“Keep still. How can I get a ‘bite’ with you talking.”

“You need a bobber,” I joked.

He jiggled the line up and down for several moments.

“Hot dog!” I breathed as the hooked bag was lifted from the floor.

The soap man was still at work. He didn’t know that his traveling bag had “swallowed” our hook. I grinned to myself in the thought of how amazed he would be to suddenly learn that his bag had vanished.

But I grinned too soon.

With the hooked bag within a few inches of our hands, the string broke. And down went the bag, kerplunk!

The talking frog angrily awakened.

“R-r-r-a-t-s!” it rumbled, indignant over its fall. “R-r-r-a-t-s! R-r-r-a-t-s!”

Well, if ever you saw a scared man it was the spy. He pretty nearly jumped out of his skin, [[218]]as the saying is. His eyes bulged like sliced marbles.