Booth Tarkington

“ Nor was music the root of it, for the identical desire is often uproarious among them that hate music. What stirred in Penrod was new neither in him nor in the world, but old—old as old Adam, old as the childishness of man. All children have it, of course; they are all anxious to Make a Noise in the World.
While the band approached, Penrod marked the time with his feet; then he fell into step and accompanied the musicians down the street, keeping as near as possible to the little man with the big horn. ”

“ Roddy, you're a——”
“Wait!” shouted Penrod, for he really believed Roddy's claims to be both moral and legal. When an uncle who does not even play upon an old second-hand horn wishes to get rid of that horn, and even complains of having it on his hands, it seems reasonable to consider that the horn becomes the property of a nephew who has gone to the trouble of carrying the undesired thing out of the house. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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——”
“Does he keep a music store?”
“No. These harps and pianos and all such are old ones—awful old.”
“Oh,” said Sam, “he runs a second-hand store!”
“He does not!? Master Bitts returned angrily. “He doesn't do anything. He's just got 'em. He's got forty-one guitars!
“Yay!” Sam whooped, and jumped up. “Listen to Roddy Bitts makin' up lies!” ”

“ Sam blew into the thing industriously.
“It won't work,” he announced.
“Course it won't!” Roddy Bitts shouted. “You can't make it go without you got a real horn. I'm goin' to get me a real horn some day before long, and then you'll see me goin' up and down here, playin' it like sixty. I'll——
“'Some day before long!'” Sam mocked. “Yes, we will! Why'n't you get it to-day, if you're goin' to?”
“I would,” said Roddy. “I'd go get the money from my father right now, only he wouldn't give it to me.”
Sam whooped, and Penrod, in spite of his great depression, uttered a few jibing sounds. ”

“ YAY!” shouted the taunting Sam Williams, whose every word and sound had now become almost unbearable to Master Bitts. Sam was usually so good-natured that the only explanation of his conduct must lie in the fact that Roddy constitutionally got on his nerves. “He knows he can't prove it! He's a goner, and now we can begin callin' him anything we can think of! I choose to call him one first, Penrod. ”

“ Roddy shrieked. “It's an ole wore-out horn nobody wants, and it's mine, I tell you! I can blow on it, or bust it, or kick it out in the alley and leave it there, if I want to!”
“No, you cant!”
Roddy stamped his foot.
“I can, too!” he shrieked. “You ole durn jackass, I can, too! I can, can, can, can——”
Penrod suddenly stopped his intermittent production of blats, and interposed.
“I know how you can prove it, Roddy,” he said, briskly. “Theres one way anybody can always prove sumpthing belongs to them, so that nobody'd have a right to call them what they wanted to. ”

“ Schofield went to take the horn to the house of Mr. Ethelbert Magsworth Bitts, Penrod sat quietly with his mother. Mr. Schofield was gone an hour and a half. Upon his solemn return, he reported that Roddy's father had been summoned by telephone to bring his son to the house of uncle Ethelbert. Mr. Bitts had forthwith appeared with Roddy, and, when Mr. Schofield came away, Roddy was still (after an hour's previous efforts) explaining his honorable intentions. ”

“ Penrod had removed the lid of the cistern; he was kneeling beside it, and the fact that the diameter of the opening into the cistern was one inch less than the diameter of the coil of Louis the Fifteenths hunting-horn was all that had saved Louis the Fifteenths hunting-horn from intentional drowning. ”

“ The longest-living author of this work died in 1946, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 77 years or less. This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works. ”