"Little gentleman! Little gentleman! Lit----" A frightful figure tore itself free from the group, encircled this innocent bystander with a black arm, and hurled him headlong.

Full length and flat on his face went Roderick into the Stygian pool.

The frightful figure was Penrod.
Instantly, the pack flung themselves upon him again, and, carrying them with him, he went over upon Roderick, who from that instant was as active a belligerent as any there.
Thus began the Great Tar Fight, the origin of which proved, afterward, so difficult for parents to trace, owing to the opposing accounts of the combatants.

Marjorie said Penrod began it; Penrod said Mitchy-Mitch began it; Sam Williams said Georgie Bassett began it; Georgie and Maurice Levy said Penrod began it; Roderick Bitts, who had not recognized his first assailant, said Sam Williams began it.
Nobody thought of accusing the barber.

But the barber did not begin it; it was the fly on the barber's nose that began it--though, of course, something else began the fly.