Attracted by the riot, Samuel Williams made his appearance, vaulting a fence, and was immediately followed by Maurice Levy and Georgie Bassett.  They stared incredulously at the extraordinary spectacle before them.

“Little gen-til-mun!” shrieked Marjorie, with a wild stroke that landed full upon Penrod’s tarry cap.

“OOOCH!” bleated Penrod.

“It’s Penrod!” shouted Sam Williams, recognizing him by the voice.  For an instant he had been in some doubt.

“Penrod Schofield!” exclaimed Georgie Bassett.  “What does this mean?” That was Georgie’s style, and had helped to win him his title.

Marjorie leaned, panting, upon her stick.  “I cu-called—­uh—­ him—­oh!” she sobbed—­“I called him a lul-little—­oh—­gentleman!  And oh—­lul-look!—­oh! lul-look at my du-dress!  Lul-look at Mumitchy—­oh—­Mitch—­oh!”

Unexpectedly, she smote again—­with results—­and then, seizing the indistinguishable hand of Mitchy-Mitch, she ran wailing homeward down the street.

“’Little gentleman’?” said Georgie Bassett, with some evidences of disturbed complacency.  “Why, that’s what they call me!”

“Yes, and you are one, too!” shouted the maddened Penrod.  “But you better not let anybody call me that!  I’ve stood enough around here for one day, and you can’t run over me, Georgie Bassett.  Just you put that in your gizzard and smoke it!”

“Anybody has a perfect right,” said Georgie, with, dignity, “to call a person a little gentleman.  There’s lots of names nobody ought to call, but this one’s a nice——­”

“You better look out!”

Unavenged bruises were distributed all over Penrod, both upon his body and upon his spirit.  Driven by subtle forces, he had dipped his hands in catastrophe and disaster:  it was not for a Georgie Bassett to beard him.  Penrod was about to run amuck.

“I haven’t called you a little gentleman, yet,” said Georgie.  “I only said it.  Anybody’s got a right to say it.”

“Not around me!  You just try it again and——­”

“I shall say it,” returned Georgie, “all I please.  Anybody in this town has a right to say ’little gentleman’——­”

Bellowing insanely, Penrod plunged his right hand into the caldron, rushed upon Georgie and made awful work of his hair and features.

Alas, it was but the beginning!  Sam Williams and Maurice Levy screamed with delight, and, simultaneously infected, danced about the struggling pair, shouting frantically: 

“Little gentleman!  Little gentleman!  Sick him, Georgie!  Sick him, little gentleman!  Little gentleman!  Little gentleman!”

The infuriated outlaw turned upon them with blows and more tar, which gave Georgie Bassett his opportunity and later seriously impaired the purity of his fame.  Feeling himself hopelessly tarred, he dipped both hands repeatedly into the caldron and applied his gatherings to Penrod.  It was bringing coals to Newcastle, but it helped to assuage the just wrath of Georgie.