s
wife. They were all just _starving_--and they couldn't wait while I
took time to come and ask you, mamma. I _got_ to go outdoors this
afternoon. I _got_ to! Sam's----"

She relented.

In the carriage-house, half an hour later, Penrod gave an account of
the episode.

"Where'd we been, I'd just like to know," he concluded, "if I hadn't
got out here this afternoon?"

"Well, I guess I could managed him all right," said Sam. "I was in the
passageway, a minute ago, takin' a look at him. He's standin' up agin.
I expect he wants more to eat."

"Well, we got to fix about that," said Penrod. "But what I mean--if I'd
had to stay in the house, where would we been about the most important
thing in the whole biz'nuss?"

"What you talkin' about?"

"Well, why can't you wait till I tell you?" Penrod's tone had become
peevish. For that matter, so had Sam's; they were developing one of the
little differences, or quarrels, that composed the very texture of
their friendship.

"Well, why don't you tell me, then?"

"Well, how can I?" Penrod demanded. "You keep talkin' every minute."

"I'm not talkin' _now_, am I?" Sam protested. "You can tell me _now_,
can't you? I'm not talk----"

"You are, too!" shouted Penrod. "You talk all the time! You----"

He was interrupted by Whitey's peculiar cough. Both boys jumped and
forgot their argument.

"He means he wants some more to eat, I bet," said Sam.

"Well, if he does, he's got to wait," Penrod declared. "We got to get
the most important thing of all fixed up first."

"What's that, Penrod?"

"The reward," said Penrod mildly. "That's what I was tryin' to tell you
about, Sam, if you'd ever give me half a chance."

"Well, I _did_ give you a chance. I kept _tellin'_ you to tell me,
but----"

"You never! You kept sayin'----"

They renewed this discussion, protracting it indefinitely; but as each
persisted in clinging to his own interpretation of the facts, the
question still remains unsettled. It was abandoned, or rather, it
merged into another during the later stages of the debate, this other
being concerned with which of the debaters had the least "sense." Each
made the plain statement that if he were more deficient than his
opponent in that regard, self-destruction would be his only refuge.
Each declared that he would "rather die than be talked to death"; and
then, as the two approached a point bluntly recriminative, Whitey
coughed again, whereupon they were miraculously sil