“You better not! It is, too, mine. It's just the same as mine!”
“No, sir,” said Sam; “I bet you got to take it back where you got it, and that's not anything like the same as yours; so I got a perfect right to call you whatev—”
“I do NOT haf to take it back where I got it, either!” Roddy cried, more and more irritated by his opponent's persistence in stating his rights in this matter.
“I BET they told you to bring it back,” said Sam tauntingly.
“They didn't, either! There wasn't anybody there.”
“Yay! Then you got to get it back before they know it's gone.”
“I don't either any such a thing! I heard my Uncle Ethelbert say Sunday he didn't want it. He said he wished somebody'd take that horn off his hands so's he could buy sumpthing else. That's just exactly what he said. I heard him tell my mother. He said, 'I guess I prackly got to give it away if I'm ever goin' to get rid of it.' Well, when my own uncle says he wants to give a horn away, and he wishes he could get rid of it, I guess it's just the same as mine, soon as I go and take it, isn't it? I'm goin' to keep it.”
Sam was shaken, but he had set out to demonstrate those rights of his and did not mean to yield them.
“Yes; you'll have a NICE time,” he said, “next time your uncle goes to play on that horn and can't find it. No, sir; I got a perfect ri—”
“My uncle don't PLAY on it!” 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!”