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Tarkington, Booth, 1869-1946

"Penrod and Sam"

You can't PROVE you can, and unless you prove it,
I got a perf--"
Roddy stamped his foot. "I can, too!" he shrieked. "You ole durn
jackass, I can, too! I can, can, can, can--"
Penrod suddenly stopped his intermittent production of blats, and
intervened. "_I_ know how you can prove it, Roddy," he said
briskly. "There's one way anybody can always prove sumpthing
belongs to them, so that nobody'd have a right to call them what
they wanted to. You can prove it's yours, EASY!"
"How?"
"Well," said Penrod, "if you give it away."
"What you mean?" asked Roddy, frowning.
"Well, look here," Penrod began brightly. "You can't give
anything away that doesn't belong to you, can you?"
"No."
"So, then," the resourceful boy continued, "f'r instance, if you
give this ole horn to me, that'd prove it was yours, and Sam'd
haf to say it was, and he wouldn't have any right to--"
"I won't do it!" said Roddy sourly. "I don't want to give you
that horn. What I want to give you anything at all for?"
Penrod sighed, as if the task of reaching Roddy's mind with
reason were too heavy for him.


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