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Tarkington, Booth, 1869-1946

"Penrod and Sam"

"Well, if you don't want to prove
it, and rather let us have the right to call you anything we want
to--well, all right, then," he said.
"You look out what you call me!" Roddy cried, only the more
incensed, in spite of the pains Penrod was taking with him. "I
don't haf to prove it. It's MINE!"
"What kind o' proof is that?" Sam Williams demanded severely.
"You GOT to prove it and you can't do it!"
Roddy began a reply, but his agitation was so great that what he
said had not attained coherency when Penrod again intervened. He
had just remembered something important.
"Oh, _I_ know, Roddy!" he exclaimed. "If you sell it, that'd
prove it was yours almost as good as givin' it away. What'll you
take for it?"
"I don't want to sell it," said Roddy sulkily.
"Yay! Yay! YAY!" shouted the taunting Sam Williams, whose every
word and sound had now become almost unbearable to Master Bitts.
Sam was usually so good-natured that the only explanation of his
conduct must lie in the fact that Roddy constitutionally got on
his nerves. "He KNOWS he can't prove it! He's a goner, and now we
can begin callin' him anything we can think of! I choose to call
him one first, Penrod.


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