"'Little gentleman'?" said Georgie Bassett, with some evidences of
disturbed complacency. "Why, that's what they call ME!"
"Yes, and you ARE one, too!" shouted the maddened Penrod. "But you
better not let anybody call ME that! I've stood enough around here for
one day, and you can't run over ME, Georgie Bassett. Just you put that
in your gizzard and smoke it!"
"Anybody has a perfect right," said Georgie, with, dignity, "to call a
person a little gentleman. There's lots of names nobody ought to call,
but this one's a NICE----"
"You better look out!"
Unavenged bruises were distributed all over Penrod, both upon his body
and upon his spirit. Driven by subtle forces, he had dipped his hands in
catastrophe and disaster: it was not for a Georgie Bassett to beard him.
Penrod was about to run amuck.
"I haven't called you a little gentleman, yet," said Georgie. "I only
said it. Anybody's got a right to SAY it."
"Not around ME! You just try it again and----"
"I shall say it," returned Georgie, "all I please. Anybody in this town
has a right to SAY 'little gentleman'----"
Bellowing insanely, Penrod plunged his right hand into the caldron,
rushed upon Georgie and made awful work of his hair and features.
Alas, it was but the beginning! Sam Williams and Maurice Levy screamed
with delight, and, simultaneously infected, danced about the struggling
pair, shouting frantically:
"Little gentleman! Little gentleman! Sick him, Georgie! Sick him, little
gentleman! Little gentleman! Little gentleman!"
The infuriated outlaw turned upon them with blows and more tar, which
gave Georgie Bassett his opportunity and later seriously impaired the
purity of his fame.
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