"
Altogether, Sam was sufficiently nervous without any help from
Penrod, and it was with pure horror that he heard his own name
and Mabel's shrieked upon the ambient air with viperish
insinuation.
"Sam-my and May-bul! OH, oh!"
Sam started violently. Mabel ceased to swing her foot, and both,
encarnadined, looked up and down and everywhere for the invisible
but well-known owner of that voice. It came again, in taunting
mockery:
"Sammy's mad, and I am glad,
And I know what will please him:
A bottle o' wine to make him shine,
And Mabel Rorebeck to squeeze him!"
"Fresh ole thing!" said Miss Rorebeck, becoming articulate. And
unreasonably including Sam in her indignation, she tossed her
head at him with an unmistakable effect of scorn. She began to
walk away.
"Well, Mabel," Sam said plaintively, following, "it ain't MY
fault. _I_ didn't do anything. It's Penrod."
"I don't care," she began pettishly, when the viperish voice was
again lifted:
"Oh, oh, oh!
Who's your beau?
Guess _I_ know:
Mabel and Sammy, oh, oh, oh!
_I_ caught you!"
Then Mabel did one of those things that eternally perplex the
slower sex.
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