PENROD

By Booth Tarkington

To

ohn, Donald And Booth Jameson

From A Grateful Uncle

CONTENTS

 I. A Boy and His Dog II. Romance III. The Costume IV. Desperation V. The Pageant of the Table Round VI. Evening VII. Evils of Drink VIII. School IX. Soaring X. Uncle John XI. Fidelity of a Little Dog XII. Miss Rennsdale Accepts XIII. The Smallpox Medicine XIV. Maurice Levy's Constitution XV. The Two Families XVI. The New Star XVII. Retiring from the Show-Business XVIII. Music XIX. The Inner Boy XX. Brothers of Angels XXI. Rupe Collins XXII. The Imitator XXIII. Coloured Troops in Action XXIV. "Little Gentleman" XXV. Tar XXVI. The Quiet Afternoon XXVII. Conclusion of the Quiet Afternoon XXVIII. Twelve XXIX. Fanchon XXX. The Birthday Party XXXI. Over the Fence

CHAPTER I A BOY AND HIS DOG

Penrod sat morosely upon the back fence and gazed with envy at Duke, hiswistful dog. 

A bitter soul dominated the various curved and angular surfaces knownby a careless world as the face of Penrod Schofield. Except in solitude, that face was almost always cryptic and emotionless; for Penrod hadcome into his twelfth year wearing an expression carefully trained to beinscrutable. Since the world was sure to misunderstand everything, meredefensive instinct prompted him to give it as little as possible to layhold upon. Nothing is more impenetrable than the face of a boy who haslearned this, and Penrod's was habitually as fathomless as the depthof his hatred this morning for the literary activities of Mrs. LoraRewbush--an almost universally respected fellow citizen, a lady ofcharitable and poetic inclinations, and one of his own mother's mostintimate friends. 

Mrs. Lora Rewbush had written something which she called "The Children'sPageant of the Table Round, " and it was to be performed in public thatvery afternoon at the Women's Arts and Guild Hall for the benefit of theColoured Infants' Betterment Society. And if any flavour of sweetnessremained in the nature of Penrod Schofield after the dismal trials ofthe school-week just past, that problematic, infinitesimal remnant wasmade pungent acid by the imminence of his destiny to form a prominentfeature of the spectacle, and to declaim the loathsome sentiments of acharacter named upon the programme the Child Sir Lancelot. 

After each rehearsal he had plotted escape, and only ten days earlierthere had been a glimmer of light: Mrs. Lora Rewbush caught a verybad cold, and it was hoped it might develop into pneumonia; but sherecovered so quickly that not even a rehearsal of the Children's Pageantwas postponed. Darkness closed in. Penrod had rather vaguely debatedplans for a self-mutilation such as would make his appearance as theChild Sir Lancelot inexpedient on public grounds; it was a heroicand attractive thought, but the results of some extremely sketchypreliminary experiments caused him to abandon it. 

There was no escape; and at last his hour was hard upon him. Thereforehe brooded on the fence and gazed with envy at his wistful Duke. 

The dog's name was undescriptive of his person, which was obviouslythe result of a singular series of mesalliances. He wore a grizzledmoustache and indefinite whiskers; he was small and shabby, and lookedlike an old postman. Penrod envied Duke because he was sure Duke wouldnever be compelled to be a Child Sir Lancelot. He thought a dog free andunshackled to go or come as the wind listeth. Penrod forgot the life heled Duke. 

There was a long soliloquy upon the fence, a plaintive monologue withoutwords: the boy's thoughts were adjectives, but they were expressed bya running film of pictures in his mind's eye, morbidly prophetic of thehideosities before him. Finally he spoke aloud, with such spleen thatDuke rose from his haunches and lifted one ear in keen anxiety. 

 "'I hight Sir Lancelot du Lake, the Child, Gentul-hearted, meek, and mild. What though I'm BUT a littul child, Gentul-hearted, meek, and----' OOF!"

All of this except "oof" was a quotation from the Child Sir Lancelot, asconceived by Mrs. Lora Rewbush. Choking upon it, Penrod slid down fromthe fence, and with slow and thoughtful steps entered a one-storied wingof the stable, consisting of a single apartment, floored with cement andused as a storeroom for broken bric-a-brac, old paint-buckets, decayedgarden-hose, worn-out carpets, dead furniture, and other condemned oddsand ends not yet considered hopeless enough to be given away. 

In one corner stood a large box, a part of the building itself: it waseight feet high and open at the top, and it had been constructed as asawdust magazine from which was drawn material for the horse's bed ina stall on the other side of the partition. The big box, so high andtowerlike, so commodious, so suggestive, had ceased to fulfil itslegitimate function; though, providentially, it had been at least halffull of sawdust when the horse died. Two years had gone by since thatpassing; an interregnum in transportation during which Penrod's fatherwas "thinking" (he explained sometimes) of an automobile. Meanwhile, thegifted and generous sawdust-box had served brilliantly in war and peace:it was Penrod's stronghold. 

There was a partially defaced sign upon the front wall of the box; thedonjon-keep had known mercantile impulses:

 The O. K. RaBiT Co. PENROD ScHoFiELD AND CO. INQuiRE FOR PRicEs

This was a venture of the preceding vacation, and had netted, at onetime, an accrued and owed profit of $1. 38. Prospects had been brighteston the very eve of cataclysm. The storeroom was locked and guarded, buttwenty-seven rabbits and Belgian hares, old and young, had perished hereon a single night--through no human agency, but in a foray of cats, thebesiegers treacherously tunnelling up through the sawdust from the smallaperture which opened into the stall beyond the partition. Commerce hasits martyrs. 

Penrod climbed upon a barrel, stood on tiptoe, grasped the rim of thebox; then, using a knot-hole as a stirrup, threw one leg over the top, drew himself up, and dropped within. Standing upon the packed sawdust, he was just tall enough to see over the top. 

Duke had not followed him into the storeroom, but remained near the opendoorway in a concave and pessimistic attitude. Penrod felt in a darkcorner of the box and laid hands upon a simple apparatus consisting ofan old bushel-basket with a few yards of clothes-line tied to each ofits handles. He passed the ends of the lines over a big spool, whichrevolved upon an axle of wire suspended from a beam overhead, and, withthe aid of this improvised pulley, lowered the empty basket until itcame to rest in an upright position upon the floor of the storeroom atthe foot of the sawdust-box. 

"Eleva-ter!" shouted Penrod. "Ting-ting!"

Duke, old and intelligently apprehensive, approached slowly, in asemicircular manner, deprecatingly, but with courtesy. He pawed thebasket delicately; then, as if that were all his master had expected ofhim, uttered one bright bark, sat down, and looked up triumphantly. Hishypocrisy was shallow: many a horrible quarter of an hour had taught himhis duty in this matter. 

"El-e-VAY-ter!" shouted Penrod sternly. "You want me to come down thereto you?"

Duke looked suddenly haggard. He pawed the basket feebly again and, upon another outburst from on high, prostrated himself flat. Againthreatened, he gave a superb impersonation of a worm. 

"You get in that el-e-VAY-ter!"

Reckless with despair, Duke jumped into the basket, landing in adishevelled posture, which he did not alter until he had been drawnup and poured out upon the floor of sawdust with the box. There, shuddering, he lay in doughnut shape and presently slumbered. 

It was dark in the box, a condition that might have been remedied bysliding back a small wooden panel on runners, which would have let inample light from the alley; but Penrod Schofield had more interestingmeans of illumination. He knelt, and from a former soap-box, in acorner, took a lantern, without a chimney, and a large oil-can, the leakin the latter being so nearly imperceptible that its banishmentfrom household use had seemed to Penrod as inexplicable as it wasprovidential. 

He shook the lantern near his ear: nothing splashed; there was no soundbut a dry clinking. But there was plenty of kerosene in the can; and hefilled the lantern, striking a match to illumine the operation. Then helit the lantern and hung it upon a nail against the wall. The sawdustfloor was slightly impregnated with oil, and the open flame quivered insuggestive proximity to the side of the box; however, some rather deepcharrings of the plank against which the lantern hung offered evidencethat the arrangement was by no means a new one, and indicated at least apossibility of no fatality occurring this time. 

Next, Penrod turned up the surface of the sawdust in another cornerof the floor, and drew forth a cigar-box in which were half adozen cigarettes, made of hayseed and thick brown wrapping paper, alead-pencil, an eraser, and a small note-book, the cover of which waslabelled in his own handwriting:

"English Grammar. Penrod Schofield. Room 6, Ward School Nomber Seventh. "

The first page of this book was purely academic; but the study ofEnglish undefiled terminated with a slight jar at the top of the second:"Nor must an adverb be used to modif----"

Immediately followed:

 "HARoLD RAMoREZ THE RoADAGENT OR WiLD LiFE AMoNG THE ROCKY MTS. "

And the subsequent entries in the book appeared to have little concernwith Room 6, Ward School Nomber Seventh. 

CHAPTER II ROMANCE

The author of "Harold Ramorez, " etc. , lit one of the hayseed cigarettes, seated himself comfortably, with his back against the wall and hisright shoulder just under the lantern, elevated his knees to support thenote-book, turned to a blank page, and wrote, slowly and earnestly:

"CHAPITER THE SIXTH"

He took a knife from his pocket, and, broodingly, his eyes upon theinward embryos of vision, sharpened his pencil. After that, he extendeda foot and meditatively rubbed Duke's back with the side of his shoe. Creation, with Penrod, did not leap, full-armed, from the brain; butfinally he began to produce. He wrote very slowly at first, and thenwith increasing rapidity; faster and faster, gathering momentum andgrowing more and more fevered as he sped, till at last the true firecame, without which no lamp of real literature may be made to burn. 

Mr. Wilson reched for his gun but our hero had him covred and soon saidWell I guess you don't come any of that on me my freind. 

Well what makes you so sure about it sneered the other bitting his lipso savageley that the blood ran. You are nothing but a common Roadagentany way and I do not propose to be bafled by such, Ramorez laughed atthis and kep Mr. Wilson covred by his ottomatick. 

Soon the two men were struggling together in the death-roes but soon MrWilson got him bound and gaged his mouth and went away for awhile leavinour hero, it was dark and he writhd at his bonds writhing on the floorwile the rats came out of their holes and bit him and vernim got allover him from the floor of that helish spot but soon he managed to pushthe gag out of his mouth with the end of his toungeu and got all hisbonds off. 

Soon Mr Wilson came back to tant him with his helpless condition flowedby his gang of detectives and they said Oh look at Ramorez sneering athis plight and tanted him with his helpless condition because Ramorezhad put the bonds back sos he would look the same but could throw themoff him when he wanted to Just look at him now sneered they. To hear himtalk you would thought he was hot stuff and they said Look at him now, him that was going to do so much, Oh I would not like to be in his fix. 

Soon Harold got mad at this and jumped up with blasing eyes throwin offhis bonds like they were air Ha Ha sneered he I guess you better nottalk so much next time. Soon there flowed another awful struggle andsiezin his ottomatick back from Mr Wilson he shot two of the detectivesthrough the heart Bing Bing went the ottomatick and two more went tomeet their Maker only two detectives left now and so he stabbed one andthe scondrel went to meet his Maker for now our hero was fightingfor his very life. It was dark in there now for night had falen and aterrible view met the eye Blood was just all over everything and therats were eatin the dead men. 

Soon our hero manged to get his back to the wall for he was fightingfor his very life now and shot Mr Wilson through the abodmen Oh said MrWilson you---- ---- ---- (The dashes are Penrod's. )

Mr Wilson stagerd back vile oaths soilin his lips for he was in pain Whyyou---- ----you sneered he I will get you yet---- ----you Harold Ramorez

The remainin scondrel had an ax which he came near our heros head withbut missed him and ramand stuck in the wall Our heros amunition wasexhaused what was he to do, the remanin scondrel would soon get his axlose so our hero sprung forward and bit him till his teeth met in theflech for now our hero was fighting for his very life. At this theremanin scondrel also cursed and swore vile oaths. Oh sneered he-------- ----you Harold Ramorez what did you bite me for Yes sneered MrWilson also and he has shot me in the abdomen too the----

Soon they were both cursin and reviln him together Why you---- ---- -------- ----sneered they what did you want to injure us for----you HaroldRamorez you have not got any sence and you think you are so much but youare no better than anybody else and you are a---- ---- ---- ---- --------

Soon our hero could stand this no longer. If you could learn to act likegentlmen said he I would not do any more to you now and your low vileexppresions have not got any effect on me only to injure your own selfwhen you go to meet your Maker Oh I guess you have had enogh for one dayand I think you have learned a lesson and will not soon atemp to beardHarold Ramorez again so with a tantig laugh he cooly lit a cigarrete andtakin the keys of the cell from Mr Wilson poket went on out. 

Soon Mr Wilson and the wonded detective manged to bind up their wondsand got up off the floor---- ----it I will have that dasstads life nowsneered they if we have to swing for it---- ---- ---- ----him he shallnot eccape us again the low down---- ---- ---- ---- ----

Chapiter seventh

A mule train of heavily laden burros laden with gold from the mines wasto be seen wondering among the highest clifts and gorgs of the Rocky Mtsand a tall man with a long silken mustash and a cartigde belt could beheard cursin vile oaths because he well knew this was the lair of HaroldRamorez Why---- ---- ----you you---- ---- ---- ---- mules you sneered hebecause the poor mules were not able to go any quicker ---- you I willshow you Why---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ----it sneered he his oaths growingviler and viler I will whip you---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ----yousos you will not be able to walk for a week---- ----you you mean old-------- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ----mules you

Scarcly had the vile words left his lips when----

"PENROD!"

It was his mother's voice, calling from the back porch. 

Simultaneously, the noon whistles began to blow, far and near; and theromancer in the sawdust-box, summoned prosaically from steep mountainpasses above the clouds, paused with stubby pencil halfway from lip toknee. His eyes were shining: there was a rapt sweetness in his gaze. Ashe wrote, his burden had grown lighter; thoughts of Mrs. Lora Rewbushhad almost left him; and in particular as he recounted (even bythe chaste dash) the annoyed expressions of Mr. Wilson, the woundeddetective, and the silken moustached mule-driver, he had feltmysteriously relieved concerning the Child Sir Lancelot. Altogether helooked a better and a brighter boy. 

"Pen-ROD!"

The rapt look faded slowly. He sighed, but moved not. 

"Penrod! We're having lunch early just on your account, so you'll haveplenty of time to be dressed for the pageant. Hurry!"

There was silence in Penrod's aerie. 

"PEN-rod!"

Mrs. Schofields voice sounded nearer, indicating a threatened approach. Penrod bestirred himself: he blew out the lantern, and shoutedplaintively:

"Well, ain't I coming fast's I can?"

"Do hurry, " returned the voice, withdrawing; and the kitchen door couldbe heard to close. 

Languidly, Penrod proceeded to set his house in order. 

Replacing his manuscript and pencil in the cigar-box, he carefullyburied the box in the sawdust, put the lantern and oil-can back in thesoap-box, adjusted the elevator for the reception of Duke, and, in nouncertain tone, invited the devoted animal to enter. 

Duke stretched himself amiably, affecting not to hear; and when thispretence became so obvious that even a dog could keep it up no longer, sat down in a corner, facing it, his back to his master, and his headperpendicular, nose upward, supported by the convergence of the twowalls. This, from a dog, is the last word, the comble of the immutable. Penrod commanded, stormed, tried gentleness; persuaded with honeyedwords and pictured rewards. Duke's eyes looked backward; otherwisehe moved not. Time elapsed. Penrod stooped to flattery, finally toinsincere caresses; then, losing patience spouted sudden threats. 

Duke remained immovable, frozen fast to his great gesture of implacabledespair. 

A footstep sounded on the threshold of the store-room. 

"Penrod, come down from that box this instant!"

"Ma'am?"

"Are you up in that sawdust-box again?" As Mrs. Schofield had just heardher son's voice issue from the box, and also, as she knew he was thereanyhow, her question must have been put for oratorical purposes only. "Because if you are, " she continued promptly, "I'm going to ask yourpapa not to let you play there any----"

Penrod's forehead, his eyes, the tops of his ears, and most of his hair, became visible to her at the top of the box. "I ain't 'playing!'" hesaid indignantly. 

"Well, what ARE you doing?"

"Just coming down, " he replied, in a grieved but patient tone. 

"Then why don't you COME?"

"I got Duke here. I got to get him DOWN, haven't I? You don't suppose Iwant to leave a poor dog in here to starve, do you?"

"Well, hand him down over the side to me. Let me----"

"I'll get him down all right, " said Penrod. "I got him up here, and Iguess I can get him down!"

"Well then, DO it!"

"I will if you'll let me alone. If you'll go on back to the house Ipromise to be there inside of two minutes. Honest!"

He put extreme urgency into this, and his mother turned toward thehouse. "If you're not there in two minutes----"

"I will be!"

After her departure, Penrod expended some finalities of eloquence uponDuke, then disgustedly gathered him up in his arms, dumped him into thebasket and, shouting sternly, "All in for the ground floor--step backthere, madam--all ready, Jim!" lowered dog and basket to the floorof the storeroom. Duke sprang out in tumultuous relief, and bestowedfrantic affection upon his master as the latter slid down from the box. 

Penrod dusted himself sketchily, experiencing a sense of satisfaction, dulled by the overhanging afternoon, perhaps, but perceptible: he hadthe feeling of one who has been true to a cause. The operation of theelevator was unsinful and, save for the shock to Duke's nervous system, it was harmless; but Penrod could not possibly have brought himself toexhibit it in the presence of his mother or any other grown person inthe world. The reasons for secrecy were undefined; at least, Penrod didnot define them. 

CHAPTER III THE COSTUME

After lunch his mother and his sister Margaret, a pretty girl ofnineteen, dressed him for the sacrifice. They stood him near hismother's bedroom window and did what they would to him. 

During the earlier anguishes of the process he was mute, exceeding thepathos of the stricken calf in the shambles; but a student of eyesmight have perceived in his soul the premonitory symptoms of a sinisteruprising. At a rehearsal (in citizens' clothes) attended by mothers andgrown-up sisters, Mrs. Lora Rewbush had announced that she wished thecostuming to be "as medieval and artistic as possible. " Otherwise, andas to details, she said, she would leave the costumes entirely to thegood taste of the children's parents. Mrs. Schofield and Margaret wereno archeologists, but they knew that their taste was as good as that ofother mothers and sisters concerned; so with perfect confidence they hadplanned and executed a costume for Penrod; and the only misgiving theyfelt was connected with the tractability of the Child Sir Lancelothimself. 

Stripped to his underwear, he had been made to wash himself vehemently;then they began by shrouding his legs in a pair of silk stockings, onceblue but now mostly whitish. Upon Penrod they visibly surpassed mereampleness; but they were long, and it required only a rather looseimagination to assume that they were tights. 

The upper part of his body was next concealed from view by a garmentso peculiar that its description becomes difficult. In 1886, Mrs. Schofield, then unmarried, had worn at her "coming-out party" a dress ofvivid salmon silk which had been remodelled after her marriage to accordwith various epochs of fashion until a final, unskilful campaign at adye-house had left it in a condition certain to attract much attentionto the wearer. Mrs. Schofield had considered giving it to Della, thecook; but had decided not to do so, because you never could tell howDella was going to take things, and cooks were scarce. 

It may have been the word "medieval" (in Mrs. Lora Rewbush's richphrase) which had inspired the idea for a last conspicuous usefulness;at all events, the bodice of that once salmon dress, somewhat modifiedand moderated, now took a position, for its farewell appearance insociety, upon the back, breast, and arms of the Child Sir Lancelot. 

The area thus costumed ceased at the waist, leaving a Jaeger-like andunmedieval gap thence to the tops of the stockings. The inventive geniusof woman triumphantly bridged it, but in a manner which imposes uponhistory almost insuperable delicacies of narration. Penrod's fatherwas an old-fashioned man: the twentieth century had failed to shake hisfaith in red flannel for cold weather; and it was while Mrs. Schofieldwas putting away her husband's winter underwear that she perceived howhopelessly one of the elder specimens had dwindled; and simultaneouslyshe received the inspiration which resulted in a pair of trunks for theChild Sir Lancelot, and added an earnest bit of colour, as well as agenuine touch of the Middle Ages, to his costume. Reversed, fore to aft, with the greater part of the legs cut off, and strips of silver braidcovering the seams, this garment, she felt, was not traceable to itsoriginal source. 

When it had been placed upon Penrod, the stockings were attached to itby a system of safety-pins, not very perceptible at a distance. Next, after being severely warned against stooping, Penrod got his feet intothe slippers he wore to dancing-school--"patent-leather pumps" nowdecorated with large pink rosettes. 

"If I can't stoop, " he began, smolderingly, "I'd like to know how'm Igoin' to kneel in the pag----"

"You must MANAGE!" This, uttered through pins, was evidently thought tobe sufficient. 

They fastened some ruching about his slender neck, pinned ribbons atrandom all over him, and then Margaret thickly powdered his hair. 

