one of agony.

"No, no!" Penrod exclaimed. "You haven't got the secret of blowin' a
horn, Sam. What's the use your keepin' hold of it, when you don't know
any more about it 'n that? It ain't makin' a sound! You lemme have that
good ole horn back, Sam. Haven't you got sense enough to see I know how
to PLAY?"

Laying hands upon it, he jerked it away from Sam, who was a little
piqued over the failure of his own efforts, especially as Penrod now
produced a sonarous blat--quite a long one. Sam became cross.

"My goodness!" Roddy Bitts said peevishly. "Ain't I ever goin' to get
a turn at my own horn? Here you've had two turns, Penrod, and even Sam
Williams--"

Sam's petulance at once directed itself toward Roddy partly because of
the latter's tactless use of the word "even," and the two engaged in
controversy, while Penrod was left free to continue the experiments
which so enraptured him.

"Your own horn!" Sam sneered. "I bet it isn't yours! Anyway, you can't
prove it's yours, and that gives me a right to call you any--"

"You better not! It is, too, mine. It's just the same as mine!"

"No, sir," said Sam; "I bet you got to take it back where you got it,
and that's not anything like the same as yours; so I got a perfect right
to call you whatev--"

"I do NOT haf to take it back where I got it, either!" Roddy cried, more
and more irritated by his opponent's persistence in stating his rights
in this matter.

"I BET they told you to bring it back," said Sam tauntingly.

"They didn't, either! There wasn't anybody there."

"Yay! Then you got to get it back before they know it's gone."

"I don't either any such a thing! I heard my Uncle Ethelbert say Sunday
he didn't want it. He said he wished somebody'd take that horn off his
hands so's he could buy sumpthing else. That's just exactly what he
said. I heard him tell my mother. He said, 'I guess I prackly got to
give it away if I'm ever goin' to get rid of it.' Well, when my own
uncle says he wants to give a horn away, and he wishes he could get rid
of it, I guess it's just the same as mine, soon as I go and take it,
isn't it? I'm goin' to keep it."

Sam was shaken, but he had set out to demonstrate those rights of his
and did not mean to yield them.

"Yes; you'll have a NICE time," he said, "next time your uncle goes to
play on that horn and can't find it. No, sir; I got a perfect ri--"

"My uncle don't PLAY on it!" Roddy shrieked. "It's an ole wore-out horn
nobo