Then, in about two quacks and a waddle, the boy pulled up his pole again, and this time he didn't have anything on the hook, either. So he said again:
"Oh, dear me, and an angle worm! That's two big fish that have gotten loose."
Then he threw in his line again, and the next time when he pulled it up something came with it. Something wiggily, and black and yellow and red-spotted with wrinkly legs and a long snaky neck and head.
"Ker-thump!" it landed on the bank and the boy ran up to it. "Why, I've caught a mud turtle!" he cried.
"I am not!" the mud turtle called out, only he couldn't speak very plainly, for the hook was in his mouth. "I'm a fairy prince, and you had no right to catch me," he said.
Now, of course, the boy couldn't hear this, for he didn't understand the language used by the fairy prince. But Alice heard him, and so did Lulu and Jimmie.
"Oh, dear!" cried Alice. "That bad boy has caught the fairy prince! Let's run out and make him let the prince go!"
"Oh, no!" answered Lulu, "the boy might catch us then."
"I know what let's do," whispered Jimmie. "We'll get in the bushes right behind that boy, and quack and squawk as loud as we can: That will scare him and make him run away. I don't believe the mud turtle is fairy prince, but I don't want to see him hurt. Come on, girls. Now when I say: 'ready,' quack real loud."
So the three duck children went softly up to a bush right behind where that fisherman—I mean fisherboy—was sitting.