"Oh, yes, that's all right, " she said, replying to a question put by hermother. "They always powdered their hair in Colonial times. "

"It doesn't seem right to me--exactly, " objected Mrs. Schofield, gently. "Sir Lancelot must have been ever so long before Colonial times. "

"That doesn't matter, " Margaret reassured her. "Nobody'll know thedifference--Mrs. Lora Rewbush least of all. I don't think she knows athing about it, though, of course, she does write splendidly and thewords of the pageant are just beautiful. Stand still, Penrod!" (Theauthor of "Harold Ramorez" had moved convulsively. ) "Besides, powderedhair's always becoming. Look at him. You'd hardly know it was Penrod!"

The pride and admiration with which she pronounced this undeniable truthmight have been thought tactless, but Penrod, not analytical, found hisspirits somewhat elevated. No mirror was in his range of vision and, though he had submitted to cursory measurements of his person a weekearlier, he had no previous acquaintance with the costume. He beganto form a not unpleasing mental picture of his appearance, somethingsomewhere between the portraits of George Washington and a vivid memoryof Miss Julia Marlowe at a matinee of "Twelfth Night. "

He was additionally cheered by a sword which had been borrowed from aneighbor, who was a Knight of Pythias. Finally there was a mantle, anold golf cape of Margaret's. Fluffy polka-dots of white cotton had beensewed to it generously; also it was ornamented with a large cross ofred flannel, suggested by the picture of a Crusader in a newspaperadvertisement. The mantle was fastened to Penrod's shoulder (that is, to the shoulder of Mrs. Schofield's ex-bodice) by means of largesafety-pins, and arranged to hang down behind him, touching his heels, but obscuring nowise the glory of his facade. Then, at last, he wasallowed to step before a mirror. 

It was a full-length glass, and the worst immediately happened. It mighthave been a little less violent, perhaps, if Penrod's expectations hadnot been so richly and poetically idealized; but as things were, therevolt was volcanic. 

Victor Hugo's account of the fight with the devil-fish, in "Toilersof the Sea, " encourages a belief that, had Hugo lived and increased inpower, he might have been equal to a proper recital of the halfhour which followed Penrod's first sight of himself as the Child SirLancelot. But Mr. Wilson himself, dastard but eloquent foe of HaroldRamorez, could not have expressed, with all the vile dashes athis command, the sentiments which animated Penrod's bosom when theinstantaneous and unalterable conviction descended upon him that he wasintended by his loved ones to make a public spectacle of himself in hissister's stockings and part of an old dress of his mother's. 

To him these familiar things were not disguised at all; there seemed nopossibility that the whole world would not know them at a glance. Thestockings were worse than the bodice. He had been assured that thesecould not be recognized, but, seeing them in the mirror, he was surethat no human eye could fail at first glance to detect the differencebetween himself and the former purposes of these stockings. Fold, wrinkle, and void shrieked their history with a hundred tongues, invoking earthquake, eclipse, and blue ruin. The frantic youth's finalsubmission was obtained only after a painful telephonic conversationbetween himself and his father, the latter having been called up andupon, by the exhausted Mrs. Schofield, to subjugate his offspring bywire. 

The two ladies made all possible haste, after this, to deliverPenrod into the hands of Mrs. Lora Rewbush; nevertheless, they foundopportunity to exchange earnest congratulations upon his not havingrecognized the humble but serviceable paternal garment now brilliantabout the Lancelotish middle. Altogether, they felt that the costumewas a success. Penrod looked like nothing ever remotely imagined bySir Thomas Malory or Alfred Tennyson;--for that matter, he looked likenothing ever before seen on earth; but as Mrs. Schofield and Margarettook their places in the audience at the Women's Arts and Guild Hall, the anxiety they felt concerning Penrod's elocutionary and gesticularpowers, so soon to be put to public test, was pleasantly tempered bytheir satisfaction that, owing to their efforts, his outward appearancewould be a credit to the family. 

CHAPTER IV DESPERATION

The Child Sir Lancelot found himself in a large anteroom behind thestage--a room crowded with excited children, all about equally medievaland artistic. Penrod was less conspicuous than he thought himself, buthe was so preoccupied with his own shame, steeling his nerves to meetthe first inevitable taunting reference to his sister's stockings, that he failed to perceive there were others present in much of his ownunmanned condition. Retiring to a corner, immediately upon his entrance, he managed to unfasten the mantle at the shoulders, and, drawing itround him, pinned it again at his throat so that it concealed the restof his costume. This permitted a temporary relief, but increased hishorror of the moment when, in pursuance of the action of the "pageant, "the sheltering garment must be cast aside. 

Some of the other child knights were also keeping their mantles closeabout them. A few of the envied opulent swung brilliant fabricsfrom their shoulders, airily, showing off hired splendours from aprofessional costumer's stock, while one or two were insulting examplesof parental indulgence, particularly little Maurice Levy, the Child SirGalahad. This shrinking person went clamorously about, making it knowneverywhere that the best tailor in town had been dazzled by a greatsum into constructing his costume. It consisted of blue velvetknickerbockers, a white satin waistcoat, and a beautifully cut littleswallow-tailed coat with pearl buttons. The medieval and artistictriumph was completed by a mantle of yellow velvet, and little whiteboots, sporting gold tassels. 

All this radiance paused in a brilliant career and addressed the ChildSir Lancelot, gathering an immediately formed semicircular audience oflittle girls. Woman was ever the trailer of magnificence. 

"What YOU got on?" inquired Mr. Levy, after dispensing information. "What you got on under that ole golf cape?"

Penrod looked upon him coldly. At other times his questioner would haveapproached him with deference, even with apprehension. But to-day theChild Sir Galahad was somewhat intoxicated with the power of his ownbeauty. 

"What YOU got on?" he repeated. 

"Oh, nothin', " said Penrod, with an indifference assumed at great costto his nervous system. 

The elate Maurice was inspired to set up as a wit. "Then you're nakid!"he shouted exultantly. "Penrod Schofield says he hasn't got nothin' onunder that ole golf cape! He's nakid! He's nakid. "

The indelicate little girls giggled delightedly, and a javelin piercedthe inwards of Penrod when he saw that the Child Elaine, amber-curledand beautiful Marjorie Jones, lifted golden laughter to the horrid jest. 

Other boys and girls came flocking to the uproar. "He's nakid, he'snakid!" shrieked the Child Sir Galahad. "Penrod Schofield's nakid! He'sNA-A-A-KID!"

"Hush, hush!" said Mrs. Lora Rewbush, pushing her way into the group. "Remember, we are all little knights and ladies to-day. Little knightsand ladies of the Table Round would not make so much noise. Nowchildren, we must begin to take our places on the stage. Is everybodyhere?"

Penrod made his escape under cover of this diversion: he slid behindMrs. Lora Rewbush, and being near a door, opened it unnoticed and wentout quickly, closing it behind him. He found himself in a narrow andvacant hallway which led to a door marked "Janitor's Room. "

Burning with outrage, heart-sick at the sweet, cold-blooded laughterof Marjorie Jones, Penrod rested his elbows upon a window-sill andspeculated upon the effects of a leap from the second story. One of thereasons he gave it up was his desire to live on Maurice Levy's account:already he was forming educational plans for the Child Sir Galahad. 

A stout man in blue overalls passed through the hallway muttering tohimself petulantly. "I reckon they'll find that hall hot enough NOW!" hesaid, conveying to Penrod an impression that some too feminine women hadsent him upon an unreasonable errand to the furnace. He went into theJanitor's Room and, emerging a moment later, minus the overalls, passedPenrod again with a bass rumble--"Dern 'em!" it seemed he said--andmade a gloomy exit by the door at the upper end of the hallway. 

The conglomerate and delicate rustle of a large, mannerly audience washeard as the janitor opened and closed the door; and stage-frightseized the boy. The orchestra began an overture, and, at that, Penrod, trembling violently, tiptoed down the hall into the Janitor's Room. Itwas a cul-de-sac: There was no outlet save by the way he had come. 

Despairingly he doffed his mantle and looked down upon himself fora last sickening assurance that the stockings were as obviously anddisgracefully Margaret's as they had seemed in the mirror at home. For amoment he was encouraged: perhaps he was no worse than some of theother boys. Then he noticed that a safety-pin had opened; one of thoseconnecting the stockings with his trunks. He sat down to fasten itand his eye fell for the first time with particular attention upon thetrunks. Until this instant he had been preoccupied with the stockings. 

Slowly recognition dawned in his eyes. 

The Schofields' house stood on a corner at the intersection of twomain-travelled streets; the fence was low, and the publicity obtained bythe washable portion of the family apparel, on Mondays, had often beenpainful to Penrod; for boys have a peculiar sensitiveness in thesematters. A plain, matter-of-fact washerwoman' employed by Mrs. Schofield, never left anything to the imagination of the passer-by; andof all her calm display the scarlet flaunting of his father's winterwear had most abashed Penrod. One day Marjorie Jones, all gold andstarch, had passed when the dreadful things were on the line: Penrod hadhidden himself, shuddering. The whole town, he was convinced, knew thesegarments intimately and derisively. 

And now, as he sat in the janitor's chair, the horrible and paralyzingrecognition came. He had not an instant's doubt that every fellow actor, as well as every soul in the audience, would recognize what his motherand sister had put upon him. For as the awful truth became plain tohimself it seemed blazoned to the world; and far, far louder than thestockings, the trunks did fairly bellow the grisly secret: WHOSE theywere and WHAT they were!

Most people have suffered in a dream the experience of findingthemselves very inadequately clad in the midst of a crowd ofwell-dressed people, and such dreamers' sensations are comparable toPenrod's, though faintly, because Penrod was awake and in much too fullpossession of the most active capacities for anguish. 

A human male whose dress has been damaged, or reveals some vital lack, suffers from a hideous and shameful loneliness which makes everysecond absolutely unbearable until he is again as others of his sex andspecies; and there is no act or sin whatever too desperate for him inhis struggle to attain that condition. Also, there is absolutely noembarrassment possible to a woman which is comparable to that of a manunder corresponding circumstances and in this a boy is a man. Gazingupon the ghastly trunks, the stricken Penrod felt that he was a degreeworse then nude; and a great horror of himself filled his soul. 

"Penrod Schofield!"

The door into the hallway opened, and a voice demanded him. He could notbe seen from the hallway, but the hue and the cry was up; and he knewhe must be taken. It was only a question of seconds. He huddled in hischair. 

"Penrod Schofield!" cried Mrs. Lora Rewbush angrily. 

The distracted boy rose and, as he did so, a long pin sank deep into hisback. He extracted it frenziedly, which brought to his ears a protractedand sonorous ripping, too easily located by a final gesture of horror. 

"Penrod Schofield!" Mrs. Lora Rewbush had come out into the hallway. 

And now, in this extremity, when all seemed lost indeed, particularlyincluding honour, the dilating eye of the outlaw fell upon the blueoveralls which the janitor had left hanging upon a peg. 

Inspiration and action were almost simultaneous. 

CHAPTER V THE PAGEANT OF THE TABLE ROUND

"Penrod!" Mrs. Lora Rewbush stood in the doorway, indignantly gazingupon a Child Sir Lancelot mantled to the heels. "Do you know that youhave kept an audience of five hundred people waiting for ten minutes?"She, also, detained the five hundred while she spake further. 

"Well, " said Penrod contentedly, as he followed her toward the buzzingstage, "I was just sitting there thinking. "

Two minutes later the curtain rose on a medieval castle hall richly donein the new stage-craft made in Germany and consisting of pink and bluecheesecloth. The Child King Arthur and the Child Queen Guinevere weredisclosed upon thrones, with the Child Elaine and many other celebritiesin attendance; while about fifteen Child Knights were seated at adining-room table round, which was covered with a large Oriental rug, and displayed (for the knights' refreshment) a banquet service of silverloving-cups and trophies, borrowed from the Country Club and some localautomobile manufacturers. 

In addition to this splendour, potted plants and palms have seldom beenmore lavishly used in any castle on the stage or off. 

The footlights were aided by a "spot-light" from the rear of the hall;and the children were revealed in a blaze of glory. 

A hushed, multitudinous "O-OH" of admiration came from the decorous anddelighted audience. Then the children sang feebly:

 "Chuldrun of the Tabul Round, Lit-tul knights and ladies we. Let our voy-siz all resound Faith and hope and charitee!"

The Child King Arthur rose, extended his sceptre with the decisivegesture of a semaphore, and spake:

 "Each littul knight and lady born Has noble deeds TO perform In THEE child-world of shivullree, No matter how small his share may be. Let each advance and tell in turn What claim has each to knighthood earn. "

The Child Sir Mordred, the villain of this piece, rose in his placeat the table round, and piped the only lines ever written by Mrs. LoraRewbush which Penrod Schofield could have pronounced without loathing. Georgie Bassett, a really angelic boy, had been selected for the role ofMordred. His perfect conduct had earned for him the sardonic sobriquet, "The Little Gentleman, " among his boy acquaintances. (Naturally he hadno friends. ) Hence the other boys supposed that he had been selected forthe wicked Mordred as a reward of virtue. He declaimed serenely:

 "I hight Sir Mordred the Child, and I teach Lessons of selfishest evil, and reach Out into darkness. Thoughtless, unkind, And ruthless is Mordred, and unrefined. "

The Child Mordred was properly rebuked and denied the accolade, though, like the others, he seemed to have assumed the title already. He madea plotter's exit. Whereupon Maurice Levy rose, bowed, announced that hehighted the Child Sir Galahad, and continued with perfect sang-froid:

 "I am the purest of the pure. I have but kindest thoughts each day. I give my riches to the poor, And follow in the Master's way. "

This elicited tokens of approval from the Child King Arthur, and he badeMaurice "stand forth" and come near the throne, a command obeyed withthe easy grace of conscious merit. 

It was Penrod's turn. He stepped back from his chair, the table betweenhim and the audience, and began in a high, breathless monotone:

 "I hight Sir Lancelot du Lake, the Child, Gentul-hearted, meek, and mild. What though I'm BUT a littul child, Gentul-heartud, meek, and mild, I do my share though but--though but----"

Penrod paused and gulped. The voice of Mrs. Lora Rewbush was heard fromthe wings, prompting irritably, and the Child. Sir Lancelot repeated:

 "I do my share though but--though but a tot, I pray you knight Sir Lancelot!"

This also met the royal favour, and Penrod was bidden to join SirGalahad at the throne. As he crossed the stage, Mrs. Schofield whisperedto Margaret:

"That boy! He's unpinned his mantle and fixed it to cover his wholecostume. After we worked so hard to make it becoming!"

"Never mind; he'll have to take the cape off in a minute, " returnedMargaret. She leaned forward suddenly, narrowing her eyes to seebetter. "What IS that thing hanging about his left ankle?" she whispereduneasily. "How queer! He must have got tangled in something. "

"Where?" asked Mrs. Schofield, in alarm. 

"His left foot. It makes him stumble. Don't you see? It looks--it lookslike an elephant's foot!"

The Child Sir Lancelot and the Child Sir Galahad clasped hands beforetheir Child King. Penrod was conscious of a great uplift; in a moment hewould have to throw aside his mantle, but even so he was protected andsheltered in the human garment of a man. His stage-fright had passed, for the audience was but an indistinguishable blur of darkness beyondthe dazzling lights. His most repulsive speech (that in which heproclaimed himself a "tot") was over and done with; and now at last thesmall, moist hand of the Child Sir Galahad lay within his own. Craftilyhis brown fingers stole from Maurice's palm to the wrist. The two boysdeclaimed in concert:

 "We are two chuldrun of the Tabul Round Strewing kindness all a-round. With love and good deeds striving ever for the best, May our littul efforts e'er be blest. Two littul hearts we offer. See United in love, faith, hope, and char--OW!"

The conclusion of the duet was marred. The Child Sir Galahad suddenlystiffened, and, uttering an irrepressible shriek of anguish, gave abrief exhibition of the contortionist's art. ("HE'S TWISTIN' MY WRIST!DERN YOU, LEGGO!")

The voice of Mrs. Lora Rewbush was again heard from the wings; itsounded bloodthirsty. Penrod released his victim; and the Child KingArthur, somewhat disconcerted, extended his sceptre and, with theassistance of the enraged prompter, said:

 "Sweet child-friends of the Tabul Round, In brotherly love and kindness abound, Sir Lancelot, you have spoken well, Sir Galahad, too, as clear as bell. So now pray doff your mantles gay. You shall be knighted this very day. "

And Penrod doffed his mantle. 

Simultaneously, a thick and vasty gasp came from the audience, asfrom five hundred bathers in a wholly unexpected surf. This gasp waspunctuated irregularly, over the auditorium, by imperfectly subduedscreams both of dismay and incredulous joy, and by two dismal shrieks. Altogether it was an extraordinary sound, a sound never to be forgottenby any one who heard it. It was almost as unforgettable as the sightwhich caused it; the word "sight" being here used in its vernacularsense, for Penrod, standing unmantled and revealed in all the medievaland artistic glory of the janitor's blue overalls, falls within itsmeaning. 

The janitor was a heavy man, and his overalls, upon Penrod, were merelyoceanic. The boy was at once swaddled and lost within their bluegulfs and vast saggings; and the left leg, too hastily rolled up, haddescended with a distinctively elephantine effect, as Margaret hadobserved. Certainly, the Child Sir Lancelot was at least a sight. 

It is probable that a great many in that hall must have had, even then, a consciousness that they were looking on at History in the Making. A supreme act is recognizable at sight: it bears the birthmark ofimmortality. But Penrod, that marvellous boy, had begun to declaim, evenwith the gesture of flinging off his mantle for the accolade:

 "I first, the Child Sir Lancelot du Lake, Will volunteer to knighthood take, And kneeling here before your throne I vow to----"

He finished his speech unheard. The audience had recovered breath, buthad lost self-control, and there ensued something later described by aparticipant as a sort of cultured riot. 

The actors in the "pageant" were not so dumfounded by Penrod's costumeas might have been expected. A few precocious geniuses perceivedthat the overalls were the Child Lancelot's own comment on maternalintentions; and these were profoundly impressed: they regarded him withthe grisly admiration of young and ambitious criminals for a jail-mateabout to be distinguished by hanging. But most of the children simplytook it to be the case (a little strange, but not startling) thatPenrod's mother had dressed him like that--which is pathetic. They triedto go on with the "pageant. "

They made a brief, manful effort. But the irrepressible outbursts fromthe audience bewildered them; every time Sir Lancelot du Lake the Childopened his mouth, the great, shadowy house fell into an uproar, and thechildren into confusion. Strong women and brave girls in the audiencewent out into the lobby, shrieking and clinging to one another. Othersremained, rocking in their seats, helpless and spent. The neighbourhoodof Mrs. Schofield and Margaret became, tactfully, a desert. Friends ofthe author went behind the scenes and encountered a hitherto unknownphase of Mrs. Lora Rewbush; they said, afterward, that she hardly seemedto know what she was doing. She begged to be left alone somewhere withPenrod Schofield, for just a little while. 

They led her away. 

CHAPTER VI EVENING

The sun was setting behind the back fence (though at a considerabledistance) as Penrod Schofield approached that fence and lookedthoughtfully up at the top of it, apparently having in mind some purposeto climb up and sit there. Debating this, he passed his fingers gentlyup and down the backs of his legs; and then something seemed to decidehim not to sit anywhere. He leaned against the fence, sighed profoundly, and gazed at Duke, his wistful dog. 

The sigh was reminiscent: episodes of simple pathos were passing beforehis inward eye. About the most painful was the vision of lovelyMarjorie Jones, weeping with rage as the Child Sir Lancelot was dragged, insatiate, from the prostrate and howling Child Sir Galahad, after anonslaught delivered the precise instant the curtain began to fall uponthe demoralized "pageant. " And then--oh, pangs! oh, woman!--she slappedat the ruffian's cheek, as he was led past her by a resentful janitor;and turning, flung her arms round the Child Sir Galahad's neck. 

"PENROD SCHOFIELD, DON'T YOU DARE EVER SPEAK TO ME AGAIN AS LONG ASYOU LIVE!" Maurice's little white boots and gold tassels had done theirwork. 

At home the late Child Sir Lancelot was consigned to a lockedclothes-closet pending the arrival of his father. Mr. Schofield cameand, shortly after, there was put into practice an old patriarchalcustom. It is a custom of inconceivable antiquity: probably primordial, certainly prehistoric, but still in vogue in some remaining citadels ofthe ancient simplicities of the Republic. 

And now, therefore, in the dusk, Penrod leaned against the fence andsighed. 

His case is comparable to that of an adult who could have survived asimilar experience. Looking back to the sawdust-box, fancy pictures thiscomparable adult a serious and inventive writer engaged in congenialliterary activities in a private retreat. We see this period markedby the creation of some of the most virile passages of a Work dealingexclusively in red corpuscles and huge primal impulses. We seethis thoughtful man dragged from his calm seclusion to a horrifyingpublicity; forced to adopt the stage and, himself a writer, compelledto exploit the repulsive sentiments of an author not only personallydistasteful to him but whose whole method and school in belles lettreshe despises. 

We see him reduced by desperation and modesty to stealing a pair ofoveralls. We conceive him to have ruined, then, his own reputation, and to have utterly disgraced his family; next, to have engaged inthe duello and to have been spurned by his lady-love, thus lost to him(according to her own declaration) forever. Finally, we must behold:imprisonment by the authorities; the third degree and flagellation. 

