"Business, I suppose?"
Penrod, turning to the door, suspected jocularity, but he found himself without recourse; he was nonplussed.
"Sure you won't let me have that horn tied up in nice wrapping-paper in case you decide to take it?"
Penrod was almost positive that the spirit of this question was satirical; but he was unable to reply, except by a feeble shake of the head--though ten minutes later, as he plodded forlornly his homeward way, he looked over his shoulder and sent backward a few words of morose repartee:
"Oh, I am, am I?" he muttered, evidently concluding a conversation which he had continued mentally with the salesman.
"Well, you're double anything you call me, so that makes you a smart Aleck twice! Ole double smart Aleck!"
After that, he walked with the least bit more briskness, but not much. No wonder he felt discouraged: there are times when eighty-five dollars can be a blow to anybody! Penrod was so stunned that he actually forgot what was in his pocket. He passed two drug stores, and they had absolutely no meaning to him. He walked all the way without spending a cent.
At home he spent a moment in the kitchen pantry while the cook was in the cellar; then he went out to the stable and began some really pathetic experiments. His materials were the small tin funnel which he had obtained in the pantry, and a short section of old garden hose. He inserted the funnel into one end of the garden hose, and made it fast by wrappings of cord. Then he arranged the hose in a double, circular coil, tied it so that it would remain coiled, and blew into the other end.