"You can take the old thing," he said bitterly. "_I_ don't want
it!"
And before she was able to reply, he was out of the room. The
next moment he was out of the house.
"Daw-GONE 'em!" he said.
And then, across the street, his soured eye fell upon his true
comrade and best friend leaning against a picket fence and
holding desultory converse with Mabel Rorebeck, an attractive
member of the Friday Afternoon Dancing Class, that hated
organization of which Sam and Penrod were both members. Mabel was
a shy little girl; but Penrod had a vague understanding that Sam
considered her two brown pig-tails beautiful.
Howbeit, Sam had never told his love; he was, in fact, sensitive
about it. This meeting with the lady was by chance, and, although
it afforded exquisite moments, his heart was beating in an
unaccustomed manner, and he was suffering from embarrassment,
being at a loss, also, for subjects of conversation. It is,
indeed, no easy matter to chat easily with a person, however
lovely and beloved, who keeps her face turned the other way,
maintains one foot in rapid and continuous motion through an arc
seemingly perilous to her equilibrium, and confines her
responses, both affirmative and negative, to "Uh-huh.
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