We conceive our man decided that his career had been perhaps tooeventful. Yet Penrod had condensed all of it into eight hours. 

It appears that he had at least some shadowy perception of a recentfulness of life, for, as he leaned against the fence, gazing upon hiswistful Duke, he sighed again and murmured aloud:

"WELL, HASN'T THIS BEEN A DAY!"

But in a little while a star came out, freshly lighted, from the highestpart of the sky, and Penrod, looking up, noticed it casually anda little drowsily. He yawned. Then he sighed once more, but notreminiscently: evening had come; the day was over. It was a sigh of pureennui. 

CHAPTER VII EVILS OF DRINK

Next day, Penrod acquired a dime by a simple and antique process whichwas without doubt sometimes practised by the boys of Babylon. When theteacher of his class in Sunday-school requested the weekly contribution, Penrod, fumbling honestly (at first) in the wrong pockets, managed tolook so embarrassed that the gentle lady told him not to mind, and saidshe was often forgetful herself. She was so sweet about it that, lookinginto the future, Penrod began to feel confident of a small but regularincome. 

At the close of the afternoon services he did not go home, but proceededto squander the funds just withheld from China upon an orgy of the mostpungently forbidden description. In a Drug Emporium, near the church, hepurchased a five-cent sack of candy consisting for the most part of theheavily flavoured hoofs of horned cattle, but undeniably substantial, and so generously capable of resisting solution that the purchaser mustneeds be avaricious beyond reason who did not realize his money's worth. 

Equipped with this collation, Penrod contributed his remaining nickel toa picture show, countenanced upon the seventh day by the legal but notthe moral authorities. Here, in cozy darkness, he placidly insulted hisliver with jaw-breaker upon jaw-breaker from the paper sack, and in asurfeit of content watched the silent actors on the screen. 

One film made a lasting impression upon him. It depicted with relentlesspathos the drunkard's progress; beginning with his conversion to beerin the company of loose travelling men; pursuing him through aninexplicable lapse into evening clothes and the society of someremarkably painful ladies, next, exhibiting the effects of alcohol onthe victim's domestic disposition, the unfortunate man was seen in theact of striking his wife and, subsequently, his pleading baby daughterwith an abnormally heavy walking-stick. Their flight--through thesnow--to seek the protection of a relative was shown, and finally, thedrunkard's picturesque behaviour at the portals of a madhouse. 

So fascinated was Penrod that he postponed his departure until this filmcame round again, by which time he had finished his unnatural repastand almost, but not quite, decided against following the profession of adrunkard when he grew up. 

Emerging, satiated, from the theatre, a public timepiece before ajeweller's shop confronted him with an unexpected dial and imminentperplexities. How was he to explain at home these hours of dalliance?There was a steadfast rule that he return direct from Sunday-school; andSunday rules were important, because on that day there was his father, always at home and at hand, perilously ready for action. One of thehardest conditions of boyhood is the almost continuous strain put uponthe powers of invention by the constant and harassing necessity forexplanations of every natural act. 

Proceeding homeward through the deepening twilight as rapidly aspossible, at a gait half skip and half canter, Penrod made up his mindin what manner he would account for his long delay, and, as he drewnearer, rehearsed in words the opening passage of his defence. 

"Now see here, " he determined to begin; "I do not wished to be blamedfor things I couldn't help, nor any other boy. I was going along thestreet by a cottage and a lady put her head out of the window and saidher husband was drunk and whipping her and her little girl, and sheasked me wouldn't I come in and help hold him. So I went in and tried toget hold of this drunken lady's husband where he was whipping their babydaughter, but he wouldn't pay any attention, and I TOLD her I ought tobe getting home, but she kep' on askin' me to stay----"

At this point he reached the corner of his own yard, where a coincidencenot only checked the rehearsal of his eloquence but happily obviated alloccasion for it. A cab from the station drew up in front of the gate, and there descended a troubled lady in black and a fragile little girlabout three. Mrs. Schofield rushed from the house and enfolded both inhospitable arms. 

They were Penrod's Aunt Clara and cousin, also Clara, from Dayton, Illinois, and in the flurry of their arrival everybody forgot to putPenrod to the question. It is doubtful, however, if he felt any relief;there may have been even a slight, unconscious disappointment notaltogether dissimilar to that of an actor deprived of a good part. 

In the course of some really necessary preparations for dinner hestepped from the bathroom into the pink-and-white bedchamber of hissister, and addressed her rather thickly through a towel. 

"When'd mamma find out Aunt Clara and Cousin Clara were coming?"

"Not till she saw them from the window. She just happened to look outas they drove up. Aunt Clara telegraphed this morning, but it wasn'tdelivered. "

"How long they goin' to stay?"

"I don't know. "

Penrod ceased to rub his shining face, and thoughtfully tossed the towelthrough the bathroom door. "Uncle John won't try to make 'em comeback home, I guess, will he?" (Uncle John was Aunt Clara's husband, asuccessful manufacturer of stoves, and his lifelong regret was that hehad not entered the Baptist ministry. ) "He'll let 'em stay here quietly, won't he?"

"What ARE you talking about?" demanded Margaret, turning from hermirror. "Uncle John sent them here. Why shouldn't he let them stay?"

Penrod looked crestfallen. "Then he hasn't taken to drink?"

"Certainly not!" She emphasized the denial with a pretty peal of sopranolaughter. 

"Then why, " asked her brother gloomily, "why did Aunt Clara look soworried when she got here?"

"Good gracious! Don't people worry about anything except somebody'sdrinking? Where did you get such an idea?"

"Well, " he persisted, "you don't KNOW it ain't that. "

She laughed again, wholeheartedly. "Poor Uncle John! He won't even allowgrape juice or ginger ale in his house. They came because they wereafraid little Clara might catch the measles. She's very delicate, andthere's such an epidemic of measles among the children over in Daytonthe schools had to be closed. Uncle John got so worried that last nighthe dreamed about it; and this morning he couldn't stand it any longerand packed them off over here, though he thinks its wicked to travelon Sunday. And Aunt Clara was worried when she got here because they'dforgotten to check her trunk and it will have to be sent by express. Nowwhat in the name of the common sense put it into your head that UncleJohn had taken to----"

"Oh, nothing. " He turned lifelessly away and went downstairs, a new-bornhope dying in his bosom. Life seems so needlessly dull sometimes. 

CHAPTER VIII SCHOOL

Next morning, when he had once more resumed the dreadful burden ofeducation, it seemed infinitely duller. And yet what pleasanter sightis there than a schoolroom well filled with children of those sproutingyears just before the 'teens? The casual visitor, gazing from theteacher's platform upon these busy little heads, needs only a bluntedmemory to experience the most agreeable and exhilarating sensations. Still, for the greater part, the children are unconscious of thehappiness of their condition; for nothing is more pathetically true thanthat we "never know when we are well off. " The boys in a public schoolare less aware of their happy state than are the girls; and of all theboys in his room, probably Penrod himself had the least appreciation ofhis felicity. 

He sat staring at an open page of a textbook, but not studying; not evenreading; not even thinking. Nor was he lost in a reverie: his mind's eyewas shut, as his physical eye might well have been, for the optic nerve, flaccid with ennui, conveyed nothing whatever of the printed pageupon which the orb of vision was partially focused. Penrod was doingsomething very unusual and rare, something almost never accomplishedexcept by coloured people or by a boy in school on a spring day: he wasdoing really nothing at all. He was merely a state of being. 

From the street a sound stole in through the open window, and abhorringNature began to fill the vacuum called Penrod Schofield; for the soundwas the spring song of a mouth-organ, coming down the sidewalk. Thewindows were intentionally above the level of the eyes of the seatedpupils; but the picture of the musician was plain to Penrod, painted forhim by a quality in the runs and trills, partaking of the oboe, of thecalliope, and of cats in anguish; an excruciating sweetness obtainedonly by the wallowing, walloping yellow-pink palm of a hand whose backwas Congo black and shiny. The music came down the street and passedbeneath the window, accompanied by the care-free shuffling of a pair ofold shoes scuffing syncopations on the cement sidewalk. It passed intothe distance; became faint and blurred; was gone. Emotion stirred inPenrod a great and poignant desire, but (perhaps fortunately) no fairygodmother made her appearance. 

Otherwise Penrod would have gone down the street in a black skin, playing the mouth-organ, and an unprepared coloured youth would havefound himself enjoying educational advantages for which he had noambition whatever. 

Roused from perfect apathy, the boy cast about the schoolroom an eyewearied to nausea by the perpetual vision of the neat teacher upon theplatform, the backs of the heads of the pupils in front of him, and themonotonous stretches of blackboard threateningly defaced by arithmeticalformulae and other insignia of torture. Above the blackboard, thewalls of the high room were of white plaster--white with the qualifiedwhiteness of old snow in a soft coal town. This dismal expanse wasbroken by four lithographic portraits, votive offerings of a thoughtfulpublisher. The portraits were of good and great men, kind men; menwho loved children. Their faces were noble and benevolent. But thelithographs offered the only rest for the eyes of children fatigued bythe everlasting sameness of the schoolroom. Long day after long day, interminable week in and interminable week out, vast month on vastmonth, the pupils sat with those four portraits beaming kindness downupon them. The faces became permanent in the consciousness of thechildren; they became an obsession--in and out of school the childrenwere never free of them. The four faces haunted the minds of childrenfalling asleep; they hung upon the minds of children waking at night;they rose forebodingly in the minds of children waking in the morning;they became monstrously alive in the minds of children lying sick offever. Never, while the children of that schoolroom lived, would theybe able to forget one detail of the four lithographs: the hand ofLongfellow was fixed, for them, forever, in his beard. And by a simpleand unconscious association of ideas, Penrod Schofield was accumulatingan antipathy for the gentle Longfellow and for James Russell Lowell andfor Oliver Wendell Holmes and for John Greenleaf Whittier, which wouldnever permit him to peruse a work of one of those great New Englanderswithout a feeling of personal resentment. 

His eyes fell slowly and inimically from the brow of Whittier tothe braid of reddish hair belonging to Victorine Riordan, the littleoctoroon girl who sat directly in front of him. Victorine's back was asfamiliar to Penrod as the necktie of Oliver Wendell Holmes. So was hergayly coloured plaid waist. He hated the waist as he hated Victorineherself, without knowing why. Enforced companionship in large quantitiesand on an equal basis between the sexes appears to sterilize theaffections, and schoolroom romances are few. 

Victorine's hair was thick, and the brickish glints in it werebeautiful, but Penrod was very tired of it. A tiny knot of green ribbonfinished off the braid and kept it from unravelling; and beneath theribbon there was a final wisp of hair which was just long enough torepose upon Penrod's desk when Victorine leaned back in her seat. It wasthere now. Thoughtfully, he took the braid between thumb and forefinger, and, without disturbing Victorine, dipped the end of it and the greenribbon into the inkwell of his desk. He brought hair and ribbon forthdripping purple ink, and partially dried them on a blotter, though, amoment later when Victorine leaned forward, they were still able to adda few picturesque touches to the plaid waist. 

Rudolph Krauss, across the aisle from Penrod, watched the operation withprotuberant eyes, fascinated. Inspired to imitation, he took a piece ofchalk from his pocket and wrote "RATS" across the shoulder-blades of theboy in front of him, then looked across appealingly to Penrod for tokensof congratulation. Penrod yawned. It may not be denied that at times heappeared to be a very self-centred boy. 

CHAPTER IX SOARING

Half the members of the class passed out to a recitation-room, theempurpled Victorine among them, and Miss Spence started the remaininghalf through the ordeal of trial by mathematics. Several boys and girlswere sent to the blackboard, and Penrod, spared for the moment, followedtheir operations a little while with his eyes, but not with his mind;then, sinking deeper in his seat, limply abandoned the effort. His eyesremained open, but saw nothing; the routine of the arithmetic lessonreached his ears in familiar, meaningless sounds, but he heard nothing;and yet, this time, he was profoundly occupied. He had drifted away fromthe painful land of facts, and floated now in a new sea of fancy whichhe had just discovered. 

Maturity forgets the marvellous realness of a boy's day-dreams, howcolourful they glow, rosy and living, and how opaque the curtain closingdown between the dreamer and the actual world. That curtain is almostsound-proof, too, and causes more throat-trouble among parents than issuspected. 

The nervous monotony of the schoolroom inspires a sometimes unbearablelonging for something astonishing to happen, and as every boy'sfundamental desire is to do something astonishing himself, so as to bethe centre of all human interest and awe, it was natural that Penrodshould discover in fancy the delightful secret of self-levitation. He found, in this curious series of imaginings, during the lesson inarithmetic, that the atmosphere may be navigated as by a swimmer underwater, but with infinitely greater ease and with perfect comfort inbreathing. In his mind he extended his arms gracefully, at a level withhis shoulders, and delicately paddled the air with his hands, which atonce caused him to be drawn up out of his seat and elevated gently to aposition about midway between the floor and the ceiling, where hecame to an equilibrium and floated; a sensation not the less exquisitebecause of the screams of his fellow pupils, appalled by the miracle. Miss Spence herself was amazed and frightened, but he only smiled downcarelessly upon her when she commanded him to return to earth; andthen, when she climbed upon a desk to pull him down, he quietly paddledhimself a little higher, leaving his toes just out of her reach. Next, he swam through a few slow somersaults to show his mastery of the newart, and, with the shouting of the dumfounded scholars ringing inhis ears, turned on his side and floated swiftly out of the window, immediately rising above the housetops, while people in the street belowhim shrieked, and a trolley car stopped dead in wonder. 

With almost no exertion he paddled himself, many yards at a stroke, tothe girls' private school where Marjorie Jones was a pupil--MarjorieJones of the amber curls and the golden voice! Long before the "Pageantof the Table Round, " she had offered Penrod a hundred proofs thatshe considered him wholly undesirable and ineligible. At the FridayAfternoon Dancing Class she consistently incited and led the laughter athim whenever Professor Bartet singled him out for admonition in mattersof feet and decorum. And but yesterday she had chid him for hisslavish lack of memory in daring to offer her a greeting on the way toSunday-school. "Well! I expect you must forgot I told you never to speakto me again! If I was a boy, I'd be too proud to come hanging aroundpeople that don't speak to me, even if I WAS the Worst Boy in Town!"So she flouted him. But now, as he floated in through the window of herclassroom and swam gently along the ceiling like an escaped toy balloon, she fell upon her knees beside her little desk, and, lifting up her armstoward him, cried with love and admiration:

"Oh, PENrod!"

He negligently kicked a globe from the high chandelier, and, smilingcoldly, floated out through the hall to the front steps of the school, while Marjorie followed, imploring him to grant her one kind look. 

In the street an enormous crowd had gathered, headed by Miss Spence anda brass band; and a cheer from a hundred thousand throats shook thevery ground as Penrod swam overhead. Marjorie knelt upon the stepsand watched adoringly while Penrod took the drum-major's baton and, performing sinuous evolutions above the crowd, led the band. Then hethrew the baton so high that it disappeared from sight; but he wentswiftly after it, a double delight, for he had not only the delicioussensation of rocketing safely up and up into the blue sky, but alsothat of standing in the crowd below, watching and admiring himself as hedwindled to a speck, disappeared and then, emerging from a cloud, camespeeding down, with the baton in his hand, to the level of the treetops, where he beat time for the band and the vast throng and Marjorie Jones, who all united in the "Star-spangled Banner" in honour of his aerialachievements. It was a great moment. 

It was a great moment, but something seemed to threaten it. The faceof Miss Spence looking up from the crowd grew too vivid--unpleasantlyvivid. She was beckoning him and shouting, "Come down, Penrod Schofield!Penrod Schofield, come down here!"

He could hear her above the band and the singing of the multitude; sheseemed intent on spoiling everything. Marjorie Jones was weeping toshow how sorry she was that she had formerly slighted him, and throwingkisses to prove that she loved him; but Miss Spence kept jumping betweenhim and Marjorie, incessantly calling his name. 

He grew more and more irritated with her; he was the most importantperson in the world and was engaged in proving it to Marjorie Jones andthe whole city, and yet Miss Spence seemed to feel she still had theright to order him about as she did in the old days when he was anordinary schoolboy. He was furious; he was sure she wanted him to dosomething disagreeable. It seemed to him that she had screamed "PenrodSchofield!" thousands of times. 

From the beginning of his aerial experiments in his own schoolroom, hehad not opened his lips, knowing somehow that one of the requirementsfor air floating is perfect silence on the part of the floater; but, finally, irritated beyond measure by Miss Spence's clamorous insistence, he was unable to restrain an indignant rebuke and immediately came toearth with a frightful bump. 

Miss Spence--in the flesh--had directed toward the physical body of theabsent Penrod an inquiry as to the fractional consequences of dividingseventeen apples, fairly, among three boys, and she was surprised anddispleased to receive no answer although to the best of her knowledgeand belief, he was looking fixedly at her. She repeated her questioncrisply, without visible effect; then summoned him by name withincreasing asperity. Twice she called him, while all his fellowpupils turned to stare at the gazing boy. She advanced a step from theplatform. 

"Penrod Schofield!"

"Oh, my goodness!" he shouted suddenly. "Can't you keep still a MINUTE?"

CHAPTER X UNCLE JOHN

Miss Spence gasped. So did the pupils. 

The whole room filled with a swelling conglomerate "O-O-O-O-H!"

As for Penrod himself, the walls reeled with the shock. He sat with hismouth open, a mere lump of stupefaction. For the appalling words thathe had hurled at the teacher were as inexplicable to him as to any otherwho heard them. 

Nothing is more treacherous than the human mind; nothing else so lovesto play the Iscariot. Even when patiently bullied into a semblance oforder and training, it may prove but a base and shifty servant. AndPenrod's mind was not his servant; it was a master, with the Aprilwind's whims; and it had just played him a diabolical trick. The veryjolt with which he came back to the schoolroom in the midst of hisfancied flight jarred his day-dream utterly out of him; and he sat, open-mouthed in horror at what he had said. 

The unanimous gasp of awe was protracted. Miss Spence, however, finallyrecovered her breath, and, returning deliberately to the platform, facedthe school. "And then for a little while, " as pathetic stories sometimesrecount, "everything was very still. " It was so still, in fact, thatPenrod's newborn notoriety could almost be heard growing. This grislysilence was at last broken by the teacher. 

"Penrod Schofield, stand up!"

The miserable child obeyed. 

"What did you mean by speaking to me in that way?"

He hung his head, raked the floor with the side of his shoe, swayed, swallowed, looked suddenly at his hands with the air of never havingseen them before, then clasped them behind him. The school shivered inecstatic horror, every fascinated eye upon him; yet there was not asoul in the room but was profoundly grateful to him for thesensation--including the offended teacher herself. Unhappily, all thisgratitude was unconscious and altogether different from the kind which, results in testimonials and loving-cups. On the contrary!

"Penrod Schofield!"

He gulped. 

"Answer me at once! Why did you speak to me like that?"

"I was----" He choked, unable to continue. 

"Speak out!"

"I was just--thinking, " he managed to stammer. 

"That will not do, " she returned sharply. "I wish to know immediatelywhy you spoke as you did. "

The stricken Penrod answered helplessly:

"Because I was just thinking. "

Upon the very rack he could have offered no ampler truthful explanation. It was all he knew about it. 

"Thinking what?"

"Just thinking. "

Miss Spence's expression gave evidence that her power of self-restraintwas undergoing a remarkable test. However, after taking counsel withherself, she commanded:

"Come here!"

He shuffled forward, and she placed a chair upon the platform near herown. 

"Sit there!"

Then (but not at all as if nothing had happened), she continued thelesson in arithmetic. Spiritually the children may have learned a lessonin very small fractions indeed as they gazed at the fragment ofsin before them on the stool of penitence. They all stared at himattentively with hard and passionately interested eyes, in which therewas never one trace of pity. It cannot be said with precision that hewrithed; his movement was more a slow, continuous squirm, effected witha ghastly assumption of languid indifference; while his gaze, in theeffort to escape the marble-hearted glare of his schoolmates, affixeditself with apparent permanence to the waistcoat button of James RussellLowell just above the "U" in "Russell. "

Classes came and classes went, grilling him with eyes. Newcomersreceived the story of the crime in darkling whispers; and the outcastsat and sat and sat, and squirmed and squirmed and squirmed. (He did oneor two things with his spine which a professional contortionist wouldhave observed with real interest. ) And all this while of freezingsuspense was but the criminal's detention awaiting trial. A knownpunishment may be anticipated with some measure of equanimity; at least, the prisoner may prepare himself to undergo it; but the unknown loomsmore monstrous for every attempt to guess it. Penrod's crime was unique;there were no rules to aid him in estimating the vengeance to fall uponhim for it. What seemed most probable was that he would be expelled fromthe schools in the presence of his family, the mayor, and council, andafterward whipped by his father upon the State House steps, with theentire city as audience by invitation of the authorities. 

Noon came. The rows of children filed out, every head turning for a lastunpleasingly speculative look at the outlaw. Then Miss Spence closed thedoor into the cloakroom and that into the big hall, and came and sat ather desk, near Penrod. The tramping of feet outside, the shrill callsand shouting and the changing voices of the older boys ceased to beheard--and there was silence. Penrod, still affecting to be occupiedwith Lowell, was conscious that Miss Spence looked at him intently. 

