“Rotten,” said Mr. Bitts languidly.  “Anybody could talk like that. I could do it if I wanted to.”

Verman paused suddenly.

“Yes, you could!” exclaimed Penrod, stung.  “Let’s hear you do it, then.”

“Yessir!” the other partner shouted.  “Let’s just hear you do it!”

“I said I could if I wanted to,” responded Roderick.  “I didn’t say I would.”

“Yay!  Knows he can’t!” sneered Sam.

“I can, too, if I try.”

“Well, let’s hear you try!”

So challenged, the visitor did try, but, in the absence of an impartial jury, his effort was considered so pronounced a failure that he was howled down, derided, and mocked with great clamours.

“Anyway,” said Roderick, when things had quieted down, “if I couldn’t get up a better show than this I’d sell out and leave town.”

Not having enough presence of mind to inquire what he would sell out, his adversaries replied with mere formless yells of scorn.

“I could get up a better show than this with my left hand,” Roderick asserted.

“Well, what would you have in your ole show?” asked Penrod, condescending to language.

“That’s all right, what I’d have.  I’d have enough!”

“You couldn’t get Herman and Verman in your ole show.”

“No, and I wouldn’t want ’em, either!”

“Well, what would you have?” insisted Penrod derisively.  “You’d have to have sumpthing—­you couldn’t be a show yourself!”

“How do you know?” This was but meandering while waiting for ideas, and evoked another yell.

“You think you could be a show all by yourself?” demanded Penrod.

“How do you know I couldn’t?”

Two white boys and two black boys shrieked their scorn of the boaster.

“I could, too!” Roderick raised his voice to a sudden howl, obtaining a hearing.

“Well, why don’t you tell us how?”

“Well, I know how, all right,” said Roderick.  “If anybody asks you, you can just tell him I know how, all right.”

“Why, you can’t do anything,” Sam began argumentatively.  “You talk about being a show all by yourself; what could you try to do?  Show us sumpthing you can do.”

“I didn’t say I was going to do anything,” returned the badgered one, still evading.

“Well, then, how’d you be a show?” Penrod demanded.  “We got a show here, even if Herman didn’t point or Verman didn’t talk.  Their father stabbed a man with a pitchfork, I guess, didn’t he?”

“How do I know?”

“Well, I guess he’s in jail, ain’t he?”

“Well, what if their father is in jail?  I didn’t say he wasn’t, did I?”

“Well, your father ain’t in jail, is he?”

“Well, I never said he was, did I?”