Sam sighed deeply, and yet it may have been a consolation to know that his present misery was not altogether without its counterpart. Through the falling dusk his spirit may have crossed the intervening distance to catch a glimpse of his friend suffering simultaneously and standing within the same peril. And if Sam's spirit did thus behold Penrod in jeopardy, it was a true vision.
"Go on!" Mr. Williams said.
"Well, there wasn't any fire in the furnace because it's too warm yet, and we weren't goin' to do anything'd HURT him, so we put him in there--"
"In the FURNACE?"
"It was cold," Sam protested. "There hadn't been any fire there since last spring. Course we told him there was fire in it. We HAD to do that," he continued earnestly, "because that was part of the 'nishiation. We only kept him in it a little while and kind of hammered on the outside a little and then we took him out and got him to lay down on his stummick, because he was all muddy anyway, where he fell down the cellar; and how could it matter to anybody that had any sense at all? Well, then we had the rixual, and--and--why, the teeny little paddlin' he got wouldn't hurt a flea! It was that little coloured boy lives in the alley did it--he isn't anyways near HALF Georgie's size but Georgie got mad and said he didn't want any ole nigger to paddle him. That's what he said, and it was his own foolishness, because Verman won't let ANYBODY call him 'nigger', and if Georgie was goin' to call him that he ought to had sense enough not to do it when he was layin' down that way and Verman all ready to be the paddler. And he needn't of been so mad at the rest of us, either, because it took us about twenty minutes to get the paddle away from Verman after that, and we had to lock Verman up in the laundry-room and not let him out till it was all over. Well, and then things were kind of spoiled, anyway; so we didn't do but just a little more--and that's all."
"Go on! What was the 'just a little more?'"
"Well--we got him to swaller a little teeny bit of asafidity that Penrod used to have to wear in a bag around his neck. It wasn't enough to even make a person sneeze--it wasn't much more'n a half a spoonful--it wasn't hardly a QUARTER of a spoonf--"