"Penrod, " she said gravely, "what excuse have you to offer before Ireport your case to the principal?"

The word "principal" struck him to the vitals. Grand Inquisitor, GrandKhan, Sultan, Emperor, Tsar, Caesar Augustus--these are comparable. Hestopped squirming instantly, and sat rigid. 

"I want an answer. Why did you shout those words at me?"

"Well, " he murmured, "I was just--thinking. "

"Thinking what?" she asked sharply. 

"I don't know. "

"That won't do!"

He took his left ankle in his right hand and regarded it helplessly. 

"That won't do, Penrod Schofield, " she repeated severely. "If that isall the excuse you have to offer I shall report your case this instant!"

And she rose with fatal intent. 

But Penrod was one of those whom the precipice inspires. "Well, I HAVEgot an excuse. "

"Well"--she paused impatiently--"what is it?"

He had not an idea, but he felt one coming, and replied automatically, in a plaintive tone:

"I guess anybody that had been through what I had to go through, lastnight, would think they had an excuse. "

Miss Spence resumed her seat, though with the air of being ready to leapfrom it instantly. 

"What has last night to do with your insolence to me this morning?"

"Well, I guess you'd see, " he returned, emphasizing the plaintive note, "if you knew what I know. "

"Now, Penrod, " she said, in a kinder voice, "I have a high regard foryour mother and father, and it would hurt me to distress them, but youmust either tell me what was the matter with you or I'll have to takeyou to Mrs. Houston. "

"Well, ain't I going to?" he cried, spurred by the dread name. "It'sbecause I didn't sleep last night. "

"Were you ill?" The question was put with some dryness. 

He felt the dryness. "No'm; _I_ wasn't. "

"Then if someone in your family was so ill that even you were kept upall night, how does it happen they let you come to school this morning?"

"It wasn't illness, " he returned, shaking his head mournfully. "It waslots worse'n anybody's being sick. It was--it was--well, it was jestawful. "

"WHAT was?" He remarked with anxiety the incredulity in her tone. 

"It was about Aunt Clara, " he said. 

"Your Aunt Clara!" she repeated. "Do you mean your mother's sister whomarried Mr. Farry of Dayton, Illinois?"

"Yes--Uncle John, " returned Penrod sorrowfully. "The trouble was abouthim. "

Miss Spence frowned a frown which he rightly interpreted as one ofcontinued suspicion. "She and I were in school together, " she said. "Iused to know her very well, and I've always heard her married life wasentirely happy. I don't----"

"Yes, it was, " he interrupted, "until last year when Uncle John took torunning with travelling men----"

"What?"

"Yes'm. " He nodded solemnly. "That was what started it. At first he wasa good, kind husband, but these travelling men would coax him into asaloon on his way home from work, and they got him to drinking beer andthen ales, wines, liquors, and cigars----"

"Penrod!"

"Ma'am?"

"I'm not inquiring into your Aunt Clara's private affairs; I'm askingyou if you have anything to say which would palliate----"

"That's what I'm tryin' to TELL you about, Miss Spence, " hepleaded, --"if you'd jest only let me. When Aunt Clara and her littlebaby daughter got to our house last night----"

"You say Mrs. Farry is visiting your mother?"

"Yes'm--not just visiting--you see, she HAD to come. Well of course, little baby Clara, she was so bruised up and mauled, where he'd beenhittin' her with his cane----"

"You mean that your uncle had done such a thing as THAT!" exclaimed MissSpence, suddenly disarmed by this scandal. 

"Yes'm, and mamma and Margaret had to sit up all night nursin' littleClara--and AUNT Clara was in such a state SOMEBODY had to keep talkin'to HER, and there wasn't anybody but me to do it, so I----"

"But where was your father?" she cried. 

"Ma'am?"

"Where was your father while----"

"Oh--papa?" Penrod paused, reflected; then brightened. "Why, he was downat the train, waitin' to see if Uncle John would try to follow 'em andmake 'em come home so's he could persecute 'em some more. I wanted to dothat, but they said if he did come I mightn't be strong enough tohold him and----" The brave lad paused again, modestly. Miss Spence'sexpression was encouraging. Her eyes were wide with astonishment, andthere may have been in them, also, the mingled beginnings of admirationand self-reproach. Penrod, warming to his work, felt safer every moment. 

"And so, " he continued, "I had to sit up with Aunt Clara. She had somepretty big bruises, too, and I had to----"

"But why didn't they send for a doctor?" However, this question was onlya flicker of dying incredulity. 

"Oh, they didn't want any DOCTOR, " exclaimed the inspired realistpromptly. "They don't want anybody to HEAR about it because Uncle Johnmight reform--and then where'd he be if everybody knew he'd been adrunkard and whipped his wife and baby daughter?"

"Oh!" said Miss Spence. 

"You see, he used to be upright as anybody, " he went on explanatively. "It all begun----"

"Began, Penrod. "

"Yes'm. It all commenced from the first day he let those travelling mencoax him into the saloon. " Penrod narrated the downfall of his UncleJohn at length. In detail he was nothing short of plethoric; andincident followed incident, sketched with such vividness, such abundanceof colour, and such verisimilitude to a drunkard's life as a drunkard'slife should be, that had Miss Spence possessed the rather chillingattributes of William J. Burns himself, the last trace of skepticismmust have vanished from her mind. Besides, there are two things thatwill be believed of any man whatsoever, and one of them is that he hastaken to drink. And in every sense it was a moving picture which, withsimple but eloquent words, the virtuous Penrod set before his teacher. 

His eloquence increased with what it fed on; and as with the eloquenceso with self-reproach in the gentle bosom of the teacher. She clearedher throat with difficulty once or twice, during his description of hisministering night with Aunt Clara. "And I said to her, 'Why, Aunt Clara, what's the use of takin' on so about it?' And I said, 'Now, Aunt Clara, all the crying in the world can't make things any better. ' And thenshe'd just keep catchin' hold of me, and sob and kind of holler, and I'dsay, 'DON'T cry, Aunt Clara--PLEASE don't cry. "'

Then, under the influence of some fragmentary survivals of therespectable portion of his Sunday adventures, his theme became moreexalted; and, only partially misquoting a phrase from a psalm, herelated how he had made it of comfort to Aunt Clara, and how he hadbesought her to seek Higher guidance in her trouble. 

The surprising thing about a structure such as Penrod was erecting isthat the taller it becomes the more ornamentation it will stand. Giftedboys have this faculty of building magnificence upon cobwebs--and Penrodwas gifted. Under the spell of his really great performance, Miss Spencegazed more and more sweetly upon the prodigy of spiritual beauty andgoodness before her, until at last, when Penrod came to the explanationof his "just thinking, " she was forced to turn her head away. 

"You mean, dear, " she said gently, "that you were all worn out andhardly knew what you were saying?"

"Yes'm. "

"And you were thinking about all those dreadful things so hard that youforgot where you were?"

"I was thinking, " he said simply, "how to save Uncle John. "

And the end of it for this mighty boy was that the teacher kissed him!

CHAPTER XI FIDELITY OF A LITTLE DOG

The returning students, that afternoon, observed that Penrod's desk wasvacant--and nothing could have been more impressive than that sinistermere emptiness. The accepted theory was that Penrod had been arrested. How breathtaking, then, the sensation when, at the beginning of thesecond hour, he strolled--in with inimitable carelessness and, rubbinghis eyes, somewhat noticeably in the manner of one who has snatched anhour of much needed sleep, took his place as if nothing in particularhad happened. This, at first supposed to be a superhuman exhibitionof sheer audacity, became but the more dumfounding when MissSpence--looking up from her desk--greeted him with a pleasant littlenod. Even after school, Penrod gave numerous maddened investigators norelief. All he would consent to say was:

"Oh, I just TALKED to her. "

A mystification not entirely unconnected with the one thus produced wasmanifested at his own family dinner-table the following evening. AuntClara had been out rather late, and came to the table after the restwere seated. She wore a puzzled expression. 

"Do you ever see Mary Spence nowadays?" she inquired, as she unfoldedher napkin, addressing Mrs. Schofield. Penrod abruptly set down hissoup-spoon and gazed at his aunt with flattering attention. 

"Yes; sometimes, " said Mrs. Schofield. "She's Penrod's teacher. "

"Is she?" said Mrs. Farry. "Do you--" She paused. "Do people think her alittle--queer, these days?"

"Why, no, " returned her sister. "What makes you say that?"

"She has acquired a very odd manner, " said Mrs. Farry decidedly. "Atleast, she seemed odd to ME. I met her at the corner just before I gotto the house, a few minutes ago, and after we'd said howdy-do to eachother, she kept hold of my hand and looked as though she was going tocry. She seemed to be trying to say something, and choking----"

"But I don't think that's so very queer, Clara. She knew you in school, didn't she?"

"Yes, but----"

"And she hadn't seen you for so many years, I think it's perfectlynatural she----"

"Wait! She stood there squeezing my hand, and struggling to get hervoice--and I got really embarrassed--and then finally she said, in akind of tearful whisper, 'Be of good cheer--this trial will pass!'"

"How queer!" exclaimed Margaret. 

Penrod sighed, and returned somewhat absently to his soup. 

"Well, I don't know, " said Mrs. Schofield thoughtfully. "Of course she'sheard about the outbreak of measles in Dayton, since they had to closethe schools, and she knows you live there----"

"But doesn't it seem a VERY exaggerated way, " suggested Margaret, "totalk about measles?"

"Wait!" begged Aunt Clara. "After she said that, she said something evenqueerer, and then put her handkerchief to her eyes and hurried away. "

Penrod laid down his spoon again and moved his chair slightly back fromthe table. A spirit of prophecy was upon him: he knew that someone wasgoing to ask a question which he felt might better remain unspoken. 

"What WAS the other thing she said?" Mr. Schofield inquired, thusimmediately fulfilling his son's premonition. 

"She said, " returned Mrs. Farry slowly, looking about the table, "shesaid, 'I know that Penrod is a great, great comfort to you!'"

There was a general exclamation of surprise. It was a singular thing, and in no manner may it be considered complimentary to Penrod, that thisspeech of Miss Spence's should have immediately confirmed Mrs. Farry'sdoubts about her in the minds of all his family. 

Mr. Schofield shook his head pityingly. 

"I'm afraid she's a goner, " he went so far as to say. 

"Of all the weird ideas!" cried Margaret. 

"I never heard anything like it in my life!" Mrs. Schofield exclaimed. "Was that ALL she said?"

"Every word!"

Penrod again resumed attention to his soup. His mother looked at himcuriously, and then, struck by a sudden thought, gathered the glances ofthe adults of the table by a significant movement of the head, and, byanother, conveyed an admonition to drop the subject until later. MissSpence was Penrod's teacher: it was better, for many reasons, notto discuss the subject of her queerness before him. This was Mrs. Schofield's thought at the time. Later she had another, and it kept herawake. 

The next afternoon, Mr. Schofield, returning at five o'clock from thecares of the day, found the house deserted, and sat down to read hisevening paper in what appeared to be an uninhabited apartment known toits own world as the "drawing-room. " A sneeze, unexpected both to himand the owner, informed him of the presence of another person. 

"Where are you, Penrod?" the parent asked, looking about. 

"Here, " said Penrod meekly. 

Stooping, Mr. Schofield discovered his son squatting under the piano, near an open window--his wistful Duke lying beside him. 

"What are you doing there?"

"Me?"

"Why under the piano?"

"Well, " the boy returned, with grave sweetness, "I was just kind ofsitting here--thinking. "

"All right. " Mr. Schofield, rather touched, returned to the digestion ofa murder, his back once more to the piano; and Penrod silently drewfrom beneath his jacket (where he had slipped it simultaneously withthe sneeze) a paper-backed volume entitled: "Slimsy, the Sioux CitySquealer, or, 'Not Guilty, Your Honor. '"

In this manner the reading-club continued in peace, absorbed, contented, the world well forgot--until a sudden, violently irritated slam-bang ofthe front door startled the members; and Mrs. Schofield burst into theroom and threw herself into a chair, moaning. 

"What's the matter, mamma?" asked her husband laying aside his paper. 

"Henry Passloe Schofield, " returned the lady, "I don't know what IS tobe done with that boy; I do NOT!"

"You mean Penrod?"

"Who else could I mean?" She sat up, exasperated, to stare at him. "Henry Passloe Schofield, you've got to take this matter in yourhands--it's beyond me!"

"Well, what has he----"

"Last night I got to thinking, " she began rapidly, "about what Claratold us--thank Heaven she and Margaret and little Clara have gone to teaat Cousin Charlotte's!--but they'll be home soon--about what she saidabout Miss Spence----"

"You mean about Penrod's being a comfort?"

"Yes, and I kept thinking and thinking and thinking about it till Icouldn't stand it any----"

"By GEORGE!" shouted Mr. Schofield startlingly, stooping to lookunder the piano. A statement that he had suddenly remembered his son'spresence would be lacking in accuracy, for the highly sensitized Penrodwas, in fact, no longer present. No more was Duke, his faithful dog. 

"What's the matter?"

"Nothing, " he returned, striding to the open window and looking out. "Goon. "

"Oh, " she moaned, "it must be kept from Clara--and I'll never hold up myhead again if John Farry ever hears of it!"

"Hears of WHAT?"

"Well, I just couldn't stand it, I got so curious; and I thought ofcourse if Miss Spence HAD become a little unbalanced it was my duty toknow it, as Penrod's mother and she his teacher; so I thought I wouldjust call on her at her apartment after school and have a chat and seeand I did and--oh----"

"Well?"

"I've just come from there, and she told me--she told me! Oh, I've NEVERknown anything like this!"

"WHAT did she tell you?"

Mrs. Schofield, making a great effort, managed to assume a temporaryappearance of calm. "Henry, " she said solemnly, "bear this in mind:whatever you do to Penrod, it must be done in some place when Clarawon't hear it. But the first thing to do is to find him. "

Within view of the window from which Mr. Schofield was gazing was theclosed door of the storeroom in the stable, and just outside this doorDuke was performing a most engaging trick. 

His young master had taught Duke to "sit up and beg" when he wantedanything, and if that didn't get it, to "speak. " Duke was facing theclosed door and sitting up and begging, and now he also spoke--in aloud, clear bark. 

There was an open transom over the door, and from this descended--hurledby an unseen agency--a can half filled with old paint. 

It caught the small besieger of the door on his thoroughly surprisedright ear, encouraged him to some remarkable acrobatics, and turnedlarge portions of him a dull blue. Allowing only a moment to perplexity, and deciding, after a single and evidently unappetizing experiment, not to cleanse himself of paint, the loyal animal resumed his quaint, upright posture. 

Mr. Schofield seated himself on the window-sill, whence he could keep inview that pathetic picture of unrequited love. 

"Go on with your story, mamma, " he said. "I think I can find Penrod whenwe want him. "

And a few minutes later he added, "And I think I know the place to do itin. "

Again the faithful voice of Duke was heard, pleading outside the bolteddoor. 

CHAPTER XII MISS RENNSDALE ACCEPTS

"One-two-three; one-two-three--glide!" said Professor Bartet, emphasizing his instructions by a brisk collision of his palms at"glide. " "One-two-three; one-two-three--glide!"

The school week was over, at last, but Penrod's troubles were not. 

Round and round the ballroom went the seventeen struggling littlecouples of the Friday Afternoon Dancing Class. Round and round wenttheir reflections with them, swimming rhythmically in the polished, darkfloor--white and blue and pink for the girls; black, with dabs of white, for the white-collared, white-gloved boys; and sparks and sliversof high light everywhere as the glistening pumps flickered along thesurface like a school of flying fish. Every small pink face--with oneexception--was painstaking and set for duty. It was a conscientiouslittle merry-go-round. 

"One-two-three; one-two-three--glide! One-two-three;one-two-three--glide! One-two-th--Ha! Mister Penrod Schofield, you losethe step. Your left foot! No, no! This is the left! See--like me! Nowagain! One-two-three; one-two-three--glide! Better! Much better! Again!One-two-three; one-two-three--gl--Stop! Mr. Penrod Schofield, thisdancing class is provided by the kind parents of the pupilses as muchto learn the mannerss of good societies as to dance. You think you shallever see a gentleman in good societies to tickle his partner in thedance till she say Ouch? Never! I assure you it is not done. Again! Nowthen! Piano, please! One-two-three; one-two-three--glide! Mr. PenrodSchofield, your right foot--your right foot! No, no! Stop!"

The merry-go-round came to a standstill. 

"Mr. Penrod Schofield and partner"--Professor Bartet wiped hisbrow--"will you kindly observe me? One-two-three--glide! So! Nowthen--no; you will please keep your places, ladies and gentlemen. Mr. Penrod Schofield, I would puttickly like your attention, this is foryou!"

"Pickin' on me again!" murmured the smouldering Penrod to his small, unsympathetic partner. "Can't let me alone a minute!"

"Mister Georgie Bassett, please step to the centre, " said the professor. 

Mr. Bassett complied with modest alacrity. 

"Teacher's pet!" whispered Penrod hoarsely. He had nothing but contemptfor Georgie Bassett. The parents, guardians, aunts, uncles, cousins, governesses, housemaids, cooks, chauffeurs and coachmen, appertaining tothe members of the dancing class, all dwelt in the same part of town andshared certain communal theories; and among the most firmly establishedwas that which maintained Georgie Bassett to be the Best Boy in Town. Contrariwise, the unfortunate Penrod, largely because of his recentdazzling but disastrous attempts to control forces far beyond him, had been given a clear title as the Worst Boy in Town. (Population, 135, 000. ) To precisely what degree his reputation was the product ofhis own energies cannot be calculated. It was Marjorie Jones who firstapplied the description, in its definite simplicity, the day after the"pageant, " and, possibly, her frequent and effusive repetitions of it, even upon wholly irrelevant occasions, had something to do with itsprompt and quite perfect acceptance by the community. 

"Miss Rennsdale will please do me the fafer to be Mr. Georgie Bassett'spartner for one moment, " said Professor Bartet. "Mr. Penrod Schofieldwill please give his attention. Miss Rennsdale and Mister Bassett, obliche me, if you please. Others please watch. Piano, please! Nowthen!"

Miss Rennsdale, aged eight--the youngest lady in the class--and Mr. Georgie Bassett one-two-three--glided with consummate technique for thebetter education of Penrod Schofield. It is possible that amber-curled, beautiful Marjorie felt that she, rather than Miss Rennsdale, might havebeen selected as the example of perfection--or perhaps her remark wasonly woman. 

"Stopping everybody for that boy!" said Marjorie. 

Penrod, across the circle from her, heard distinctly--nay, he wasobviously intended to hear; but over a scorched heart he preserved astoic front. Whereupon Marjorie whispered derisively in the ear of herpartner, Maurice Levy, who wore a pearl pin in his tie. 

"Again, please, everybody--ladies and gentlemen!" cried ProfessorBartet. "Mister Penrod Schofield, if you please, pay putticklyattention! Piano, please! Now then!"

The lesson proceeded. At the close of the hour Professor Bartet steppedto the centre of the room and clapped his hands for attention. 

"Ladies and gentlemen, if you please to seat yourselves quietly, " hesaid; "I speak to you now about to-morrow. As you all know--MisterPenrod Schofield, I am not sticking up in a tree outside that window! Ifyou do me the fafer to examine I am here, insides of the room. Now then!Piano, pl--no, I do not wish the piano! As you all know, this is thelast lesson of the season until next October. Tomorrow is our specialafternoon; beginning three o'clock, we dance the cotillon. But thisafternoon comes the test of mannerss. You must see if each know how tomake a little formal call like a grown-up people in good societies. Youhave had good, perfect instruction; let us see if we know how to performlike societies ladies and gentlemen twenty-six years of age. 

"Now, when you're dismissed each lady will go to her home and prepare toreceive a call. The gentlemen will allow the ladies time to reach theirhouses and to prepare to receive callers; then each gentleman will callupon a lady and beg the pleasure to engage her for a partner in thecotillon to-morrow. You all know the correct, proper form for thesecalls, because didn't I work teaching you last lesson till I thoughtI would drop dead? Yes! Now each gentleman, if he reach a lady's housebehind some-other gentleman, then he must go somewhere else to a lady'shouse, and keep calling until he secures a partner; so, as there are thesame number of both, everybody shall have a partner. 

"Now please all remember that if in case--Mister Penrod Schofield, whenyou make your call on a lady I beg you to please remember that gentlemenin good societies do not scratch the back in societies as you appear toattempt; so please allow the hands to rest carelessly in the lap. Nowplease all remember that if in case--Mister Penrod Schofield, if youplease! Gentlemen in societies do not scratch the back by causingfrictions between it and the back of your chair, either! Nobody else isitching here! _I_ do not itch! I cannot talk if you must itch! In thename of Heaven, why must you always itch? What was I saying? Where ah!the cotillon--yes! For the cotillon it is important nobody shall failto be here tomorrow; but if any one should be so very ill he cannotpossible come he must write a very polite note of regrets in the formof good societies to his engaged partner to excuse himself--and he mustgive the reason. 

