complaining voice and manner, only declared:

"He's too much for me. I tell Arlo that Junior ought to be
locked up, or handcuffed, or something. And that's all the good
it does."

To complain to Mr. Weeks of his namesake was quite as
unsatisfactory.

"What? The young rascal!" Mr. Weeks would emphatically say.
"Arlo did that? Well, I tell you what. If you catch him at any
of his tricks, you thrash him. That's what you do--thrash him!
You have my full permission to punish him as though he were your
own boy. That's the only way to deal with a rascal like him."

So, you see, both parents shed responsibility, both for Arlo
Junior's mischief and punishment, just as easily as a duck sheds
rainwater. Under these circumstances
,
Arlo Junior usually went without punishment, no matter what he
did.

And here he was, swaggering along the walk with some of his
mates, hilariously telling them, perhaps, of how he had tolled
all the cats of the neighborhood into the Days' back kitchen.

Janice Day was a very human girl indeed. The thought of Junior's
trick and all it had brought about made her very, very angry.
She rushed right into the group of boys, all fully as big as she
was, soundly boxed Arlo Weeks' ears, and just as many times as