Page:Ruth Fielding at Lighthouse Point.djvu/158

148 ter, "what is the matter with you now? He's the greatest child! always getting into some mess."

Bob continued to dance; but he got into shoal water after a bit and there it was seen that he was doing a sort of Highland fling on one foot. The other had attached to it a big hard-shell crab; and no mortgage was ever clamped upon a poor man's farm any tighter than Mr. Crab was fastened upon Bob's great toe.

"Ooh! Ooh! Ooh!" repeated the big fellow, whacking away at the crab with the handle of his net.

Isadore tried to aid him, and instead of hitting the crab with his stick, barked Bob's ankle bone nicely.

"Ow! Ow! Ow!" yelled the youth in an entirely different key.

The girls were convulsed with laughter; but Tom got the big crab and the big boy apart. Bob wasn't satisfied until he had placed the hardshell between two stones and wrecked it—smashed it flat as a pancake.

"There! I know that fellow will never nip another inoffensive citizen," groaned Bob, and he sat on a stone and nursed his big toe and his bruised ankle until the others were ready to go home.

They got a nice mess of crabs; but Bob refused