"No, I guess you didn't," said the other boy. "Nobody ever tries to catch a Sallie Growler. They're too nasty and hard to get off the hook. 'Most always they swallow it, but this one didn't. He dropped off just as you landed him and then my dog came along and smelled him—Teddy's always smelling something—and the fish bit him."
"Do you live around here?" asked Russ.
"Yes, we're here for the summer. I guess I saw you down on the beach last night roasting marshmallows, didn't I?"
"Yes, and we gave your dog some," returned Laddie. "What's your name?"
"George Carr. What's yours?"
"Laddie Bunker."
"Mine's Russ," said Laddie's brother. "Oh, look! I guess I've got a crab!"
He ran to where he had tied the end of his string to a post of the pier, and began to pull in. Surely enough, on the end was a big blue-clawed crab, and, with the help of Laddie, who used the net, the creature was soon landed on the pier.
"Here! You keep away from that crab!" called George Carr to his dog Teddy. "Do you want your nose bit again?"
And from the way the crab raised its claws in the air, snapping them shut, it would seem that the shellfish would have been very glad indeed to pinch the dog's nose. But Teddy had learned a lesson. He kept well away from the gasping Sallie Growler, too.