第64章 CHAPTER XXII. THE HORN OF FAME(1)

"Bet he won't come back!" said Sam.

"Well, he might."

"Well, if he does and he hasn't got any horn, I got a right to call him anything I want to, and he's got to stand it. And if he doesn't come back," Sam continued, as by the code, "then I got a right to call him whatever I like next time I ketch him out."

"I expect he'll have SOME kind of ole horn, maybe," said Penrod.

"No," the skeptical Sam insisted, "he won't."

But Roddy did. Twenty minutes elapsed, and both the waiting boys had decided that they were legally entitled to call him whatever they thought fitting, when he burst in, puffing; and in his hands he bore a horn. It was a "real" one, and of a kind that neither Penrod nor Sam had ever seen before, though they failed to realize this, because its shape was instantly familiar to them.

No horn could have been simpler: it consisted merely of one circular coil of brass with a mouthpiece at one end for the musician, and a wide-flaring mouth of its own, for the noise, at the other. But it was obviously a second-hand horn; dents slightly marred it, here and there, and its surface was dull, rather greenish. There were no keys; and a badly faded green cord and tassel hung from the coil.

Even so shabby a horn as this electrified Penrod. It was not a stupendous horn, but it was a horn, and when a boy has been sighing for the moon, a piece of green cheese will satisfy him, for he can play that it is the moon.

"Gimme that HORN!" Penrod shouted, as he dashed for it.

"YAY!" Sam cried, and sought to wrest it from him. Roddy joined the scuffle, trying to retain the horn; but Penrod managed to secure it. With one free hand he fended the others off while he blew into the mouthpiece.

"Let me have it," Sam urged. "You can't do anything with it.

Lemme take it, Penrod."

"No!" said Roddy. "Let ME! My goodness! Ain't I got any right to blow my own horn?"

They pressed upon Penrod, who frantically fended and frantically blew. At last he remembered to compress his lips, and force the air through the compression.

A magnificent snort from the horn was his reward. He removed his lips from the mouthpiece, and capered in pride.

"Hah!" he cried. "Hear that? I guess _I_ can't play this good ole horn! Oh, no!"

During his capers, Sam captured the horn. But Sam had not made the best of his opportunities as an observer of bands; he thrust the mouthpiece deep into his mouth, and blew until his expression became one of agony.

"No, no!" Penrod exclaimed. "You haven't got the secret of blowin' a horn, Sam. What's the use your keepin' hold of it, when you don't know any more about it 'n that? It ain't makin' a sound! You lemme have that good ole horn back, Sam. Haven't you got sense enough to see I know how to PLAY?"

Laying hands upon it, he jerked it away from Sam. who was a little piqued over the failure of his own efforts, especially as Penrod now produced a sonarous blat--quite a long one. Sam became cross.

"My goodness!" Roddy Bitts said peevishly. "Ain't I ever goin' to get a turn at my own horn? Here you've had two turns, Penrod, and even Sam Williams--"

Sam's petulance at once directed itself toward Roddy partly because of the latter's tactless use of the word "even," and the two engaged in controversy, while Penrod was left free to continue the experiments which so enraptured him.

"Your own horn!" Sam sneered. "I bet it isn't yours! Anyway, you can't prove it's yours, and that gives me a right to call you any--"

"You better not! It is, too, mine. It's just the same as mine!"

"No, sir," said Sam; "I bet you got to take it back where you got it, and that's not anything like the same as yours; so I got a perfect right to call you whatev--"

"I do NOT haf to take it back where I got it, either!" Roddy cried, more and more irritated by his opponent's persistence in stating his rights in this matter.

"I BET they told you to bring it back," said Sam tauntingly.

"They didn't, either! There wasn't anybody there."

"Yay! Then you got to get it back before they know it's gone."

"I don't either any such a thing! I heard my Uncle Ethelbert say Sunday he didn't want it. He said he wished somebody'd take that horn off his hands so's he could buy sumpthing else. That's just exactly what he said. I heard him tell my mother. He said, 'I guess I prackly got to give it away if I'm ever goin' to get rid of it.' Well, when my own uncle says he wants to give a horn away, and he wishes he could get rid of it, I guess it's just the same as mine, soon as I go and take it, isn't it? I'm goin' to keep it."

Sam was shaken, but he had set out to demonstrate those rights of his and did not mean to yield them.

"Yes; you'll have a NICE time," he said, "next time your uncle goes to play on that horn and can't find it. No, sir; I got a perfect ri--"

"My uncle don't PLAY on it!" Roddy shrieked. "It's an ole wore- out horn nobody wants, and it's mine, I tell you! I can blow on it, or bust it, or kick it out in the alley and leave it there, if I want to!"

"No, you can't!"

"I can, too!"

"No, you can't. You can't PROVE you can, and unless you prove it, I got a perf--"

Roddy stamped his foot. "I can, too!" he shrieked. "You ole durn jackass, I can, too! I can, can, can, can--"

Penrod suddenly stopped his intermittent production of blats, and intervened. "_I_ know how you can prove it, Roddy," he said briskly. "There's one way anybody can always prove sumpthing belongs to them, so that nobody'd have a right to call them what they wanted to. You can prove it's yours, EASY!"

"How?"

"Well," said Penrod, "if you give it away."

"What you mean?" asked Roddy, frowning.

"Well, look here," Penrod began brightly. "You can't give anything away that doesn't belong to you, can you?"

"No."

"So, then," the resourceful boy continued, "f'r instance, if you give this ole horn to me, that'd prove it was yours, and Sam'd haf to say it was, and he wouldn't have any right to--"

"I won't do it!" said Roddy sourly. "I don't want to give you that horn. What I want to give you anything at all for?"