He moved uneasily under the shabby blanket and the boys saw his hands, which lay outside the covering, clench and unclench, as if he were suffering a sudden spasm of pain.
Outside the tent there came a sound of plaintive yapping and howling. The little man’s mamelukes had smelled the fish.
“Reckon they’re hungry, poor beasts,” said the little man.
Joe did not reply, but moved to the door of the tent. He threw out the fish. The dogs sprang upon it ravenously, tearing it as if they had fasted for days. Joe watched them for a minute with an odd look on his bearded face. Then he turned to the man again.
“What your name, anyhow?”
“Dolittle—Peabody Dolittle,” said the man, “but somehow folks mostly call me Pod.”
Pod! The boys, despite the situation, could almost have laughed at the name.
Here was a bold thief who, by all the rules of fiction, should have borne some name that would fit with his supposedly desperate character, and instead of that he told them that he was “mostly called Pod.”
As for Joe, he could only gasp and shrug his shoulders helplessly.
“Boosh!” he exclaimed after an interval. “Pod, you an’ me and dese garçon got to have some talk, Pod.”