Penrod ran to the alley doors and closed them.
"My gracious!" Sam protested.

"What you goin' to do ?" "I'm goin' to keep this horse," said Penrod, whose face showed the strain of a great idea.
"What FOR ?" "For the reward," said Penrod simply.
Sam sat down in the wheelbarrow and stared at his friend almost with awe.
"My gracious," he said, "I never thought o' that! How--how much do you think we'll get, Penrod ?" Sam's thus admitting himself to a full partnership in the enterprise met no objection from Penrod, who was absorbed in the contemplation of Whitey.
"Well," he said judicially, "we might get more and we might get less." Sam rose and joined his friend in the doorway opening upon the two stalls.

Whitey had preempted the nearer, and was hungrily nuzzling the old frayed hollows in the manger.
"Maybe a hunderd dollars--or sumpthing ?" Sam asked in a low voice.
Penrod maintained his composure and repeated the newfound expression that had sounded well to him a moment before.

He recognized it as a symbol of the non--committal attitude that makes people looked up to.
"Well"-- he made it slow, and frowned--"we might get more and we might get less." "More'n a hunderd DOLLARS ?" Sam gasped.
"Well," said Penrod, "we might get more and we might get less." This time, however, he felt the need of adding something.

He put a question in an indulgent tone, as though he were inquiring, not to add to his own information but to discover the extent of Sam's.