Shiner scratched his head in perplexity.
“Come again,” he said. “I don’t get you.”
Billy looked at him in patronizing scorn.
“Why, you poor fish,” he explained, “a change of nationality is when a man stops being a citizen of one country and becomes a citizen of another. It’s as if a Frenchman went to England and took the oath of allegiance to the English king. Instead of being any longer a Frenchman he’d then be an English subject. Or a Swede might come to this country and be naturalized here. He’d no longer be a Swede but an American. In other words, he’d have changed his nationality.”
“Cut it short, Billy,” interrupted Fred. “I want that dime.”
“You won’t get it,” retorted Billy. “Now I’ll put it to you again. To change a man’s nationality usually takes considerable time. What’s the shortest time it’s ever been done in? Now I’ll start to count. One—two—three——”
“I know,” shouted Pee Wee.
Billy, in some alarm, hurried on with his counting.
“Four, five, six, seven,” he rushed along.
“It’s this way,” sputtered Pee Wee, also in a hurry. “It was a man climbing a greased pole. He went up a Pole and he came down a rushin’.”