"I do not think anybody is going to be that sick to-morrow--no; and Iwill find out and report to parents if anybody would try it and not be. But it is important for the cotillon that we have an even number of somany couples, and if it should happen that someone comes and her partnerhas sent her a polite note that he has genuine reasons why he cannotcome, the note must be handed at once to me, so that I arrange someother partner. Is all understood? Yes. The gentlemen will remember nowto allow the ladies plenty of time to reach their houses and prepareto receive calls. Ladies and gentlemen, I thank you for your politeattention. "

It was nine blocks to the house of Marjorie Jones; but Penrod did it inless than seven minutes from a flying start--such was his haste to layhimself and his hand for the cotillon at the feet of one who had sorecently spoken unamiably of him in public. He had not yet learned thatthe only safe male rebuke to a scornful female is to stay away fromher--especially if that is what she desires. However, he did not wishto rebuke her; simply and ardently he wished to dance the cotillon withher. Resentment was swallowed up in hope. 

The fact that Miss Jones' feeling for him bore a striking resemblance tothat of Simon Legree for Uncle Tom, deterred him not at all. Naturally, he was not wholly unconscious that when he should lay his hand for thecotillon at her feet it would be her inward desire to step on it; buthe believed that if he were first in the field Marjorie would have toaccept. These things are governed by law. 

It was his fond intention to reach her house even in advance of herself, and with grave misgiving he beheld a large automobile at rest before thesainted gate. Forthwith, a sinking feeling became a portent inside himas little Maurice Levy emerged from the front door of the house. 

"'Lo, Penrod!" said Maurice airily. 

"What you doin' in there?" inquired Penrod. 

"In where?"

"In Marjorie's. "

"Well, what shouldn't I be doin' in Marjorie's?" Mr. Levy returnedindignantly. "I was inviting her for my partner in the cotillon--whatyou s'pose?"

"You haven't got any right to!" Penrod protested hotly. "You can't do ityet. "

"I did do it yet!" said Maurice. 

"You can't!" insisted Penrod. "You got to allow them time first. He saidthe ladies had to be allowed time to prepare. "

"Well, ain't she had time to prepare?"

"When?" Penrod demanded, stepping close to his rival threateningly. "I'dlike to know when----"

"When?" echoed the other with shrill triumph. "When? Why, in mamma'ssixty-horse powder limousine automobile, what Marjorie came home with mein! I guess that's when!"

An impulse in the direction of violence became visible upon thecountenance of Penrod. 

"I expect you need some wiping down, " he began dangerously. "I'll giveyou sumpthing to remem----"

"Oh, you will!" Maurice cried with astonishing truculence, contortinghimself into what he may have considered a posture of defense. "Let'ssee you try it, you--you itcher!"

For the moment, defiance from such a source was dumfounding. Then, luckily, Penrod recollected something and glanced at the automobile. 

Perceiving therein not only the alert chauffeur but the magnificentoutlines of Mrs. Levy, his enemy's mother, he manoeuvred his lifted handso that it seemed he had but meant to scratch his ear. 

"Well, I guess I better be goin', " he said casually. "See you tomorrow!"

Maurice mounted to the lap of luxury, and Penrod strolled away with anassumption of careless ease which was put to a severe strain when, fromthe rear window of the car, a sudden protuberance in the nature of asmall, dark, curly head shrieked scornfully:

"Go on--you big stiff!"

The cotillon loomed dismally before Penrod now; but it was his dutyto secure a partner and he set about it with a dreary heart. The delayoccasioned by his fruitless attempt on Marjorie and the altercation withhis enemy at her gate had allowed other ladies ample time to prepare forcallers--and to receive them. Sadly he went from house to house, findingthat he had been preceded in one after the other. Altogether hishand for the cotillon was declined eleven times that afternoon on thelegitimate ground of previous engagement. This, with Marjorie, scoredoff all except five of the seventeen possible partners; and four of thefive were also sealed away from him, as he learned in chance encounterswith other boys upon the street. 

One lady alone remained; he bowed to the inevitable and entered thislorn damsel's gate at twilight with an air of great discouragement. Thelorn damsel was Miss Rennsdale, aged eight. 

We are apt to forget that there are actually times of life when too muchyouth is a handicap. Miss Rennsdale was beautiful; she danced like apremiere; she had every charm but age. On that account alone had shebeen allowed so much time to prepare to receive callers that it was onlyby the most manful efforts she could keep her lip from trembling. 

A decorous maid conducted the long-belated applicant to her where shesat upon a sofa beside a nursery governess. The decorous maid announcedhim composedly as he made his entrance. 

"Mr. Penrod Schofield!"

Miss Rennsdale suddenly burst into loud sobs. 

"Oh!" she wailed. "I just knew it would be him!"

The decorous maid's composure vanished at once--likewise her decorum. She clapped her hand over her mouth and fled, uttering sounds. Thegoverness, however, set herself to comfort her heartbroken charge, andpresently succeeded in restoring Miss Rennsdale to a semblance of thatpoise with which a lady receives callers and accepts invitations todance cotillons. But she continued to sob at intervals. 

Feeling himself at perhaps a disadvantage, Penrod made offer of hishand for the morrow with a little embarrassment. Following the formprescribed by Professor Bartet, he advanced several paces toward thestricken lady and bowed formally. 

"I hope, " he said by rote, "you're well, and your parents also in goodhealth. May I have the pleasure of dancing the cotillon as your partnert'-morrow afternoon?"

The wet eyes of Miss Rennsdale searched his countenance withoutpleasure, and a shudder wrung her small shoulders; but the governesswhispered to her instructively, and she made a great effort. 

"I thu-thank you fu-for your polite invu-invu-invutation; and I ac----"Thus far she progressed when emotion overcame her again. She beatfrantically upon the sofa with fists and heels. "Oh, I DID want it to beGeorgie Bassett!"

"No, no, no!" said the governess, and whispered urgently, whereupon MissRennsdale was able to complete her acceptance. 

"And I ac-accept wu-with pu-pleasure!" she moaned, and immediately, uttering a loud yell, flung herself face downward upon the sofa, clutching her governess convulsively. 

Somewhat disconcerted, Penrod bowed again. 

"I thank you for your polite acceptance, " he murmured hurriedly; "andI trust--I trust--I forget. Oh, yes--I trust we shall have a mostenjoyable occasion. Pray present my compliments to your parents; and Imust now wish you a very good afternoon. "

Concluding these courtly demonstrations with another bow he withdrew infair order, though thrown into partial confusion in the hall by a finalwail from his crushed hostess:

"Oh! Why couldn't it be anybody but HIM!"

CHAPTER XIII THE SMALLPOX MEDICINE

Next morning Penrod woke in profound depression of spirit, the cotillonominous before him. He pictured Marjorie Jones and Maurice, graceful andlight-hearted, flitting by him fairylike, loosing silvery laughter uponhim as he engaged in the struggle to keep step with a partner about fouryears and two feet his junior. It was hard enough for Penrod to keepstep with a girl of his size. 

The foreboding vision remained with him, increasing in vividness, throughout the forenoon. He found himself unable to fix his mindupon anything else, and, having bent his gloomy footsteps toward thesawdust-box, after breakfast, presently descended therefrom, abandoningHarold Ramorez where he had left him the preceding Saturday. Then, as hesat communing silently with wistful Duke, in the storeroom, coquettishfortune looked his way. 

It was the habit of Penrod's mother not to throw away anythingwhatsoever until years of storage conclusively proved there would neverbe a use for it; but a recent house-cleaning had ejected upon the backporch a great quantity of bottles and other paraphernalia of medicine, left over from illnesses in the family during a period of several years. This debris Della, the cook, had collected in a large market basket, adding to it some bottles of flavouring extracts that had provedunpopular in the household; also, old catsup bottles; a jar or two ofpreserves gone bad; various rejected dental liquids--and other things. And she carried the basket out to the storeroom in the stable. 

Penrod was at first unaware of what lay before him. Chin on palms, hesat upon the iron rim of a former aquarium and stared morbidly throughthe open door at the checkered departing back of Della. It was anotherwho saw treasure in the basket she had left. 

Mr. Samuel Williams, aged eleven, and congenial to Penrod in years, sex, and disposition, appeared in the doorway, shaking into foam a blackliquid within a pint bottle, stoppered by a thumb. 

"Yay, Penrod!" the visitor gave greeting. 

"Yay, " said Penrod with slight enthusiasm. "What you got?"

"Lickrish water. "

"Drinkin's!" demanded Penrod promptly. This is equivalent to the cry of"Biters" when an apple is shown, and establishes unquestionable title. 

"Down to there!" stipulated Sam, removing his thumb to affix it firmlyas a mark upon the side of the bottle a check upon gormandizing thatremained carefully in place while Penrod drank. 

This rite concluded, the visitor's eye fell upon the basket deposited byDella. He emitted tokens of pleasure. 

"Looky! Looky! Looky there! That ain't any good pile o' stuff--oh, no!"

"What for?"

"Drug store!" shouted Sam. "We'll be partners----"

"Or else, " Penrod suggested, "I'll run the drug store and you be acustomer----"

"No! Partners!" insisted Sam with such conviction that his host yielded;and within ten minutes the drug store was doing a heavy business withimaginary patrons. Improvising counters with boards and boxes, andsetting forth a very druggish-looking stock from the basket, each of thepartners found occupation to his taste--Penrod as salesman and Sam asprescription clerk. 

"Here you are, madam!" said Penrod briskly, offering a vial of Sam'smixing to an invisible matron. "This will cure your husband in a fewminutes. Here's the camphor, mister. Call again! Fifty cents' worth ofpills? Yes, madam. There you are! Hurry up with that dose for the niggerlady, Bill!"

"I'll 'tend to it soon's I get time, Jim, " replied the prescriptionclerk. "I'm busy fixin' the smallpox medicine for the sick policemandowntown. "

Penrod stopped sales to watch this operation. Sam had found an emptypint bottle and, with the pursed lips and measuring eye of a greatchemist, was engaged in filling it from other bottles. 

First, he poured into it some of the syrup from the condemned preserves;and a quantity of extinct hair oil; next the remaining contents of adozen small vials cryptically labelled with physicians' prescriptions;then some remnants of catsup and essence of beef and what was leftin several bottles of mouthwash; after that a quantity of rejectedflavouring extract--topping off by shaking into the mouth of thebottle various powders from small pink papers, relics of Mr. Schofield'sinfluenza of the preceding winter. 

Sam examined the combination with concern, appearing unsatisfied. "Wegot to make that smallpox medicine good and strong!" he remarked; and, his artistic sense growing more powerful than his appetite, he pouredabout a quarter of the licorice water into the smallpox medicine. 

"What you doin'?" protested Penrod. "What you want to waste thatlickrish water for? We ought to keep it to drink when we're tired. "

"I guess I got a right to use my own lickrish water any way I want to, "replied the prescription clerk. "I tell you, you can't get smallpoxmedicine too strong. Look at her now!" He held the bottle up admiringly. "She's as black as lickrish. I bet you she's strong all right!"

"I wonder how she tastes?" said Penrod thoughtfully. 

"Don't smell so awful much, " observed Sam, sniffing the bottle--"a gooddeal, though!"

"I wonder if it'd make us sick to drink it?" said Penrod. 

Sam looked at the bottle thoughtfully; then his eye, wandering, fellupon Duke, placidly curled up near the door, and lighted with the adventof an idea new to him, but old, old in the world--older than Egypt!

"Let's give Duke some!" he cried. 

That was the spark. They acted immediately; and a minute later Duke, released from custody with a competent potion of the smallpox medicineinside him, settled conclusively their doubts concerning its effect. Thepatient animal, accustomed to expect the worst at all times, walked outof the door, shaking his head with an air of considerable annoyance, opening and closing his mouth with singular energy--and so repeatedlythat they began to count the number of times he did it. Sam thought itwas thirty-nine times, but Penrod had counted forty-one before other andmore striking symptoms appeared. 

All things come from Mother Earth and must return--Duke restored muchat this time. Afterward, he ate heartily of grass; and then, over hisshoulder, he bent upon his master one inscrutable look and departedfeebly to the front yard. 

The two boys had watched the process with warm interest. "I told you shewas strong!" said Mr. Williams proudly. 

"Yes, sir--she is!" Penrod was generous enough to admit. "I expect she'sstrong enough----" He paused in thought, and added:

"We haven't got a horse any more. "

"I bet you she'd fix him if you had!" said Sam. And it may be that thiswas no idle boast. 

The pharmaceutical game was not resumed; the experiment upon Duke hadmade the drug store commonplace and stimulated the appetite for strongermeat. Lounging in the doorway, the near-vivisectionists sipped licoricewater alternately and conversed. 

"I bet some of our smallpox medicine would fix ole P'fessor Bartet allright!" quoth Penrod. "I wish he'd come along and ask us for some. "

"We could tell him it was lickrish water, " added Sam, liking the idea. "The two bottles look almost the same. "

"Then we wouldn't have to go to his ole cotillon this afternoon, " Penrodsighed. "There wouldn't be any!"

"Who's your partner, Pen?"

"Who's yours?"

"Who's yours? I just ast you. "

"Oh, she's all right!" And Penrod smiled boastfully. 

"I bet you wanted to dance with Marjorie!" said his friend. 

"Me? I wouldn't dance with that girl if she begged me to! I wouldn'tdance with her to save her from drowning! I wouldn't da----"

"Oh, no--you wouldn't!" interrupted Mr. Williams skeptically. 

Penrod changed his tone and became persuasive. 

"Looky here, Sam, " he said confidentially. "I've got 'a mighty nicepartner, but my mother don't like her mother; and so I've been thinkingI better not dance with her. I'll tell you what I'll do; I've got amighty good sling in the house, and I'll give it to you if you'll changepartners. "

"You want to change and you don't even know who mine is!" said Sam, andhe made the simple though precocious deduction: "Yours must be a lala!Well, I invited Mabel Rorebeck, and she wouldn't let me change ifI wanted to. Mabel Rorebeck'd rather dance with me, " he continuedserenely, "than anybody; and she said she was awful afraid you'd asther. But I ain't goin' to dance with Mabel after all, because thismorning she sent me a note about her uncle died last night--and P'fessorBartet'll have to find me a partner after I get there. Anyway I bet youhaven't got any sling--and I bet your partner's Baby Rennsdale!"

"What if she is?" said Penrod. "She's good enough for ME!" This speechheld not so much modesty in solution as intended praise of the lady. Taken literally, however, it was an understatement of the facts andwholly insincere. 

"Yay!" jeered Mr. Williams, upon whom his friend's hypocrisy was quitewasted. "How can your mother not like her mother? Baby Rennsdale hasn'tgot any mother! You and her'll be a sight!"

That was Penrod's own conviction; and with this corroboration of ithe grew so spiritless that he could offer no retort. He slid to adespondent sitting posture upon the door sill and gazed wretchedly uponthe ground, while his companion went to replenish the licorice water atthe hydrant--enfeebling the potency of the liquor no doubt, but makingup for that in quantity. 

"Your mother goin' with you to the cotillon?" asked Sam when hereturned. 

"No. She's goin' to meet me there. She's goin' somewhere first. "

"So's mine, " said Sam. "I'll come by for you. "

"All right. "

"I better go before long. Noon whistles been blowin'. "

"All right, " Penrod repeated dully. 

Sam turned to go, but paused. A new straw hat was peregrinating alongthe fence near the two boys. This hat belonged to someone passing uponthe sidewalk of the cross-street; and the someone was Maurice Levy. Even as they stared, he halted and regarded them over the fence with twosmall, dark eyes. 

Fate had brought about this moment and this confrontation. 

CHAPTER XIV MAURICE LEVY'S CONSTITUTION

"Lo, Sam!" said Maurice cautiously. "What you doin'?"

Penrod at that instant had a singular experience--an intellectual shocklike a flash of fire in the brain. Sitting in darkness, a great lightflooded him with wild brilliance. He gasped!

"What you doin'?" repeated Mr. Levy. 

Penrod sprang to his feet, seized the licorice bottle, shook it withstoppering thumb, and took a long drink with histrionic unction. 

"What you doin'?" asked Maurice for the third time, Sam Williams nothaving decided upon a reply. 

It was Penrod who answered. 

"Drinkin' lickrish water, " he said simply, and wiped his mouth with suchdelicious enjoyment that Sam's jaded thirst was instantly stimulated. Hetook the bottle eagerly from Penrod. 

"A-a-h!" exclaimed Penrod, smacking his lips. "That was a good un!"

The eyes above the fence glistened. 

"Ask him if he don't want some, " Penrod whispered urgently. "Quitdrinkin' it! It's no good any more. Ask him!"

"What for?" demanded the practical Sam. 

"Go on and ask him!" whispered Penrod fiercely. 

"Say, M'rice!" Sam called, waving the bottle. "Want some?"

"Bring it here!" Mr. Levy requested. 

"Come on over and get some, " returned Sam, being prompted. 

"I can't. Penrod Schofield's after me. "

"No, I'm not, " said Penrod reassuringly. "I won't touch you, M'rice. I made up with you yesterday afternoon--don't you remember? You're allright with me, M'rice. "

Maurice looked undecided. But Penrod had the delectable bottle again, and tilting it above his lips, affected to let the cool liquid purlenrichingly into him, while with his right hand he stroked his middlefacade ineffably. Maurice's mouth watered. 

"Here!" cried Sam, stirred again by the superb manifestations of hisfriend. "Gimme that!"

Penrod brought the bottle down, surprisingly full after so much gusto, but withheld it from Sam; and the two scuffled for its possession. Nothing in the world could have so worked upon the desire of theyearning observer beyond the fence. 

"Honest, Penrod--you ain't goin' to touch me if I come in your yard?" hecalled. "Honest?"

"Cross my heart!" answered Penrod, holding the bottle away from Sam. "And we'll let you drink all you want. "

Maurice hastily climbed the fence, and while he was thus occupied Mr. Samuel Williams received a great enlightenment. With startling rapidityPenrod, standing just outside the storeroom door, extended his armwithin the room, deposited the licorice water upon the counter of thedrug store, seized in its stead the bottle of smallpox medicine, andextended it cordially toward the advancing Maurice. 

Genius is like that--great, simple, broad strokes!

Dazzled, Mr. Samuel Williams leaned against the wall. He hadthe sensations of one who comes suddenly into the presence of achef-d'oeuvre. Perhaps his first coherent thought was that almostuniversal one on such huge occasions: "Why couldn't _I_ have done that!"

Sam might have been even more dazzled had he guessed that he figured notaltogether as a spectator in the sweeping and magnificent conception ofthe new Talleyrand. Sam had no partner for the cotillon. If Mauricewas to be absent from that festivity--as it began to seem he mightbe--Penrod needed a male friend to take care of Miss Rennsdale and hebelieved he saw his way to compel Mr. Williams to be that male friend. For this he relied largely upon the prospective conduct of MissRennsdale when he should get the matter before her--he was inclined tobelieve she would favour the exchange. As for Talleyrand Penrod himself, he was going to dance that cotillon with Marjorie Jones!

"You can have all you can drink at one pull, M'rice, " said Penrodkindly. 

"You said I could have all I want!" protested Maurice, reaching for thebottle. 

"No, I didn't, " returned Penrod quickly, holding it away from the eagerhand. 

"He did, too! Didn't he, Sam?"

Sam could not reply; his eyes, fixed upon the bottle, protrudedstrangely. 

"You heard him--didn't you, Sam?"

"Well, if I did say it I didn't mean it!" said Penrod hastily, quotingfrom one of the authorities. "Looky here, M'rice, " he continued, assuming a more placative and reasoning tone, "that wouldn't be fair tous. I guess we want some of our own lickrish water, don't we? The bottleain't much over two-thirds full anyway. What I meant was, you can haveall you can drink at one pull. "

"How do you mean?"

"Why, this way: you can gulp all you want, so long as you keepswallering; but you can't take the bottle out of your mouth and commenceagain. Soon's you quit swallering it's Sam's turn. "

"No; you can have next, Penrod, " said Sam. 

"Well, anyway, I mean M'rice has to give the bottle up the minute hestops swallering. "

Craft appeared upon the face of Maurice, like a poster pasted on a wall. 

"I can drink so long I don't stop swallering?"

"Yes; that's it. "

"All right!" he cried. "Gimme the bottle!"

And Penrod placed it in his hand. 

"You promise to let me drink until I quit swallering?" Maurice insisted. 

"Yes!" said both boys together. 

With that, Maurice placed the bottle to his lips and began to drink. Penrod and Sam leaned forward in breathless excitement. They had fearedMaurice might smell the contents of the bottle; but that danger waspast--this was the crucial moment. Their fondest hope was that he wouldmake his first swallow a voracious one--it was impossible to imagine asecond. They expected one big, gulping swallow and then an explosion, with fountain effects. 

Little they knew the mettle of their man! Maurice swallowed once; heswallowed twice--and thrice--and he continued to swallow! No Adam'sapple was sculptured on that juvenile throat, but the internal progressof the liquid was not a whit the less visible. His eyes gleamed withcunning and malicious triumph, sidewise, at the stunned conspirators;he was fulfilling the conditions of the draught, not once breaking thethread of that marvelous swallering. 

