"A sheep's-head?"
They were both staring at the old punt, where Dick Lee was apparently enjoying the most extraordinary good fortune.
"Yes, that's it. That's why he beats us so badly. They're a sight better'n clams, only you can't always get one. I wonder where he picked up that one."
"But how he does pull 'em in!"
"We're doing well enough," began Dabney, when suddenly there came a shrill cry of pain from the black boy's punt.
"He's barefooted," shouted Dab, with, it must be confessed, something like a grin; "and one of the little pirates has pinned him with his nippers."
That was the difficulty exactly, and there need not have been any very serious result of such an expression of a crab's bad temper. But Dick Lee was more than ordinarily averse to any thing like physical pain, and the crab which now had him by the toe was a very muscular and vicious specimen of his quarrelsome race.
The first consequence of that vigorous nip was a momentary dance up and down in the punt, accompanied by exclamatory howls from Dick, but not by a word of any sort from the crab.
The next consequence was, that the crab let go; but so at the same instant, did the rotten board in the boat-bottom, upon which Dick Lee had so rashly danced.
It let go of the rest of the boat so suddenly that poor Dick had only time for one tremendous yell, as it let him right down through to his armpits.