and disappeared from view.
Meantime the Sturgeon had brought the torpedo to the very center of the dam, where four alligators were holding it fast to the river bottom waiting for orders to bring it up to the top of the water. The other alligators had gathered along the shore, with their noses and eyes alone in sight as usual.
The rowboat went back to the ship. When he saw the men climbing aboard, the Sturgeon went down to his torpedo.