His audience stood petrified. Already Maurice had swallowed more thanthey had given Duke and still the liquor receded in the uplifted bottle!And now the clear glass gleamed above the dark contents full half thevessel's length--and Maurice went on drinking! Slowly the clear glassincreased in its dimensions--slowly the dark diminished. 

Sam Williams made a horrified movement to check him--but Mauriceprotested passionately with his disengaged arm, and made vehement vocalnoises remindful of the contract; whereupon Sam desisted and watched thecontinuing performance in a state of grisly fascination. 

Maurice drank it all! He drained the last drop and threw the bottle inthe air, uttering loud ejaculations of triumph and satisfaction. 

"Hah!" he cried, blowing out his cheeks, inflating his chest, squaringhis shoulders, patting his stomach, and wiping his mouth contentedly. "Hah! Aha! Waha! Wafwah! But that was good!"

The two boys stood looking at him in stupor. 

"Well, I gotta say this, " said Maurice graciously: "You stuck to yourbargain all right and treated me fair. "

Stricken with a sudden horrible suspicion, Penrod entered the storeroomin one stride and lifted the bottle of licorice water to his nose--thento his lips. It was weak, but good; he had made no mistake. And Mauricehad really drained--to the dregs--the bottle of old hair tonics, deadcatsups, syrups of undesirable preserves, condemned extracts ofvanilla and lemon, decayed chocolate, ex-essence of beef, mixed dentalpreparations, aromatic spirits of ammonia, spirits of nitre, alcohol, arnica, quinine, ipecac, sal volatile, nux vomica and licorice water--with traces of arsenic, belladonna and strychnine. 

Penrod put the licorice water out of sight and turned to face theothers. Maurice was seating himself on a box just outside the door andhad taken a package of cigarettes from his pocket. 

"Nobody can see me from here, can they?" he said, striking a match. "Youfellers smoke?"

"No, " said Sam, staring at him haggardly. 

"No, " said Penrod in a whisper. 

Maurice lit his cigarette and puffed showily. 

"Well, sir, " he remarked, "you fellers are certainly square--I gottasay that much. Honest, Penrod, I thought you was after me! I didthink so, " he added sunnily; "but now I guess you like me, or elseyou wouldn't of stuck to it about lettin' me drink it all if I kept onswallering. "

He chatted on with complete geniality, smoking his cigarette in content. And as he ran from one topic to another his hearers stared at him in akind of torpor. Never once did they exchange a glance with each other;their eyes were frozen to Maurice. The cheerful conversationalist madeit evident that he was not without gratitude. 

"Well, " he said as he finished his cigarette and rose to go, "youfellers have treated me nice and some day you come over to my yard; I'dlike to run with you fellers. You're the kind of fellers I like. "

Penrod's jaw fell; Sam's mouth had been open all the time. Neitherspoke. 

"I gotta go, " observed Maurice, consulting a handsome watch. "Gotta getdressed for the cotillon right after lunch. Come on, Sam. Don't you haveto go, too?"

Sam nodded dazedly. 

"Well, good-bye, Penrod, " said Maurice cordially. "I'm glad you like meall right. Come on, Sam. "

Penrod leaned against the doorpost and with fixed and glazing eyeswatched the departure of his two visitors. Maurice was talking volubly, with much gesticulation, as they went; but Sam walked mechanicallyand in silence, staring at his brisk companion and keeping at a littledistance from him. 

They passed from sight, Maurice still conversing gayly--and Penrodslowly betook himself into the house, his head bowed upon his chest. 

Some three hours later, Mr. Samuel Williams, waxen clean and in sweetraiment, made his reappearance in Penrod's yard, yodelling a code-signalto summon forth his friend. He yodelled loud, long, and frequently, finally securing a faint response from the upper air. 

"Where are you?" shouted Mr. Williams, his roving glance searchingambient heights. Another low-spirited yodel reaching his ear, heperceived the head and shoulders of his friend projecting above theroofridge of the stable. The rest of Penrod's body was concealed fromview, reposing upon the opposite slant of the gable and precariouslysecured by the crooking of his elbows over the ridge. 

"Yay! What you doin' up there?"

"Nothin'. "

"You better be careful!" Sam called. "You'll slide off and fall down inthe alley if you don't look out. I come pert' near it last time we wasup there. Come on down! Ain't you goin' to the cotillon?"

Penrod made no reply. Sam came nearer. 

"Say, " he called up in a guarded voice, "I went to our telephone a whileago and ast him how he was feelin', and he said he felt fine!"

"So did I, " said Penrod. "He told me he felt bully!"

Sam thrust his hands in his pockets and brooded. The opening of thekitchen door caused a diversion. It was Della. 

"Mister Penrod, " she bellowed forthwith, "come ahn down fr'm up there!Y'r mamma's at the dancin' class waitin' fer ye, an' she's telephonedme they're goin' to begin--an' what's the matter with ye? Come ahn downfr'm up there!"

"Come on!" urged Sam. "We'll be late. There go Maurice and Marjorienow. "

A glittering car spun by, disclosing briefly a genre picture of MarjorieJones in pink, supporting a monstrous sheaf of American Beauty roses. Maurice, sitting shining and joyous beside her, saw both boys and wavedthem a hearty greeting as the car turned the corner. 

Penrod uttered some muffled words and then waved both arms--either inresponse or as an expression of his condition of mind; it may havebeen a gesture of despair. How much intention there was in thisact--obviously so rash, considering the position he occupied--itis impossible to say. Undeniably there must remain a suspicion ofdeliberate purpose. 

Della screamed and Sam shouted. Penrod had disappeared from view. 

The delayed dance was about to begin a most uneven cotillon when SamuelWilliams arrived. 

Mrs. Schofield hurriedly left the ballroom; while Miss Rennsdale, flushing with sudden happiness, curtsied profoundly to Professor Bartetand obtained his attention. 

"I have telled you fifty times, " he informed her passionately ere shespoke, "I cannot make no such changes. If your partner comes you have todance with him. You are going to drive me crazy, sure! What is it? Whatnow? What you want?"

The damsel curtsied again and handed him the following communication, addressed to herself:

"Dear madam Please excuse me from dancing the cotilon with youthis afternoon as I have fell off the barn

"Sincerly yours

"PENROD SCHOFIELD. "

CHAPTER XV THE TWO FAMILIES

Penrod entered the schoolroom, Monday picturesquely leaning upon a man'scane shortened to support a cripple approaching the age of twelve. Hearrived about twenty minutes late, limping deeply, his brave young mouthdrawn with pain, and the sensation he created must have been a solace tohim; the only possible criticism of this entrance being that it was justa shade too heroic. Perhaps for that reason it failed to stagger MissSpence, a woman so saturated with suspicion that she penalized Penrodfor tardiness as promptly and as coldly as if he had been a mere, ordinary, unmutilated boy. Nor would she entertain any discussion of thejustice of her ruling. It seemed, almost, that she feared to argue withhim. 

However, the distinction of cane and limp remained to him, consolationswhich he protracted far into the week--until Thursday evening, in fact, when Mr. Schofield, observing from a window his son's pursuit of Dukeround and round the backyard, confiscated the cane, with the promisethat it should not remain idle if he saw Penrod limping again. Thus, succeeding a depressing Friday, another Saturday brought the necessityfor new inventions. 

It was a scented morning in apple-blossom time. At about ten of theclock Penrod emerged hastily from the kitchen door. His pockets bulgedabnormally; so did his checks, and he swallowed with difficulty. Athreatening mop, wielded by a cooklike arm in a checkered sleeve, followed him through the doorway, and he was preceded by a small, hurried, wistful dog with a warm doughnut in his mouth. The kitchen doorslammed petulantly, enclosing the sore voice of Della, whereupon Penrodand Duke seated themselves upon the pleasant sward and immediatelyconsumed the spoils of their raid. 

From the cross-street which formed the side boundary of the Schofields'ample yard came a jingle of harness and the cadenced clatter of a pairof trotting horses, and Penrod, looking up, beheld the passing of afat acquaintance, torpid amid the conservative splendours of a ratherold-fashioned victoria. This was Roderick Magsworth Bitts, Junior, afellow sufferer at the Friday Afternoon Dancing Class, but otherwise notoften a companion: a home-sheltered lad, tutored privately and preservedagainst the coarsening influences of rude comradeship and miscellaneousinformation. Heavily overgrown in all physical dimensions, virtuous, and placid, this cloistered mutton was wholly uninteresting to PenrodSchofield. Nevertheless, Roderick Magsworth Bitts, Junior, was apersonage on account of the importance of the Magsworth Bitts family;and it was Penrod's destiny to increase Roderick's celebrity far, farbeyond its present aristocratic limitations. 

The Magsworth Bittses were important because they were impressive; therewas no other reason. And they were impressive because they believedthemselves important. The adults of the family were impregnably formal;they dressed with reticent elegance, and wore the same nose and thesame expression--an expression which indicated that they knew somethingexquisite and sacred which other people could never know. Other people, in their presence, were apt to feel mysteriously ignoble and tobecome secretly uneasy about ancestors, gloves, and pronunciation. TheMagsworth Bitts manner was withholding and reserved, though sometimesgracious, granting small smiles as great favours and giving off achilling kind of preciousness. Naturally, when any citizen of thecommunity did anything unconventional or improper, or made a mistake, orhad a relative who went wrong, that citizen's first and worst fearwas that the Magsworth Bittses would hear of it. In fact, this painfulfamily had for years terrorized the community, though the communityhad never realized that it was terrorized, and invariably spoke of thefamily as the "most charming circle in town. " By common consent, Mrs. Roderick Magsworth Bitts officiated as the supreme model as well ascritic-in-chief of morals and deportment for all the unlucky peopleprosperous enough to be elevated to her acquaintance. 

Magsworth was the important part of the name. Mrs. Roderick MagsworthBitts was a Magsworth born, herself, and the Magsworth crest decoratednot only Mrs. Magsworth Bitts' note-paper but was on the china, on thetable linen, on the chimney-pieces, on the opaque glass of the frontdoor, on the victoria, and on the harness, though omitted from thegarden-hose and the lawn-mower. 

Naturally, no sensible person dreamed of connecting that illustriouscrest with the unfortunate and notorious Rena Magsworth whose name hadgrown week by week into larger and larger type upon the front pages ofnewspapers, owing to the gradually increasing public and official beliefthat she had poisoned a family of eight. However, the statement that nosensible person could have connected the Magsworth Bitts family with thearsenical Rena takes no account of Penrod Schofield. 

Penrod never missed a murder, a hanging or an electrocution in thenewspapers; he knew almost as much about Rena Magsworth as her jurymendid, though they sat in a court-room two hundred miles away, and he hadit in mind--so frank he was--to ask Roderick Magsworth Bitts, Junior, ifthe murderess happened to be a relative. 

The present encounter, being merely one of apathetic greeting, did notafford the opportunity. Penrod took off his cap, and Roderick, seatedbetween his mother and one of his grown-up sisters, nodded sluggishly, but neither Mrs. Magsworth Bitts nor her daughter acknowledged thesalutation of the boy in the yard. They disapproved of him as aperson of little consequence, and that little, bad. Snubbed, Penrodthoughtfully restored his cap to his head. A boy can be cut aseffectually as a man, and this one was chilled to a low temperature. Hewondered if they despised him because they had seen a last fragment ofdoughnut in his hand; then he thought that perhaps it was Duke who haddisgraced him. Duke was certainly no fashionable looking dog. 

The resilient spirits of youth, however, presently revived, anddiscovering a spider upon one knee and a beetle simultaneously upon theother, Penrod forgot Mrs. Roderick Magsworth Bitts in the course ofsome experiments infringing upon the domain of Doctor Carrel. Penrod'sefforts--with the aid of a pin--to effect a transference of livingorganism were unsuccessful; but he convinced himself forever that aspider cannot walk with a beetle's legs. Della then enhanced zoologicalinterest by depositing upon the back porch a large rat-trap from thecellar, the prison of four live rats awaiting execution. 

Penrod at once took possession, retiring to the empty stable, wherehe installed the rats in a small wooden box with a sheet of brokenwindow-glass--held down by a brickbat--over the top. Thus the symptomsof their agitation, when the box was shaken or hammered upon, could bestudied at leisure. Altogether this Saturday was starting splendidly. 

After a time, the student's attention was withdrawn from his specimensby a peculiar smell, which, being followed up by a system of selectivesniffing, proved to be an emanation leaking into the stable from thealley. He opened the back door. 

Across the alley was a cottage which a thrifty neighbour had built onthe rear line of his lot and rented to negroes; and the fact that anegro family was now in process of "moving in" was manifested by thepresence of a thin mule and a ramshackle wagon, the latter ladenwith the semblance of a stove and a few other unpretentious householdarticles. 

A very small darky boy stood near the mule. In his hand was a rustychain, and at the end of the chain the delighted Penrod perceived thesource of the special smell he was tracing--a large raccoon. Duke, who had shown not the slightest interest in the rats, set up a franticbarking and simulated a ravening assault upon the strange animal. Itwas only a bit of acting, however, for Duke was an old dog, had sufferedmuch, and desired no unnecessary sorrow, wherefore he confined hisdemonstrations to alarums and excursions, and presently sat down ata distance and expressed himself by intermittent threatenings in aquavering falsetto. 

"What's that 'coon's name?" asked Penrod, intending no discourtesy. 

"Aim gommo mame, " said the small darky. 

"What?"

"Aim gommo mame. "

"WHAT?"

The small darky looked annoyed. 

"Aim GOMMO mame, I hell you, " he said impatiently. 

Penrod conceived that insult was intended. 

"What's the matter of you?" he demanded advancing. "You get fresh withME, and I'll----"

"Hyuh, white boy!" A coloured youth of Penrod's own age appeared inthe doorway of the cottage. "You let 'at brothuh mine alone. He ain' donothin' to you. "

"Well, why can't he answer?"

"He can't. He can't talk no better'n what he WAS talkin'. Hetongue-tie'. "

"Oh, " said Penrod, mollified. Then, obeying an impulse so universallyaroused in the human breast under like circumstances that it has becomea quip, he turned to the afflicted one. 

"Talk some more, " he begged eagerly. 

"I hoe you ackoom aim gommo mame, " was the prompt response, in whicha slight ostentation was manifest. Unmistakable tokens of vanity hadappeared upon the small, swart countenance. 

"What's he mean?" asked Penrod, enchanted. 

"He say he tole you 'at 'coon ain' got no name. "

"What's YOUR name?"

"I'm name Herman. "

"What's his name?" Penrod pointed to the tongue-tied boy. 

"Verman. "

"What!"

"Verman. Was three us boys in ow fam'ly. Ol'est one name Sherman. 'N'encome me; I'm Herman. 'N'en come him; he Verman. Sherman dead. Verman, hede littles' one. "

"You goin' to live here?"

"Umhuh. Done move in f'm way outen on a fahm. "

He pointed to the north with his right hand, and Penrod's eyes openedwide as they followed the gesture. Herman had no forefinger on thathand. 

"Look there!" exclaimed Penrod. "You haven't got any finger!"

"_I_ mum map, " said Verman, with egregious pride. 

"HE done 'at, " interpreted Herman, chuckling. "Yessuh; done chop 'erspang off, long 'go. He's a playin' wif a ax an' I lay my finguh on dedo'-sill an' I say, 'Verman, chop 'er off!' So Verman he chop 'er rightspang off up to de roots! Yessuh. "

"What FOR?"

"Jes' fo' nothin'. "

"He hoe me hoo, " remarked Verman. 

"Yessuh, I tole him to, " said Herman, "an' he chop 'er off, an' ey ain'tairy oth' one evuh grown on wheres de ole one use to grow. Nosuh!"

"But what'd you tell him to do it for?"

"Nothin'. I 'es' said it 'at way--an' he jes' chop er off!"

Both brothers looked pleased and proud. Penrod's profound interest wasflatteringly visible, a tribute to their unusualness. 

"Hem bow goy, " suggested Verman eagerly. 

"Aw ri', " said Herman. "Ow sistuh Queenie, she a growed-up woman; shegot a goituh. "

"Got a what?"

"Goituh. Swellin' on her neck--grea' big swellin'. She heppin' mammymove in now. You look in de front-room winduh wheres she sweepin'; youkin see it on her. "

Penrod looked in the window and was rewarded by a fine view of Queenie'sgoitre. He had never before seen one, and only the lure of furtherconversation on the part of Verman brought him from the window. 

"Verman say tell you 'bout pappy, " explained Herman. "Mammy an' Queeniemove in town an' go git de house all fix up befo' pappy git out. "

"Out of where?"

"Jail. Pappy cut a man, an' de police done kep' him in jail evuh senseChris'mus-time; but dey goin' tuhn him loose ag'in nex' week. "

"What'd he cut the other man with?"

"Wif a pitchfawk. "

Penrod began to feel that a lifetime spent with this fascinating familywere all too short. The brothers, glowing with amiability, were asenraptured as he. For the first time in their lives they moved in therich glamour of sensationalism. Herman was prodigal of gesture with hisright hand; and Verman, chuckling with delight, talked fluently, though somewhat consciously. They cheerfully agreed to keep theraccoon--already beginning to be mentioned as "our 'coon" by Penrod--inMr. Schofield's empty stable, and, when the animal had been chained tothe wall near the box of rats and supplied with a pan of fair water, they assented to their new friend's suggestion (inspired by a finesense of the artistic harmonies) that the heretofore nameless pet bechristened Sherman, in honour of their deceased relative. 

At this juncture was heard from the front yard the sound of thatyodelling which is the peculiar accomplishment of those whose voiceshave not "changed. " Penrod yodelled a response; and Mr. Samuel Williamsappeared, a large bundle under his arm. 

"Yay, Penrod!" was his greeting, casual enough from without; but, havingentered, he stopped short and emitted a prodigious whistle. "YA-A-AY!"he then shouted. "Look at the 'coon!"

"I guess you better say, 'Look at the 'coon!'" Penrod returned proudly. "They's a good deal more'n him to look at, too. Talk some, Verman. "Verman complied. 

Sam was warmly interested. "What'd you say his name was?" he asked. 

"Verman. "

"How d'you spell it?"

"V-e-r-m-a-n, " replied Penrod, having previously received thisinformation from Herman. 

"Oh!" said Sam. 

"Point to sumpthing, Herman, " Penrod commanded, and Sam's excitement, when Herman pointed was sufficient to the occasion. 

Penrod, the discoverer, continued his exploitation of the manifoldwonders of the Sherman, Herman, and Verman collection. With the air ofa proprietor he escorted Sam into the alley for a good look at Queenie(who seemed not to care for her increasing celebrity) and proceeded toa dramatic climax--the recital of the episode of the pitchfork and itsconsequences. 

The cumulative effect was enormous, and could have but one possibleresult. The normal boy is always at least one half Barnum. 

"Let's get up a SHOW!"

Penrod and Sam both claimed to have said it first, a question leftunsettled in the ecstasies of hurried preparation. The bundle underSam's arm, brought with no definite purpose, proved to have beenan inspiration. It consisted of broad sheets of light yellowwrapping-paper, discarded by Sam's mother in her spring house-cleaning. There were half-filled cans and buckets of paint in the storeroomadjoining the carriage-house, and presently the side wall of the stableflamed information upon the passer-by from a great and spreading poster. 

"Publicity, " primal requisite of all theatrical and amphitheatricalenterprise thus provided, subsequent arrangements proceeded with a furyof energy which transformed the empty hayloft. True, it is impossible tosay just what the hay-loft was transformed into, but history warrantablyclings to the statement that it was transformed. Duke and Sherman weresecured to the rear wall at a considerable distance from each other, after an exhibition of reluctance on the part of Duke, during which hedisplayed a nervous energy and agility almost miraculous in so small andmiddle-aged a dog. Benches were improvised for spectators; the ratswere brought up; finally the rafters, corn-crib, and hay-chute wereornamented with flags and strips of bunting from Sam Williams'attic, Sam returning from the excursion wearing an old silk hat, andaccompanied (on account of a rope) by a fine dachshund encountered onthe highway. In the matter of personal decoration paint was generouslyused: an interpretation of the spiral, inclining to whites and greens, becoming brilliantly effective upon the dark facial backgrounds ofHerman and Verman; while the countenances of Sam and Penrod were eachsupplied with the black moustache and imperial, lacking which, noprofessional showman can be esteemed conscientious. 

It was regretfully decided, in council, that no attempt be made to addQueenie to the list of exhibits, her brothers warmly declining to act asambassadors in that cause. They were certain Queenie would not likethe idea, they said, and Herman picturesquely described her activityon occasions when she had been annoyed by too much attention to herappearance. However, Penrod's disappointment was alleviated by aninspiration which came to him in a moment of pondering upon thedachshund, and the entire party went forth to add an enriching line tothe poster. 

They found a group of seven, including two adults, already gathered inthe street to read and admire this work. 

