Sam marched, not looking back, and his father followed the small figure implacably.
“You goin' to whip me?” quavered Penrod, alone with Justice.
“Wash your face at that hydrant,” said his father sternly.
About fifteen minutes later, Penrod, hurriedly entering the corner drug store, two blocks distant, was astonished to perceive a familiar form at the soda counter.
“Yay, Penrod,” said Sam Williams. “Want some sody? Come on. He didn't lick me. He didn't do anything to me at all. He gave me a quarter.”
“So'd mine,” said Penrod.
CHAPTER XVIII MUSIC
Boyhood is the longest time in life for a boy. The last term of the school-year is made of decades, not of weeks, and living through them is like waiting for the millennium. But they do pass, somehow, and at last there came a day when Penrod was one of a group that capered out from the gravelled yard of “Ward School, Nomber Seventh,” carolling a leave-taking of the institution, of their instructress, and not even forgetting Mr. Capps, the janitor.
“Good-bye, teacher! Good-bye, school! Good-bye, Cappsie, dern ole fool!”