Mrs. Bassett had already telephoned them when she called us
up. You go on with your story!"
Sam sighed deeply, and yet it may have been a consolation to know
that his present misery was not altogether without its
counterpart. Through the falling dusk his spirit may have crossed
the intervening distance to catch a glimpse of his friend
suffering simultaneously and standing within the same peril. And
if Sam's spirit did thus behold Penrod in jeopardy, it was a true
vision.
"Go on!" Mr. Williams said.
"Well, there wasn't any fire in the furnace because it's too warm
yet, and we weren't goin' to do anything'd HURT him, so we put
him in there--"
"In the FURNACE?"
"It was cold," Sam protested. "There hadn't been any fire there
since last spring. Course we told him there was fire in it. We
HAD to do that," he continued earnestly, "because that was part
of the 'nishiation. We only kept him in it a little while and
kind of hammered on the outside a little and then we took him out
and got him to lay down on his stummick, because he was all muddy
anyway, where he fell down the cellar; and how could it matter to
anybody that had any sense at all? Well, then we had the rixual,
and--and--why, the teeny little paddlin' he got wouldn't hurt a
flea! It was that little coloured boy lives in the alley did
it--he isn't anyways near HALF Georgie's size but Georgie got mad
and said he didn't want any ole nigger to paddle him.
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