“What'd you do if it was a little girl? You wouldn't hit her, would you?”
“Well, I'd——Ouch!”
“You wouldn't hit a little girl, would you?” the barber persisted, gathering into his powerful fingers a mop of hair from the top of Penrod's head and pulling that suffering head into an unnatural position. “Doesn't the Bible say it ain't never right to hit the weak sex?”
“Ow! SAY, look OUT!”
“So you'd go and punch a pore, weak, little girl, would you?” said the barber, reprovingly.
“Well, who said I'd hit her?” demanded the chivalrous Penrod. “I bet I'd FIX her though, all right. She'd see!”
“You wouldn't call her names, would you?”
“No, I wouldn't! What hurt is it to call anybody names?”
“Is that SO!” exclaimed the barber. “Then you was intending what I heard you hollering at Fisher's grocery delivery wagon driver fer a favour, the other day when I was goin' by your house, was you? I reckon I better tell him, because he says to me after-WERDS if he ever lays eyes on you when you ain't in your own yard, he's goin' to do a whole lot o' things you ain't goin' to like! Yessir, that's what he says to ME!”
“He better catch me first, I guess, before he talks so much.”