"My country calls and I must go," says the bullhead to
himself, and he opens his mouth and the liver disappears.
It is not certain that the boy will think of his bait for half an
hour, but the bullhead is in no hurry. He lays in the mud and proceeds to
digest the liver. He realizes that his days will not be long in the land,
or water, more properly speaking, and he argues if he swallows the bait
and digests it before the boy pulls him out, he will be just so much
ahead. Finally the boy thinks of his bait, and pulls it out, and the
bullhead is landed on the bank, and the boy cuts him open to get the hook
out. Some fish only take the bait gingerly, and are only caught around the
selvage of the mouth, and they are comparatively easy to dislodge. Not so
with the bullhead. He says if liver is a good thing you can't have too
much of it, and it tastes good all the way down. The boy gets down on his
knees to dissect the bullhead, and get his hook, and it may be that the
boy swears. It would not be astonishing, though he must feel, when he gets
his hook out of the hidden recesses of the bullhead, like the minister
that took up a collection and didn't get a cent, though he expressed his
thanks at getting his hat back. There is one drawback to the bullhead, and
that is his horns. We doubt if a boy ever descended into the patent
insides of a bullhead, to mine for Limerick hooks, that did not, before
his work was done, run a horn into his vital parts.
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