ht 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, Washington!" for
preoccupation with the enemy outweighed attention to the details of
theatrical consistency, though the steed's varying names were at least
harmoniously masculine, since a boy, in these, creative moments, never
rides a mare. And having brought Charlie or Mike or Washington to
a standstill, Penrod would draw the sure weapon from its holster
and--"Bing! Bing! Bing!"--let them have it.

It is not to be understood that this was a noisy performance, or even an
obvious one. It attracted no attention from any pedestrian, and it
was to be perceived only that a boy was proceeding up the street at a
somewhat irregular gait. Three or four years earlier, when Penrod was
seven or eight, he would have shouted "Bing!" at the top of his voice;
he would have galloped openly; all the world might have seen that he
bestrode a charger. But a change had come upon him with advancing years.
Although the grown people in sight were indeed to him as walking trees,
his dramas were accomplished principally by suggestion and symbol.
His "Whoas" and "Bings" were delivered in a husky whisper, and his
equestrianism was established by action mostly of the mind, the
accompanying artistry of the feet being unintelligible to the passerby.

And yet, though he concealed from observation the stirring little scenes
he thus enacted, a love of realism was increasing within him. Early
childhood is not fastidious about the accessories of its drama--a cane
is vividly a gun which may instantly, as vividly, become a horse; but at
Penrod's time of life the lath sword is no longer satisfactory. Indeed,
he now had a vague sense that weapons of wood were unworthy to the point
of being contemptible and ridiculous, and he employed them only when
he was alone