"I'd get MY father to buy me a fire-engine and team o' HORSES,"
Sam bellowed, "only he wouldn't!"
"Listen, can't you?" cried Roddy. "I mean he would most any time, but not this month. I can't have any money for a month beginning last Saturday, because I got paint on one of our dogs, and he came in the house with it on him, and got some on pretty near everything. If it hadn't 'a' been for that--"
"Oh, yes!" said Sam. "If it hadn't 'a' been for that! It's always SUMPTHING!"
"It is not!"
"Well, then, why'n't you go GET a real horn?"
Roddy's face had flushed with irritation.
"Well, didn't I just TELL you--" he began, but paused, while the renewal of some interesting recollection became visible in his expression. "Why, I COULD, if I wanted to," he said more calmly.
"It wouldn't be a new one, maybe. I guess it would be kind of an old one, but--"
"Oh, a toy horn!" said Sam. "I expect one you had when you were three years old, and your mother stuck it up in the attic to keep till you're dead, or sumpthing! "
"It's not either any toy horn," Roddy insisted. "It's a reg'lar horn for a band, and I could have it as easy as anything."
The tone of this declaration was so sincere that it roused the lethargic Penrod.
"Roddy, is that true?" he sat up to inquire piercingly.
"Of course it is!" Master Bitts returned. "What you take me for?
I could go get that horn this minute if I wanted to."
"A real one--honest?"
"Well, didn't I say it was a real one?"
"Like in the BAND?"
"I said so, didn't I?"
"I guess you mean one of those little ones," said Penrod.
"No, sir!" Roddy insisted stoutly; "it's a big one! It winds around in a big circle that would go all the way around a pretty fat man."
"What store is it in?"
"It's not in any store," said Roddy. "It's at my Uncle Ethelbert's. He's got this horn and three or four pianos and a couple o' harps and--"