nd
you wouldn't see it." Penrod stuck the muzzle of the pistol into the
waistband of his knickerbockers at the left side and, buttoning his
jacket, sustained the weapon in concealment by pressure of his elbow.
"So you think I haven't got any; you think I'm just a man comin' along,
and so you----"

Sam advanced. "Well, you've had your turn," he said. "Now, it's mine.
I'm goin' to show you how I----"

"_Watch_ me, can't you?" Penrod wailed. "I haven't showed you how _I_
do, have I? My goodness! Can't you watch me a minute?"

"I _have_ been! You said yourself it'd be my turn soon as you----"

"My goodness! Let me have a _chance_, can't you?" Penrod retreated to
the wall, turning his right side toward Sam and keeping the revolver
still protected under his coat. "I got to have my turn first, haven't
I?"

"Well, yours is over long ago."

"It isn't either! I----"

"Anyway," said Sam decidedly, clutching him by the right shoulder and
endeavoring to reach his left side--"anyway, I'm goin' to have it now."

"You said I could have my turn out!" Penrod, carried away by
indignation, raised his voice.

"I did not!" Sam, likewise lost to caution, asserted his denial loudly.

"You did, too."

"You said----"

"I never said anything!"

"You said---- Quit that!"

"Boys!" Mrs. Williams, Sam's mother, opened the door of the room and
stood upon the threshold. The scuffling of Sam and Penrod ceased
instantly, and they stood hushed and stricken, while fear fell upon
them. "Boys, you weren't quarreling, were you?"

"Ma'am?" said Sam.

"Were you quarreling with Penrod?"

"No, ma'am," answered Sam in a small voice.

"It sounded like it. What was the matter?"

Both boys returned her curious glance with meekness. They were summoning
their faculties--which were needed. Indeed, these are the crises which
prepare a boy for the business difficulties of his later life. Penrod,
with the huge weapon beneath his jacket, insecurely supported by an
elbow and by a waistband which he instantly began to distrust,
experienced distressful sensations similar to those of the owner of too
heavily insured property carrying a gasoline can under his overcoat and
detained for conversation by a policeman. And if, in the coming years,
it was to be Penrod's lot to find himself in that precise situation, no
doubt he would be the better prepared for it on account of this present
afternoon's experience under the scalding eye of Mrs. Williams. It
sho