I know he was the one stuck that cold fried egg in P'fesser Bartet's overcoat pocket at dancin'-school, and ole p'fesser went and blamed it on me. Then, Carlie, he ctm up to me, th' other day, and he says, 'Smell my buttonhole bokay.' He had some vi'lets stickin' in his buttonhole, and I went to smell 'em and water squirted on me out of 'em. I guess I've stood about enough, and if he does another thing I don't like, he better look out!"
Penrod showed some interest, inquiring for details, whereupon Maurice explained that if Master Chitten displeased him further, Master Chitten would receive a blow upon one of his features.
Maurice was simple and homely about it, seeking rhetorical vigour rather than elegance; in fact, what he definitely promised Master Chitten was "a bang on the snoot."
"Well," said Penrod, "he never bothered ME any. I expect he knows too much for that!"
A cry of pain was heard from the dressing-room at this juncture, and, glancing through the doorway, Maurice and Penrod beheld Sam Williams in the act of sucking his right thumb with vehemence, the while his brow was contorted and his eyes watered. He came into the bathroom and held his thumb under a faucet.
"That darn little Carlie Chitten!" he complained. "He ast me to hold a little tin box he showed me. He told me to hold it between my thumb and fingers and he'd show me sumpthing. Then he pushed the lid, and a big needle came out of a hole and stuck me half through my thumb. That's a NICE way to act, isn't it?"
Carlie Chitten's dark head showed itself cautiously beyond the casing of the door.
"How's your thumb, Sam?" he asked.
"You wait!" Sam shouted, turning furiously; but the small prestidigitator was gone. With a smothered laugh, Carlie dashed through the groups of boys in the dressing-room and made his way downstairs, his manner reverting to its usual polite gravity before he entered the drawing-room, where his hostess waited.