L get it, though, if you
don't sit stiller," he continued, nipping in the bud any attempt on the
part of his patient to think that he already had "it."

"Pfuff!" said Penrod, meaning no disrespect, but endeavoring to dislodge
a temporary moustache from his lip.

"You ought to see how still that little Georgie Bassett sits," the
barber went on, reprovingly. "I hear everybody says he's the best boy in
town."

"Pfuff! PHIRR!" There was a touch of intentional contempt in this.

"I haven't heard nobody around the neighbourhood makin' no such
remarks," added the barber, "about nobody of the name of Penrod
Schofield."

"Well," said Penrod, clearing his mouth after a struggle, "who wants 'em
to? Ouch!"

"I hear they call Georgie Bassett the 'little gentleman,'" ventured the
barber, provocatively, meeting with instant success.

"They better not call ME that," returned Penrod truculently. "I'd like
to hear anybody try. Just once, that's all! I bet they'd never try it
ag----OUCH!"

"Why? What'd you do to 'em?"

"It's all right what I'd DO! I bet they wouldn't want to call me that
again long as they lived!"

"What'd you do if it was a little girl? You wouldn't hit her, would
you?"

"Well, I'd----Ouch!"

"You wouldn't hit a little girl, would you?" the barber persisted,
gathering into his powerful fingers a mop of hair from the top of
Penrod's head and pulling that suffering head into an unnatural
position. "Doesn't the Bible say it ain't never right to hit the weak
sex?"

"Ow! SAY, look OUT!"

"So you'd go and punch a pore, weak, little girl, would you?" said the
barber, reprovingly.

"Well, who said I'd hit her?" demanded the chivalrous Penrod. "I bet I'd
FIX her though, all right. She'd see!"

"You wouldn't call her names, would you?"

"No, I wouldn't! What hurt is it to call anybody names?"

"Is that SO!" exclaimed the barber. "Then you was intending what I heard
you hollering at Fisher's grocery delivery wagon driver fer a favour,
the other day when I was goin' by your house, was you? I reckon I better
tell him, because he says to me after-WERDS if he ever lays eyes on you
when you ain't in your own yard, he's goin' to do a whole lot o' things
you ain't goin' to like! Yessir, that's what he says to ME!"

"He better catch me first, I guess, before he talks so much."

"Well," resumed the barber, "that ain't sayin' what you'd do if a young
lady ever walked up and called you a little gentleman. _I_ want