rily dumbfounded Penrod.

It was a blue-steel Colt's revolver, of the heaviest pattern made in the
Seventies. Mr. Williams had inherited it from Sam's grandfather (a small
man, a deacon, and dyspeptic) and it was larger and more horrible than
any revolver either of the boys had ever seen in any picture, moving or
stationary. Moreover, greenish bullets of great size were to be seen in
the chambers of the cylinder, suggesting massacre rather than mere
murder. This revolver was Real and it was Loaded!

Both boys lived breathlessly through a magnificent moment.

"Leave me have it!" gasped Penrod. "Leave me have hold of it!"

"You wait a minute!" Sam protested, in a whisper. "I want to show you
how I do."

"No; you let me show you how _I_ do!" Penrod insisted; and they scuffled
for possession.

"Look out!" Sam whispered warningly. "It might go off."

"Then you better leave me have it!" And Penrod, victorious and flushed,
stepped back, the weapon in his grasp. "Here," he said, "this is the way
I do: You be a crook; and suppose you got a dagger, and I----"

"I don't want any dagger," Sam protested, advancing. "I want that
revolaver. It's my father's revolaver, ain't it?"

"Well, _wait_ a minute, can't you? I got a right to show you the way I
_do_, first, haven't I?" Penrod began an improvization on the spot. "Say
I'm comin' along after dark like this--look, Sam! And say you try to
make a jump at me----"

"I won't!" Sam declined this role impatiently. "I guess it ain't your
father's revolaver, is it?"

"Well, it may be _your_ father's but it ain't yours," Penrod argued,
becoming logical. "It ain't either's of us revolaver, so I got as much
right----"

"You haven't either. It's my fath----"

"_Watch_, can't you--just a minute!" Penrod urged vehemently. "I'm not
goin' to keep it, am I? You can have it when I get through, can't you?
Here's how _I_ do: I'm comin' along after dark, just walkin' along this
way--like this--look, Sam!"

Penrod, suiting the action to the word, walked to the other end of the
room, swinging the revolver at his side with affected carelessness.

"I'm just walkin' along like this, and first I don't see you," continued
the actor. "Then I kind of get a notion sumpthing wrong's liable to
happen, so I---- No!" He interrupted himself abruptly. "No; that isn't
it. You wouldn't notice that I had my good ole revolaver with me. You
wouldn't think I had one, because it'd be under my coat like this, a