“You come here!” And the father's voice was as terrible as his face. “WHAT DID YOU DO TO GEORGIE BASSETT?”
“Nothin',” Sam gulped; “nothin' at all.”
“What!”
“We just—we just 'nishiated him.”
Mr. Williams turned abruptly, walked to the fireplace, and there turned again, facing the wretched Sam. “That's all you did?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Georgie Bassett's mother has just told me over the telephone,” Mr. Williams said, deliberately, “that you and Penrod Schofield and Roderick Bitts and Maurice Levy LURED GEORGIE INTO THE CELLAR AND HAD HIM BEATEN BY NEGROES!”
At this, Sam was able to hold up his head a little and to summon a rather feeble indignation.
“It ain't so,” he declared. “We didn't any such thing lower him into the cellar. We weren't goin' NEAR the cellar with him. We never THOUGHT of goin' down cellar. He went down there himself, first.”
“So! I suppose he was running away from you, poor thing! Trying to escape from you, wasn't he?”