第66章 CHAPTER XXII. THE HORN OF FAME(3)

"I spent it. I bought an air-gun for a dollar and sixty-five cents, and three sodies and some candy with the rest. I'll owe you the two dollars, Penrod. I'm willing to do that much."

"Well, why don't you give him the air-gun," asked the satirical Sam, "and owe him the rest?"

"I can't. Papa took the air-gun away from me because he didn't like sumpthing I did with it. I got to owe you the whole two dollars, Penrod."

"Look here, Roddy," said Penrod. "Don't you s'pose I'd rather keep this horn and blow on it than have you owe me two dollars?"

There was something about this simple question which convinced Roddy that his cause was lost. His hopes had been but faint from the beginning of the interview.

"Well--" said Roddy. For a time he scuffed the floor with his shoe. "Daw-gone it!" he said, at last; and he departed morosely.

Penrod had already begun to "practice" again, and Mr. Williams, after vain appeals to be permitted to practice in turn, sank into the wheelbarrow in a state of boredom, not remarkable under the circumstances. Then Penrod contrived--it may have been accidental--to produce at one blast two tones which varied in pitch.

His pride and excitement were extreme though not contagious.

"Listen, Sam!" he shouted. "How's THAT for high?"

The bored Sam made no response other than to rise languidly to his feet, stretch, and start for home.

Left alone, Penrod's practice became less ardent; he needed the stimulus of an auditor. With the horn upon his lap he began to rub the greenish brass surface with a rag. He meant to make this good ole two-dollar horn of his LOOK like sumpthing!

Presently, moved by a better idea, he left the horn in the stable and went into the house, soon afterward appearing before his mother in the library.

"Mamma," he said, complainingly, "Della won't--"

But Mrs. Schofield checked him.

"Sh, Penrod; your father's reading the paper."

Penrod glanced at Mr. Schofield, who sat near the window, reading by the last light of the early sunset.

"Well, I know it," said Penrod, lowering his voice. "But I wish you'd tell Della to let me have the silver polish. She says she won't, and I want to--"

"Be quiet, Penrod, you can't have the silver polish."

"But, mamma--"

"Not another word. Can't you see you're interrupting your father.

Go on, papa."

Mr. Schofield read aloud several despatches from abroad, and after each one of them Penrod began in a low but pleading tone:

"Mamma, I want--"

"SH, Penrod!"

Mr. Schofield continued to read, and Penrod remained in the room, for he was determined to have the silver polish.

"Here's something curious," said Mr. Schofield, as his eye fell upon a paragraph among the "locals."

"What?"