tail, only just a short stump like a bananner, and----"

However, lacking both time and inclination, I did not wait to hear about
the afflicted cow, but took my leave.

FOOTNOTE:

[H] Published by express permission of the Mark Twain Company as well as
the Trustees of the Estate of Samuel L. Clemens and Harper and Brothers,
Publishers.

[Illustration]

IX.--Bingism[I]

_By Booth Tarkington_

PENROD SCHOFIELD, having been "kept in" for that unjust period of twenty
minutes after school, emerged to a deserted street. That is, the street
was deserted so far as Penrod was concerned. Here and there people were
to be seen upon the sidewalks, but they were adults, and they and the
shade trees had about the same quality of significance in Penrod's
consciousness. Usually he saw grown people in the mass, which is to say,
they were virtually invisible to him, though exceptions must be taken in
favor of policemen, firemen, street-car conductors, motormen, and all
other men in any sort of uniform or regalia. But this afternoon none of
these met the roving eye, and Penrod set out upon his homeward way
wholly dependent upon his own resources.

To one of Penrod's inner texture, a mere unadorned walk from one point
to another was intolerable, and he had not gone a block without
achieving some slight remedy for the tameness of life. An electric-light
pole at the corner, invested with powers of observation, might have been
surprised to find itself suddenly enacting a role of dubious honor in
improvised melodrama. Penrod, approaching, gave the pole a look of sharp
suspicion, then one of conviction; slapped it lightly and contemptuously
with his open hand; passed on a few paces, but turned abruptly, and,
pointing his right forefinger, uttered the symbolic word, "Bing!"

The plot was somewhat indefinite; yet nothing is more certain than that
the electric-light pole had first attempted something against him, then
growing bitter when slapped, and stealing after him to take him
treacherously in the back, had got itself shot through and through by
one too old in such warfare to be caught off his guard.

Leaving the body to lie where it was, he placed the smoking pistol in a
holster at his saddlebow--he had decided that he was mounted--and
proceeded up the street. At intervals he indulged himself in other
encounters, reining in at first suspicion of ambush with a muttered,
"Whoa, Charlie!" or "Whoa, Mike!" or even "Whoa, Washin