 SCHoFiELD & WiLLiAMS BiG SHOW ADMiSSioN 1 CENT oR 20 PiNS MUSUEM oF CURioSiTES Now GoiNG oN SHERMAN HERMAN & VERMAN THiER FATHERS iN JAiL STABED A MAN WiTH A PiTCHFORK SHERMAN THE WiLD ANIMAL CAPTURED iN AFRiCA HERMAN THE ONE FiNGERED TATOOD WILD MAN VERMAN THE SAVAGE TATOOD WILD BoY TALKS ONLY iN HiS NAiTiVE LANGUAGS. Do NoT FAIL TO SEE DUKE THE INDiAN DOG ALSO THE MiCHiGAN TRAiNED RATS

A heated argument took place between Sam and Penrod, the point at issuebeing settled, finally, by the drawing of straws; whereupon Penrod, withpardonable self-importance--in the presence of an audience now increasedto nine--slowly painted the words inspired by the dachshund:

 IMPoRTENT Do NoT MISS THE SoUTH AMERiCAN DoG PART ALLIGATOR. 

CHAPTER XVI THE NEW STAR

Sam, Penrod, Herman, and Verman withdrew in considerable state fromnon-paying view, and, repairing to the hay-loft, declared the exhibitionopen to the public. Oral proclamation was made by Sam, and then theloitering multitude was enticed by the seductive strains of a band; thetwo partners performing upon combs and paper, Herman and Verman upon tinpans with sticks. 

The effect was immediate. Visitors appeared upon the stairway and soughtadmission. Herman and Verman took position among the exhibits, nearthe wall; Sam stood at the entrance, officiating as barker andticket-seller; while Penrod, with debonair suavity, acted as curator, master of ceremonies, and lecturer. He greeted the first to enter with acourtly bow. They consisted of Miss Rennsdale and her nursery governess, and they paid spot cash for their admission. 

"Walk in, lay-deeze, walk right in--pray do not obstruck thepassageway, " said Penrod, in a remarkable voice. "Pray be seated; thereis room for each and all. "

Miss Rennsdale and governess were followed by Mr. Georgie Bassett andbaby sister (which proves the perfection of Georgie's character) andsix or seven other neighbourhood children--a most satisfactory audience, although, subsequent to Miss Rennsdale and governess, admission waswholly by pin. 

"GEN-til-mun and LAY-deeze, " shouted Penrod, "I will first call yourat-tain-shon to our genuine South American dog, part alligator!" Hepointed to the dachshund, and added, in his ordinary tone, "That's him. "Straightway reassuming the character of showman, he bellowed: "NEXT, you see Duke, the genuine, full-blooded Indian dog from the far WesternPlains and Rocky Mountains. NEXT, the trained Michigan rats, capturedway up there, and trained to jump and run all around the box at the--atthe--at the slightest PRE-text!" He paused, partly to take breath andpartly to enjoy his own surprised discovery that this phrase was in hisvocabulary. 

"At the slightest PRE-text!" he repeated, and continued, suiting theaction to the word: "I will now hammer upon the box and each and all maysee these genuine full-blooded Michigan rats perform at the slightestPRE-text! There! (That's all they do now, but I and Sam are goin' totrain 'em lots more before this afternoon. ) GEN-til-mun and LAY-deeze Iwill kindly now call your at-tain-shon to Sherman, the wild animalfrom Africa, costing the lives of the wild trapper and many of hiscompanions. NEXT, let me kindly interodoos Herman and Verman. Theirfather got mad and stuck his pitchfork right inside of another man, exactly as promised upon the advertisements outside the big tent, andgot put in jail. Look at them well, gen-til-mun and lay-deeze, there isno extra charge, and RE-MEM-BUR you are each and all now looking at twowild, tattooed men which the father of is in jail. Point, Herman. Eachand all will have a chance to see. Point to sumpthing else, Herman. This is the only genuine one-fingered tattooed wild man. Last onthe programme, gen-til-mun and lay-deeze, we have Verman, the savagetattooed wild boy, that can't speak only his native foreign languages. Talk some, Verman. "

Verman obliged and made an instantaneous hit. He was encoredrapturously, again and again; and, thrilling with the unique pleasure ofbeing appreciated and misunderstood at the same time, would have talkedall day but too gladly. Sam Williams, however, with a true showman'sforesight, whispered to Penrod, who rang down on the monologue. 

"GEN-til-mun and LAY-deeze, this closes our pufformance. Pray pass outquietly and with as little jostling as possible. As soon as you are allout there's goin' to be a new pufformance, and each and all are welcomeat the same and simple price of admission. Pray pass out quietly andwith as little jostling as possible. RE-MEM-BUR the price is only onecent, the tenth part of a dime, or twenty pins, no bent ones taken. Praypass out quietly and with as little jostling as possible. The Schofieldand Williams Military Band will play before each pufformance, and eachand all are welcome for the same and simple price of admission. Praypass out quietly and with as little jostling as possible. "

Forthwith, the Schofield and Williams Military Band began a secondoverture, in which something vaguely like a tune was at timesdistinguishable; and all of the first audience returned, most of themhaving occupied the interval in hasty excursions for more pins; MissRennsdale and governess, however, again paying coin of the Republic andreceiving deference and the best seats accordingly. And when a thirdperformance found all of the same inveterate patrons once more crowdingthe auditorium, and seven recruits added, the pleasurable excitement ofthe partners in their venture will be understood by any one who has seena metropolitan manager strolling about the foyer of his theatre someevening during the earlier stages of an assured "phenomenal run. "

From the first, there was no question which feature of the entertainmentwas the attraction extraordinary: Verman--Verman, the savage tattooedwild boy, speaking only his native foreign languages--Verman was atriumph! Beaming, wreathed in smiles, melodious, incredibly fluent, he had but to open his lips and a dead hush fell upon the audience. Breathless, they leaned forward, hanging upon his every semi-syllable, and, when Penrod checked the flow, burst into thunders of applause, which Verman received with happy laughter. 

Alas! he delayed not o'er long to display all the egregiousness of anew star; but for a time there was no caprice of his too eccentric tobe forgiven. During Penrod's lecture upon the other curios, the tattooedwild boy continually stamped his foot, grinned, and gesticulated, tapping his tiny chest, and pointing to himself as it were to say: "Waitfor Me! I am the Big Show. " So soon they learn; so soon they learn! And(again alas!) this spoiled darling of public favour, like many another, was fated to know, in good time, the fickleness of that favour. 

But during all the morning performances he was the idol of his audienceand looked it! The climax of his popularity came during the fifthoverture of the Schofield and Williams Military Band, when the musicwas quite drowned in the agitated clamours of Miss Rennsdale, who wasendeavouring to ascend the stairs in spite of the physical dissuasion ofher governess. 

"I WON'T go home to lunch!" screamed Miss Rennsdale, her voiceaccompanied by a sound of ripping. "I WILL hear the tattooed wild boytalk some more! It's lovely--I WILL hear him talk! I WILL! I WILL! Iwant to listen to Verman--I WANT to--I WANT to----"

Wailing, she was borne away--of her sex not the first to be fascinatedby obscurity, nor the last to champion its eloquence. 

Verman was almost unendurable after this, but, like many, many othermanagers, Schofield and Williams restrained their choler, and evenlaughed fulsomely when their principal attraction essayed the role of acomedian in private, and capered and squawked in sheer, fatuous vanity. 

The first performance of the afternoon rivalled the successes of themorning, and although Miss Rennsdale was detained at home, thus dryingup the single source of cash income developed before lunch, Maurice Levyappeared, escorting Marjorie Jones, and paid coin for two admissions, dropping the money into Sam's hand with a careless--nay, acontemptuous--gesture. At sight of Marjorie, Penrod Schofield flushedunder his new moustache (repainted since noon) and lectured as he hadnever lectured before. A new grace invested his every gesture; a newsonorousness rang in his voice; a simple and manly pomposity markedhis very walk as he passed from curio to curio. And when he fearlesslyhandled the box of rats and hammered upon it with cool insouciance, hebeheld--for the first time in his life--a purl of admiration eddying inMarjorie's lovely eye, a certain softening of that eye. And then Vermanspake and Penrod was forgotten. Marjorie's eye rested upon him no more. 

A heavily equipped chauffeur ascended the stairway, bearing the messagethat Mrs. Levy awaited her son and his lady. Thereupon, having devouredthe last sound permitted (by the managers) to issue from Verman, Mr. Levy and Miss Jones departed to a real matinee at a real theatre, thelimpid eyes of Marjorie looking back softly over her shoulder--but onlyat the tattooed wild boy. Nearly always it is woman who puts the ironyinto life. 

After this, perhaps because of sated curiosity, perhaps on account of apin famine, the attendance began to languish. Only four responded tothe next call of the band; the four dwindled to three; finally theentertainment was given for one blase auditor, and Schofield andWilliams looked depressed. Then followed an interval when the bandplayed in vain. 

About three o'clock Schofield and Williams were gloomily discussingvarious unpromising devices for startling the public into a renewal ofinterest, when another patron unexpectedly appeared and paid a cent forhis admission. News of the Big Show and Museum of Curiosities had atlast penetrated the far, cold spaces of interstellar niceness, for thisnew patron consisted of no less than Roderick Magsworth Bitts, Junior, escaped in a white "sailor suit" from the Manor during a period ofsevere maternal and tutorial preoccupation. 

He seated himself without parley, and the pufformance was offered forhis entertainment with admirable conscientiousness. True to the LadyClara caste and training, Roderick's pale, fat face expressed nothingexcept an impervious superiority and, as he sat, cold and unimpressedupon the front bench, like a large, white lump, it must be said thathe made a discouraging audience "to play to. " He was not, however, unresponsive--far from it. He offered comment very chilling to the warmgrandiloquence of the orator. 

"That's my uncle Ethelbert's dachshund, " he remarked, at the beginningof the lecture. "You better take him back if you don't want to getarrested. " And when Penrod, rather uneasily ignoring the interruption, proceeded to the exploitation of the genuine, full-blooded Indian dog, Duke, "Why don't you try to give that old dog away?" asked Roderick. "You couldn't sell him. "

"My papa would buy me a lots better 'coon than that, " was theinformation volunteered a little later, "only I wouldn't want the nastyold thing. "

Herman of the missing finger obtained no greater indulgence. "Pooh!"said Roderick. "We have two fox-terriers in our stables that took prizesat the kennel show, and their tails were BIT off. There's a man thatalways bites fox-terriers' tails off. "

"Oh, my gosh, what a lie!" exclaimed Sam Williams ignorantly. 

"Go on with the show whether he likes it or not, Penrod. He's paid hismoney. "

Verman, confident in his own singular powers, chuckled openly at thefailure of the other attractions to charm the frosty visitor, and, when his turn came, poured forth a torrent of conversation which wasstraightway damned. 

"Rotten, " said Mr. Bitts languidly. "Anybody could talk like that. _I_could do it if I wanted to. "

Verman paused suddenly. 

"YES, you could!" exclaimed Penrod, stung. "Let's hear you do it, then. "

"Yessir!" the other partner shouted. "Let's just hear you DO it!"

"I said I could if I wanted to, " responded Roderick. "I didn't say IWOULD. "

"Yay! Knows he can't!" sneered Sam. 

"I can, too, if I try. "

"Well, let's hear you try!"

So challenged, the visitor did try, but, in the absence of an impartialjury, his effort was considered so pronounced a failure that he washowled down, derided, and mocked with great clamours. 

"Anyway, " said Roderick, when things had quieted down, "if I couldn'tget up a better show than this I'd sell out and leave town. "

Not having enough presence of mind to inquire what he would sell out, his adversaries replied with mere formless yells of scorn. 

"I could get up a better show than this with my left hand, " Roderickasserted. 

"Well, what would you have in your ole show?" asked Penrod, condescending to language. 

"That's all right, what I'd HAVE. I'd have enough!"

"You couldn't get Herman and Verman in your ole show. "

"No, and I wouldn't want 'em, either!"

"Well, what WOULD you have?" insisted Penrod derisively. "You'd have tohave SUMPTHING--you couldn't be a show yourself!"

"How do YOU know?" This was but meandering while waiting for ideas, andevoked another yell. 

"You think you could be a show all by yourself?" demanded Penrod. 

"How do YOU know I couldn't?"

Two white boys and two black boys shrieked their scorn of the boaster. 

"I could, too!" Roderick raised his voice to a sudden howl, obtaining ahearing. 

"Well, why don't you tell us how?"

"Well, _I_ know HOW, all right, " said Roderick. "If anybody asks you, you can just tell him I know HOW, all right. "

"Why, you can't DO anything, " Sam began argumentatively. "You talkabout being a show all by yourself; what could you try to do? Show ussumpthing you can do. "

"I didn't say I was going to DO anything, " returned the badgered one, still evading. 

"Well, then, how'd you BE a show?" Penrod demanded. "WE got a show here, even if Herman didn't point or Verman didn't talk. Their father stabbeda man with a pitchfork, I guess, didn't he?"

"How do _I_ know?"

"Well, I guess he's in jail, ain't he?"

"Well, what if their father is in jail? I didn't say he wasn't, did I?"

"Well, YOUR father ain't in jail, is he?"

"Well, I never said he was, did I?"

"Well, then, " continued Penrod, "how could you be a----" He stoppedabruptly, staring at Roderick, the birth of an idea plainly visible inhis altered expression. He had suddenly remembered his intention toask Roderick Magsworth Bitts, Junior, about Rena Magsworth, and thisrecollection collided in his mind with the irritation produced byRoderick's claiming some mysterious attainment which would warrant hissetting up as a show in his single person. Penrod's whole manner changedinstantly. 

"Roddy, " he asked, almost overwhelmed by a prescience of something vastand magnificent, "Roddy, are you any relation of Rena Magsworth?"

Roderick had never heard of Rena Magsworth, although a concentrationof the sentence yesterday pronounced upon her had burned, black andhorrific, upon the face of every newspaper in the country. He was notallowed to read the journals of the day and his family's indignationover the sacrilegious coincidence of the name had not been expressed inhis presence. But he saw that it was an awesome name to Penrod Schofieldand Samuel Williams. Even Herman and Verman, though lacking manyeducational advantages on account of a long residence in the country, were informed on the subject of Rena Magsworth through hearsay, and theyjoined in the portentous silence. 

"Roddy, " repeated Penrod, "honest, is Rena Magsworth some relation ofyours?"

There is no obsession more dangerous to its victims than a convictionespecially an inherited one--of superiority: this world is so fullof Missourians. And from his earliest years Roderick Magsworth Bitts, Junior, had been trained to believe in the importance of the Magsworthfamily. At every meal he absorbed a sense of Magsworth greatness, andyet, in his infrequent meetings with persons of his own age and sex, he was treated as negligible. Now, dimly, he perceived that there wasa Magsworth claim of some sort which was impressive, even to boys. Magsworth blood was the essential of all true distinction in the world, he knew. Consequently, having been driven into a cul-de-sac, as a resultof flagrant and unfounded boasting, he was ready to take advantage ofwhat appeared to be a triumphal way out. 

"Roddy, " said Penrod again, with solemnity, "is Rena Magsworth somerelation of yours?"

"IS she, Roddy?" asked Sam, almost hoarsely. 

"She's my aunt!" shouted Roddy. 

Silence followed. Sam and Penrod, spellbound, gazed upon RoderickMagsworth Bitts, Junior. So did Herman and Verman. Roddy's staggeringlie had changed the face of things utterly. No one questioned it; no onerealized that it was much too good to be true. 

"Roddy, " said Penrod, in a voice tremulous with hope, "Roddy, will youjoin our show?"

Roddy joined. 

Even he could see that the offer implied his being starred as theparamount attraction of a new order of things. It was obvious that hehad swelled out suddenly, in the estimation of the other boys, to thatimportance which he had been taught to believe his native gift andnatural right. The sensation was pleasant. He had often been treatedwith effusion by grown-up callers and by acquaintances of his mothersand sisters; he had heard ladies speak of him as "charming" and "thatdelightful child, " and little girls had sometimes shown him deference, but until this moment no boy had ever allowed him, for one moment, topresume even to equality. Now, in a trice, he was not only admittedto comradeship, but patently valued as something rare and sacred to beacclaimed and pedestalled. In fact, the very first thing that Schofieldand Williams did was to find a box for him to stand upon. 

The misgivings roused in Roderick's bosom by the subsequent activitiesof the firm were not bothersome enough to make him forego his prominenceas Exhibit A. He was not a "quick-minded" boy, and it was long (andmuch happened) before he thoroughly comprehended the causes of his newcelebrity. He had a shadowy feeling that if the affair came to be heardof at home it might not be liked, but, intoxicated by the glamour andbustle which surround a public character, he made no protest. On thecontrary, he entered whole-heartedly into the preparations for thenew show. Assuming, with Sam's assistance, a blue moustache and"side-burns, " he helped in the painting of a new poster, which, supplanting the old one on the wall of the stable facing thecross-street, screamed bloody murder at the passers in that ratherpopulous thoroughfare. 

 SCHoFiELD & WiLLiAMS NEW BIG SHoW RoDERiCK MAGSWoRTH BiTTS JR ONLY LiViNG NEPHEW oF RENA MAGSWORTH THE FAMOS MUDERESS GoiNG To BE HUNG NEXT JULY KiLED EiGHT PEOPLE PUT ARSiNECK iN THiER MiLK ALSO SHERMAN HERMAN AND VERMAN THE MiCHiGAN RATS DOG PART ALLiGATOR DUKE THE GENUiNE InDiAN DoG ADMISSioN 1 CENT oR 20 PINS SAME AS BEFORE Do NoT MISS THIS CHANSE TO SEE RoDERICK ONLY LiViNG NEPHEW oF RENA MAGSWORTH THE GREAT FAMOS MUDERESS GoiNG To BE HUNG

CHAPTER XVII RETIRING FROM THE SHOW-BUSINESS

Megaphones were constructed out of heavy wrapping-paper, and Penrod, Sam, and Herman set out in different directions, delivering vocallythe inflammatory proclamation of the poster to a large section of theresidential quarter, and leaving Roderick Magsworth Bitts, Junior, withVerman in the loft, shielded from all deadhead eyes. Upon the returnof the heralds, the Schofield and Williams Military Band playeddeafeningly, and an awakened public once more thronged to fill thecoffers of the firm. 

Prosperity smiled again. The very first audience after the acquisitionof Roderick was larger than the largest of the morning. MasterBitts--the only exhibit placed upon a box--was a supercurio. All eyesfastened upon him and remained, hungrily feasting, throughout Penrod'sluminous oration. 

But the glory of one light must ever be the dimming of another. We dwellin a vale of seesaws--and cobwebs spin fastest upon laurel. Verman, thetattooed wild boy, speaking only in his native foreign languages, Vermanthe gay, Verman the caperer, capered no more; he chuckled no more, hebeckoned no more, nor tapped his chest, nor wreathed his idolatrous facein smiles. Gone, all gone, were his little artifices for attracting thegeneral attention to himself; gone was every engaging mannerism whichhad endeared him to the mercurial public. He squatted against the walland glowered at the new sensation. It was the old story--the old, old story of too much temperament: Verman was suffering from artisticjealousy. 

The second audience contained a cash-paying adult, a spectacled youngman whose poignant attention was very flattering. He remained after thelecture, and put a few questions to Roddy, which were answered ratherconfusedly upon promptings from Penrod. The young man went away withouthaving stated the object of his interrogations, but it became quiteplain, later in the day. This same object caused the spectacled youngman to make several brief but stimulating calls directly after leavingthe Schofield and Williams Big Show, and the consequences thereofloitered not by the wayside. 

The Big Show was at high tide. Not only was the auditorium filledand throbbing; there was an indubitable line--by no means whollyjuvenile--waiting for admission to the next pufformance. A group stoodin the street examining the poster earnestly as it glowed in the long, slanting rays of the westward sun, and people in automobiles and othervehicles had halted wheel in the street to read the message so piquantlygiven to the world. These were the conditions when a crested victoriaarrived at a gallop, and a large, chastely magnificent and highlyflushed woman descended, and progressed across the yard with an air ofviolence. 

At sight of her, the adults of the waiting line hastily disappeared, and most of the pausing vehicles moved instantly on their way. She wasfollowed by a stricken man in livery. 

The stairs to the auditorium were narrow and steep; Mrs. RoderickMagsworth Bitts was of a stout favour; and the voice of Penrod wasaudible during the ascent. 

"RE-MEM-BUR, gentilmun and lay-deeze, each and all are now gazing uponRoderick Magsworth Bitts, Junior, the only living nephew of the greatRena Magsworth. She stuck ars'nic in the milk of eight separate anddistinck people to put in their coffee and each and all of 'em died. Thegreat ars'nic murderess, Rena Magsworth, gentilmun and lay-deeze, and Roddy's her only living nephew. She's a relation of all the Bittsfamily, but he's her one and only living nephew. RE-MEM-BUR! Next Julyshe's goin' to be hung, and, each and all, you now see before you----"

Penrod paused abruptly, seeing something before himself--the august andawful presence which filled the entryway. And his words (it should berelated) froze upon his lips. 

Before HERSELF, Mrs. Roderick Magsworth Bitts saw her son--herscion--wearing a moustache and sideburns of blue, and perched upon a boxflanked by Sherman and Verman, the Michigan rats, the Indian dog Duke, Herman, and the dog part alligator. 

Roddy, also, saw something before himself. It needed no prophet toread the countenance of the dread apparition in the entryway. His mouthopened--remained open--then filled to capacity with a calamitous soundof grief not unmingled with apprehension. 

