“She did, too!”
“Not!”
“Did!” said Bill. “And you’ll get one now if she finds out you stuck paint on the house. You will!”
“I won’t!”
“Will, too! You know it’s wrong to stick paint on a house.”
“ ’Tisn’t!” Maud insisted. “She spanks you more’n she spanks me.”
“You wait an’ see!”
He shook his head ominously, and for a moment Maud was depressed, but the signs of foreboding vanished from her angelic brow, and she made the natural inquiry:
“What we goin’ to paint?”
To Bill also, it was evident that something had to be painted; but as he looked about him, the available material seemed sparse. As a being possessed of reason, he understood that a spanking applied to his sister in order to emphasize the immunity of houses, might well be thought to indicate that stables and fences were also morally unpaintable. Little appeared to remain at the disposal of a person who had just providentially acquired a can of red paint and a brush. Shrubberies were obviously impracticable, and Bill had his doubts about the trunks of trees: they were made of wood, he knew, like many houses and fences and stables.