“What do we care?  I and Rupe got to have billies, haven’t we?”

“How you make ’em?”

“Melt lead and pour in a hole we’re goin’ to make in the end of ’em.  Then we’re goin’ to carry ’em in our pockets, and if anybody says anything to us—­oh, oh! look out!  They won’t get a crack on the head—­oh, no!”

“When’s Rupe Collins coming?” Sam Williams inquired rather uneasily.  He had heard a great deal too much of this personage, but as yet the pleasure of actual acquaintance had been denied him.

“He’s liable to be here any time,” answered Penrod.  “You better look out.  You’ll be lucky if you get home alive, if you stay till he comes.”

“I ain’t afraid of him,” Sam returned, conventionally.

“You are, too!” (There was some truth in the retort.) “There ain’t any boy in this part of town but me that wouldn’t be afraid of him.  You’d be afraid to talk to him.  You wouldn’t get a word out of your mouth before old Rupie’d have you where you’d wished you never come around him, lettin’ on like you was so much!  You wouldn’t run home yellin’ ‘Mom-muh’ or nothin’!  Oh, no!”

“Who Rupe Collins?” asked Herman.

“‘Who Rupe Collins?’” Penrod mocked, and used his rasping laugh, but, instead of showing fright, Herman appeared to think he was meant to laugh, too; and so he did, echoed by Verman.  “You just hang around here a little while longer,” Penrod added, grimly, “and you’ll find out who Rupe Collins is, and I pity you when you do!”

“What he go’ do?”

“You’ll see; that’s all!  You just wait and——­”

At this moment a brown hound ran into the stable through the alley door, wagged a greeting to Penrod, and fraternized with Duke.  The fat-faced boy appeared upon the threshold and gazed coldly about the little company in the carriage-house, whereupon the coloured brethren, ceasing from merriment, were instantly impassive, and Sam Williams moved a little nearer the door leading into the yard.

Obviously, Sam regarded the newcomer as a redoubtable if not ominous figure.  He was a head taller than either Sam or Penrod; head and shoulders taller than Herman, who was short for his age; and Verman could hardly be used for purposes of comparison at all, being a mere squat brown spot, not yet quite nine years on this planet.  And to Sam’s mind, the aspect of Mr. Collins realized Penrod’s portentous foreshadowings.  Upon the fat face there was an expression of truculent intolerance which had been cultivated by careful habit to such perfection that Sam’s heart sank at sight of it.  A somewhat enfeebled twin to this expression had of late often decorated the visage of Penrod, and appeared upon that ingenuous surface now, as he advanced to welcome the eminent visitor.

The host swaggered toward the door with a great deal of shoulder movement, carelessly feinting a slap at Verman in passing, and creating by various means the atmosphere of a man who has contemptuously amused himself with underlings while awaiting an equal.