“If you let it slip out of your hands you’ll go in after it,” Pee-wee shouted.
Believe me, I kept tight hold of that fish. It was a dandy fish, it was big enough for about six people to have all they wanted.
The man said, “That will keep you quiet for a while; be sure to scrape all the scales off and clean him out good.”
“You leave that to us,” I told him, “we’re boy scouts. Cooking fish is our middle name. There’s only one thing we do better than cooking fish and that is eating them. We can eat them till the cows come home and sometimes the cows stay out all night where we live. Believe me, I never had much use for Henry Hudson in the history books, but I’m glad he discovered the Hudson River as well as the Hudson Boulevard.”
“That’s in Jersey City,” Pee-wee shouted. “Do you think that’s named after Henry Hudson?”
“It’s named after the Hudson automobile,” Garry said.
“Sure it is,” I told him, “just the same as the Hudson River is named after the Hudson River Day Line; you learn that in the fourth grade; here, take this fish while I help turn the merry-go-round around, around, around. Then we’ll eat.”
The boat went chugging up the creek, the men laughing and waving their hands at us. Pee-wee sat down on the floor of the bridge hugging the fish as if it were his long lost brother. The rest of us started pushing the lever.
But, oh boy, it didn’t push.