"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 to hear
what you'd do to her. I guess I know, though--come to think of it."
"What?" demanded Penrod.
"You'd sick that pore ole dog of yours on her cat, if she had one, I
expect," guessed the barber derisively.
"No, I would not!"
"Well, what WOULD you do?"
"I'd do enough. Don't worry about that!"
"Well, suppose it was a boy, then: what'd you do if a boy come up to you
and says, 'Hello, little gentleman'?"
"He'd be lucky," said Penrod, with a sinister frown, "if he got home
alive.
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