"
Mr. Williams turned abruptly, walked to the fireplace, and there
turned again, facing the wretched Sam. "That's all you did?"
"Yes, sir."
"Georgie Bassett's mother has just told me over the telephone,"
Mr. Williams said, deliberately, "that you and Penrod Schofield
and Roderick Bitts and Maurice Levy LURED GEORGIE INTO THE CELLAR
AND HAD HIM BEATEN BY NEGROES!"
At this, Sam was able to hold up his head a little and to summon
a rather feeble indignation.
"It ain't so," he declared. "We didn't any such thing lower him
into the cellar. We weren't goin' NEAR the cellar with him. We
never THOUGHT of goin' down cellar. He went down there himself,
first."
"So! I suppose he was running away from you, poor thing! Trying
to escape from you, wasn't he?"
"He wasn't," Sam said doggedly. "We weren't chasin' him--or
anything at all."
"Then why did he go in the cellar?"
"Well, he didn't exactly GO in the cellar," Sam said reluctantly.
"Well, how did he GET in the cellar, then?"
"He--he fell in," said Sam.
"HOW did he fall in?"
"Well, the door was open, and--well, he kept walkin' around
there, and we hollered at him to keep away, but just then he kind
of--well, the first _I_ noticed was I couldn't SEE him, and so we
went and looked down the steps, and he was sitting down there on
the bottom step and kind of shouting, and--"
"See here!" Mr.
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