;
but I just like to know what's the reason it had to go and rain to-day.
Got all the days o' the week to choose from and goes and picks on
Saturday. That's a fine biz'nuss!"

"Well, in vacation----" Sam began, but at a sound from a source
invisible to him he paused. "What's that?" he said, somewhat startled.

It was a curious sound, loud and hollow and unhuman, yet it seemed to
be a cough. Both boys rose, and Penrod asked uneasily, "Where'd that
noise come from?"

"It's in the alley," said Sam.

Perhaps if the day had been bright, both of them would have stepped
immediately to the alley doors to investigate; but their actual
procedure was to move a little distance in the opposite direction. The
strange cough sounded again.

"_Say!_" Penrod quavered. "What _is_ that?"

Then both boys uttered smothered exclamations and jumped, for the long,
gaunt head which appeared in the doorway was entirely unexpected. It
was the cavernous and melancholy head of an incredibly thin, old,
whitish horse. This head waggled slowly from side to side; the nostrils
vibrated; the mouth opened, and the hollow cough sounded again.

Recovering themselves, Penrod and Sam underwent the customary human
reaction from alarm to indignation.

"What you want, you ole horse, you?" Penrod shouted. "Don't you come
coughin' around _me_!"

And Sam, seizing a stick, hurled it at the intruder.

"Get out o' here!" he roared.

The aged horse nervously withdrew his head, turned tail, and made a
rickety flight up the alley, while Sam and Penrod, perfectly obedient
to inherited impulse,[21-1] ran out into the drizzle and uproariously
pursued. They were but automatons of instinct,[21-2] meaning no evil.
Certainly they did not know the singular and pathetic history of the
old horse who had wandered into the alley and ventured to look through
the open door.

This horse, about twice the age of either Penrod or Sam, had lived to
find himself in a unique position. He was nude, possessing neither
harness nor halter; all he had was a name, Whitey, and he would have
answered to it by a slight change of expression if any one had thus
properly addressed him. So forlorn was Whitey's case, he was actually
an independent horse; he had not even an owner. For two days and a half
he had been his own master.

Previous to that period he had been the property of one Abalene Morris,
a person of color, who would have explained himself as engaged in the
hauling business.