Good-natured Horace repented him of his trifling.
"Look down in the water, Dotty, and see if there is anything there that looks like an eel?"
Dotty did not move.
"Don't go to being vexed, chickie; you're as bright as anybody, after all."
Dotty smiled again.
"There," said Horace, "now we'll begin not to talk. We'll not say a word, and next thing we know, we'll catch that eel."
But he was mistaken. They knew several other things before they knew they had caught an eel. Horace knew it was growing late, and Dotty knew it made her sleepy to sit without speaking.
"Enough of this," cried Horace, breaking the spell of silence at last. "You may talk now as much as you please. I've had my line out two hours. They say 'in mud eel is;' but I don't believe it."
"Nor I either."
But at that very moment an eel bit. Horace drew him in with great satisfaction.