"Um--muh--OW!" said Penrod, this thing having happened.
"D' I touch y' up a little?" inquired the barber, smiling falsely.
"Ooh--UH!" The boy in the chair offered inarticulate protest, as the
wound was rubbed with alum.
"THAT don't hurt!" said the barber. "You WILL 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.
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