Penrod's reason staggered under the crisis. For a horrible moment he sawMrs. Roderick Magsworth Bitts approaching like some fatal mountain inavalanche. She seemed to grow larger and redder; lightnings played abouther head; he had a vague consciousness of the audience spraying outin flight, of the squealings, tramplings and dispersals of a strickenfield. The mountain was close upon him----

He stood by the open mouth of the hay-chute which went through the floorto the manger below. Penrod also went through the floor. He propelledhimself into the chute and shot down, but not quite to the manger, forMr. Samuel Williams had thoughtfully stepped into the chute a moment inadvance of his partner. Penrod lit upon Sam. 

Catastrophic noises resounded in the loft; volcanoes seemed to romp uponthe stairway. 

There ensued a period when only a shrill keening marked the passing ofRoderick as he was borne to the tumbril. Then all was silence. 

. . . Sunset, striking through a western window, rouged the walls ofthe Schofields' library, where gathered a joint family council andcourt martial of four--Mrs. Schofield, Mr. Schofield, and Mr. And Mrs. Williams, parents of Samuel of that ilk. Mr. Williams read aloud aconspicuous passage from the last edition of the evening paper:

"Prominent people here believed close relations of woman sentenced tohang. Angry denial by Mrs. R. Magsworth Bitts. Relationship admitted byyounger member of family. His statement confirmed by boy-friends----"

"Don't!" said Mrs. Williams, addressing her husband vehemently. "We'veall read it a dozen times. We've got plenty of trouble on our handswithout hearing THAT again!"

Singularly enough, Mrs. Williams did not look troubled; she looked asif she were trying to look troubled. Mrs. Schofield wore a similarexpression. So did Mr. Schofield. So did Mr. Williams. 

"What did she say when she called YOU up?" Mrs. Schofield inquiredbreathlessly of Mrs. Williams. 

"She could hardly speak at first, and then when she did talk, she talkedso fast I couldn't understand most of it, and----"

"It was just the same when she tried to talk to me, " said Mrs. Schofield, nodding. 

"I never did hear any one in such a state before, " continued Mrs. Williams. "So furious----"

"Quite justly, of course, " said Mrs. Schofield. 

"Of course. And she said Penrod and Sam had enticed Roderick away fromhome--usually he's not allowed to go outside the yard except with histutor or a servant--and had told him to say that horrible creature washis aunt----"

"How in the world do you suppose Sam and Penrod ever thought of sucha thing as THAT!" exclaimed Mrs. Schofield. "It must have been made upjust for their 'show. ' Della says there were just STREAMS going in andout all day. Of course it wouldn't have happened, but this was the dayMargaret and I spend every month in the country with Aunt Sarah, and Ididn't DREAM----"

"She said one thing I thought rather tactless, " interrupted Mrs. Williams. "Of course we must allow for her being dreadfully excited andwrought up, but I do think it wasn't quite delicate in her, and she'susually the very soul of delicacy. She said that Roderick had NEVER beenallowed to associate with--common boys----"

"Meaning Sam and Penrod, " said Mrs. Schofield. "Yes, she said that tome, too. "

"She said that the most awful thing about it, " Mrs. Williams went on, "was that, though she's going to prosecute the newspapers, many peoplewould always believe the story, and----"

"Yes, I imagine they will, " said Mrs. Schofield musingly. "Of course youand I and everybody who really knows the Bitts and Magsworth familiesunderstand the perfect absurdity of it; but I suppose there are ever somany who'll believe it, no matter what the Bittses and Magsworths say. "

"Hundreds and hundreds!" said Mrs. Williams. "I'm afraid it will be agreat come-down for them. "

"I'm afraid so, " said Mrs. Schofield gently. "A very great one--yes, avery, very great one. "

"Well, " observed Mrs. Williams, after a thoughtful pause, "there's onlyone thing to be done, and I suppose it had better be done right away. "

She glanced toward the two gentlemen. 

"Certainly, " Mr. Schofield agreed. "But where ARE they?"

"Have you looked in the stable?" asked his wife. 

"I searched it. They've probably started for the far West. "

"Did you look in the sawdust-box?"

"No, I didn't. "

"Then that's where they are. "

Thus, in the early twilight, the now historic stable was approached bytwo fathers charged to do the only thing to be done. They entered thestoreroom. 

"Penrod!" said Mr. Schofield. 

"Sam!" said Mr. Williams. 

Nothing disturbed the twilight hush. 

But by means of a ladder, brought from the carriage-house, Mr. Schofieldmounted to the top of the sawdust-box. He looked within, and discernedthe dim outlines of three quiet figures, the third being that of a smalldog. 

The two boys rose, upon command, descended the ladder after Mr. Schofield, bringing Duke with them, and stood before the authors oftheir being, who bent upon them sinister and threatening brows. Withhanging heads and despondent countenances, each still ornamented with amoustache and an imperial, Penrod and Sam awaited sentence. 

This is a boy's lot: anything he does, anything whatever, may afterwardturn out to have been a crime--he never knows. 

And punishment and clemency are alike inexplicable. 

Mr. Williams took his son by the ear. 

"You march home!" he commanded. 

Sam marched, not looking back, and his father followed the small figureimplacably. 

"You goin' to whip me?" quavered Penrod, alone with Justice. 

"Wash your face at that hydrant, " said his father sternly. 

About fifteen minutes later, Penrod, hurriedly entering the corner drugstore, two blocks distant, was astonished to perceive a familiar form atthe soda counter. 

"Yay, Penrod, " said Sam Williams. "Want some sody? Come on. He didn'tlick me. He didn't do anything to me at all. He gave me a quarter. "

"So'd mine, " said Penrod. 

CHAPTER XVIII MUSIC

Boyhood is the longest time in life for a boy. The last term of theschool-year is made of decades, not of weeks, and living through them islike waiting for the millennium. But they do pass, somehow, and at lastthere came a day when Penrod was one of a group that capered outfrom the gravelled yard of "Ward School, Nomber Seventh, " carolling aleave-taking of the institution, of their instructress, and not evenforgetting Mr. Capps, the janitor. 

"Good-bye, teacher! Good-bye, school! Good-bye, Cappsie, dern ole fool!"

Penrod sang the loudest. For every boy, there is an age when he "findshis voice. " Penrod's had not "changed, " but he had found it. Inevitablythat thing had come upon his family and the neighbours; and his father, a somewhat dyspeptic man, quoted frequently the expressive words ofthe "Lady of Shalott, " but there were others whose sufferings were aspoignant. 

Vacation-time warmed the young of the world to pleasant languor; anda morning came that was like a brightly coloured picture in a child'sfairy story. Miss Margaret Schofield, reclining in a hammock upon thefront porch, was beautiful in the eyes of a newly made senior, wellfavoured and in fair raiment, beside her. A guitar rested lightly uponhis knee, and he was trying to play--a matter of some difficulty, asthe floor of the porch also seemed inclined to be musical. From directlyunder his feet came a voice of song, shrill, loud, incredibly piercingand incredibly flat, dwelling upon each syllable with incomprehensiblereluctance to leave it. 

 "I have lands and earthly pow-wur. I'd give all for a now-wur, Whi-ilst setting at MY-Y-Y dear old mother's knee-ee, So-o-o rem-mem-bur whilst you're young----"

Miss Schofield stamped heartily upon the musical floor. 

"It's Penrod, " she explained. "The lattice at the end of the porch isloose, and he crawls under and comes out all bugs. He's been havinga dreadful singing fit lately--running away to picture shows andvaudeville, I suppose. "

Mr. Robert Williams looked upon her yearningly. He touched a thrillingchord on his guitar and leaned nearer. "But you said you have missedme, " he began. "I----"

The voice of Penrod drowned all other sounds. 

 "So-o-o rem-mem-bur, whi-i-ilst you're young, That the day-a-ys to you will come, When you're o-o-old and only in the way, Do not scoff at them BEE-cause----"

"PENROD!" Miss Schofield stamped again. 

"You DID say you'd missed me, " said Mr. Robert Williams, seizinghurriedly upon the silence. "Didn't you say----"

A livelier tune rose upward. 

 "Oh, you talk about your fascinating beauties, Of your dem-O-zells, your belles, But the littil dame I met, while in the city, She's par excellaws the queen of all the swells. She's sweeter far----"

Margaret rose and jumped up and down repeatedly in a well-calculatedarea, whereupon the voice of Penrod cried chokedly, "QUIT that!" andthere were subterranean coughings and sneezings. 

"You want to choke a person to death?" he inquired severely, appearingat the end of the porch, a cobweb upon his brow. And, continuing, heput into practice a newly acquired phrase, "You better learn to be moreconsiderick of other people's comfort. "

Slowly and grievedly he withdrew, passed to the sunny side of the house, reclined in the warm grass beside his wistful Duke, and presently sangagain. 

 "She's sweeter far than the flower I named her after, And the memery of her smile it haunts me YET! When in after years the moon is soffly beamun' And at eve I smell the smell of mignonette I will re-CALL that----"

"Pen-ROD!"

Mr. Schofield appeared at an open window upstairs, a book in his hand. 

"Stop it!" he commanded. "Can't I stay home with a headache ONE morningfrom the office without having to listen to--I never DID hear suchsquawking!" He retired from the window, having too impulsively calledupon his Maker. Penrod, shocked and injured, entered the house, butpresently his voice was again audible as far as the front porch. He washolding converse with his mother, somewhere in the interior. 

"Well, what of it? Sam Williams told me his mother said if Bob ever didthink of getting married to Margaret, his mother said she'd like to knowwhat in the name o' goodness they expect to----"

Bang! Margaret thought it better to close the front door. 

The next minute Penrod opened it. "I suppose you want the whole familyto get a sunstroke, " he said reprovingly. "Keepin' every breath of airout o' the house on a day like this!"

And he sat down implacably in the doorway. 

The serious poetry of all languages has omitted the little brother;and yet he is one of the great trials of love--the immemorial burden ofcourtship. Tragedy should have found place for him, but he has been leftto the haphazard vignettist of Grub Street. He is the grave andreal menace of lovers; his head is sacred and terrible, his powerillimitable. There is one way--only one--to deal with him; but RobertWilliams, having a brother of Penrod's age, understood that way. 

Robert had one dollar in the world. He gave it to Penrod immediately. 

Enslaved forever, the new Rockefeller rose and went forth upon thehighway, an overflowing heart bursting the floodgates of song. 

 "In her eyes the light of love was soffly gleamun', So sweetlay, So neatlay. On the banks the moon's soff light was brightly streamun', Words of love I then spoke TO her. She was purest of the PEW-er: 'Littil sweetheart, do not sigh, Do not weep and do not cry. I will build a littil cottige just for yew-EW-EW and I. '"

In fairness, it must be called to mind that boys older than Penrod havethese wellings of pent melody; a wife can never tell when she is toundergo a musical morning, and even the golden wedding brings her nosecurity, a man of ninety is liable to bust-loose in song, any time. 

Invalids murmured pitifully as Penrod came within hearing; and peopletrying to think cursed the day that they were born, when he wentshrilling by. His hands in his pockets, his shining face uplifted to thesky of June, he passed down the street, singing his way into the heart'sdeepest hatred of all who heard him. 

 "One evuning I was sturow-ling Midst the city of the DEAD, I viewed where all a-round me Their PEACE-full graves was SPREAD. But that which touched me mostlay----"

He had reached his journey's end, a junk-dealer's shop wherein laythe long-desired treasure of his soul--an accordion which mighthave possessed a high quality of interest for an antiquarian, beingunquestionably a ruin, beautiful in decay, and quite beyond thesacrilegious reach of the restorer. But it was still able to disgorgesounds--loud, strange, compelling sounds, which could be heard for aremarkable distance in all directions; and it had one rich calf-liketone that had gone to Penrod's heart. He obtained the instrument fortwenty-two cents, a price long since agreed upon with the junk-dealer, who falsely claimed a loss of profit, Shylock that he was! He had foundthe wreck in an alley. 

With this purchase suspended from his shoulder by a faded green cord, Penrod set out in a somewhat homeward direction, but not by the routehe had just travelled, though his motive for the change was nothumanitarian. It was his desire to display himself thus troubadouringto the gaze of Marjorie Jones. Heralding his advance by continuousexperiments in the music of the future, he pranced upon his blithesomeway, the faithful Duke at his heels. (It was easier for Duke than itwould have been for a younger dog, because, with advancing age, he hadbegun to grow a little deaf. )

Turning the corner nearest to the glamoured mansion of the Joneses, the boy jongleur came suddenly face to face with Marjorie, and, inthe delicious surprise of the encounter, ceased to play, his hands, inagitation, falling from the instrument. 

Bareheaded, the sunshine glorious upon her amber curls, Marjorie wasstrolling hand-in-hand with her baby brother, Mitchell, four yearsold. She wore pink that day--unforgettable pink, with a broad, blackpatent-leather belt, shimmering reflections dancing upon its surface. How beautiful she was! How sacred the sweet little baby brother, whoseprivilege it was to cling to that small hand, delicately powdered withfreckles. 

"Hello, Marjorie, " said Penrod, affecting carelessness. 

"Hello!" said Marjorie, with unexpected cordiality. She bent over herbaby brother with motherly affectations. "Say 'howdy' to the gentymuns, Mitchy-Mitch, " she urged sweetly, turning him to face Penrod. 

"WON'T!" said Mitchy-Mitch, and, to emphasize his refusal, kicked thegentymuns upon the shin. 

Penrod's feelings underwent instant change, and in the sole occupationof disliking Mitchy-Mitch, he wasted precious seconds which might havebeen better employed in philosophic consideration of the startlingexample, just afforded, of how a given law operates throughout theuniverse in precisely the same manner perpetually. Mr. Robert Williamswould have understood this, easily. 

"Oh, oh!" Marjorie cried, and put Mitchy-Mitch behind her with too muchsweetness. "Maurice Levy's gone to Atlantic City with his mamma, " sheremarked conversationally, as if the kicking incident were quite closed. 

"That's nothin', " returned Penrod, keeping his eye uneasilyupon Mitchy-Mitch. "I know plenty people been better places thanthat--Chicago and everywhere. "

There was unconscious ingratitude in his low rating of Atlantic City, for it was largely to the attractions of that resort he owed Miss Jones'present attitude of friendliness. 

Of course, too, she was curious about the accordion. It would bedastardly to hint that she had noticed a paper bag which bulgedthe pocket of Penrod's coat, and yet this bag was undeniablyconspicuous--"and children are very like grown people sometimes!"

Penrod brought forth the bag, purchased on the way at a drug store, andtill this moment UNOPENED, which expresses in a word the depth of hissentiment for Marjorie. It contained an abundant fifteen-cents' worth oflemon drops, jaw-breakers, licorice sticks, cinnamon drops, and shopwornchoclate creams. 

"Take all you want, " he said, with off-hand generosity. 

"Why, Penrod Schofield, " exclaimed the wholly thawed damsel, "you niceboy!"

"Oh, that's nothin', " he returned airily. "I got a good deal of money, nowadays. "

"Where from?"

"Oh--just around. " With a cautious gesture he offered a jaw-breaker toMitchy-Mitch, who snatched it indignantly and set about its absorptionwithout delay. 

"Can you play on that?" asked Marjorie, with some difficulty, her cheeksbeing rather too hilly for conversation. 

"Want to hear me?"

She nodded, her eyes sweet with anticipation. 

This was what he had come for. He threw back his head, lifted his eyesdreamily, as he had seen real musicians lift theirs, and distended theaccordion preparing to produce the wonderful calf-like noise which wasthe instrument's great charm. 

But the distention evoked a long wail which was at once drowned inanother one. 

"Ow! Owowaoh! Wowohah! WaowWOW!" shrieked Mitchy-Mitch and the accordiontogether. 

Mitchy-Mitch, to emphasize his disapproval of the accordion, opening hismouth still wider, lost therefrom the jaw-breaker, which rolled in thedust. Weeping, he stooped to retrieve it, and Marjorie, to prevent him, hastily set her foot upon it. Penrod offered another jaw-breaker; butMitchy-Mitch struck it from his hand, desiring the former, which hadconvinced him of its sweetness. 

Marjorie moved inadvertently; whereupon Mitchy-Mitch pounced upon theremains of his jaw-breaker and restored them, with accretions, to hismouth. His sister, uttering a cry of horror, sprang to the rescue, assisted by Penrod, whom she prevailed upon to hold Mitchy-Mitch's mouthopen while she excavated. This operation being completed, and Penrod'sright thumb severely bitten, Mitchy-Mitch closed his eyes tightly, stamped, squealed, bellowed, wrung his hands, and then, unexpectedly, kicked Penrod again. 

Penrod put a hand in his pocket and drew forth a copper two-cent piece, large, round, and fairly bright. 

He gave it to Mitchy-Mitch. 

Mitchy-Mitch immediately stopped crying and gazed upon his benefactorwith the eyes of a dog. 

This world!

Thereafter did Penrod--with complete approval from Mitchy-Mitch--playthe accordion for his lady to his heart's content, and hers. Never hadhe so won upon her; never had she let him feel so close to her before. They strolled up and down upon the sidewalk, eating, one thought betweenthem, and soon she had learned to play the accordion almost as well ashe. So passed a happy hour, which the Good King Rene of Anjou would haveenvied them, while Mitchy-Mitch made friends with Duke, romped about hissister and her swain, and clung to the hand of the latter, at intervals, with fondest affection and trust. 

The noon whistles failed to disturb this little Arcady; only thesound of Mrs. Jones' voice for the third time summoning Marjorie andMitchy-Mitch to lunch--sent Penrod on his way. 

"I could come back this afternoon, I guess, " he said, in parting. 

"I'm not goin' to be here. I'm goin' to Baby Rennsdale's party. "

Penrod looked blank, as she intended he should. Having thus satisfiedherself, she added:

"There aren't goin' to be any boys there. "

He was instantly radiant again. 

"Marjorie----"

"Hum?"

"Do you wish I was goin' to be there?"

She looked shy, and turned away her head. 

"MARJORIE JONES!" (This was a voice from home. ) "HOW MANY MORE TIMESSHALL I HAVE TO CALL YOU?"

Marjorie moved away, her face still hidden from Penrod. 

"Do you?" he urged. 

At the gate, she turned quickly toward him, and said over her shoulder, all in a breath: "Yes! Come again to-morrow morning and I'll be on thecorner. Bring your 'cordion!"

And she ran into the house, Mitchy-Mitch waving a loving hand to the boyon the sidewalk until the front door closed. 

CHAPTER XIX THE INNER BOY

Penrod went home in splendour, pretending that he and Duke were a longprocession; and he made enough noise to render the auricular part of theillusion perfect. His own family were already at the lunch-table when hearrived, and the parade halted only at the door of the dining-room. 

"Oh SOMETHING!" shouted Mr. Schofield, clasping his bilious brow withboth hands. "Stop that noise! Isn't it awful enough for you to SING? SitDOWN! Not with that thing on! Take that green rope off your shoulder!Now take that thing out of the dining-room and throw it in the ash-can!Where did you get it?"

"Where did I get what, papa?" asked Penrod meekly, depositing theaccordion in the hall just outside the dining-room door. 

"That da--that third-hand concertina. "

"It's a 'cordian, " said Penrod, taking his place at the table, andnoticing that both Margaret and Mr. Robert Williams (who happened to bea guest) were growing red. 

"I don't care what you call it, " said Mr. Schofield irritably. "I wantto know where you got it. "

Penrod's eyes met Margaret's: hers had a strained expression. 

She very slightly shook her head. Penrod sent Mr. Williams a gratefullook, and might have been startled if he could have seen himself in amirror at that moment; for he regarded Mitchy-Mitch with concealed butvigorous aversion and the resemblance would have horrified him. 

"A man gave it to me, " he answered gently, and was rewarded by thevisibly regained ease of his patron's manner, while Margaret leaned backin her chair and looked at her brother with real devotion. 

"I should think he'd have been glad to, " said Mr. Schofield. "Who washe?"

"Sir?" In spite of the candy which he had consumed in company withMarjorie and Mitchy-Mitch, Penrod had begun to eat lobster croquettesearnestly. 

"Who WAS he?"

"Who do you mean, papa?"

"The man that gave you that ghastly Thing!"

"Yessir. A man gave it to me. "

"I say, Who WAS he?" shouted Mr. Schofield. 

"Well, I was just walking along, and the man came up to me--it was rightdown in front of Colgate's, where most of the paint's rubbed off thefence----"

"Penrod!" The father used his most dangerous tone. 

"Sir?"

"Who was the man that gave you the concertina?"

"I don't know. I was walking along----"

"You never saw him before?"

"No, sir. I was just walk----"

"That will do, " said Mr. Schofield, rising. "I suppose every family hasits secret enemies and this was one of ours. I must ask to be excused!"

With that, he went out crossly, stopping in the hall a moment beforepassing beyond hearing. And, after lunch, Penrod sought in vain for hisaccordion; he even searched the library where his father sat reading, though, upon inquiry, Penrod explained that he was looking for amisplaced schoolbook. He thought he ought to study a little every day, he said, even during vacation-time. Much pleased, Mr. Schofield rose andjoined the search, finding the missing work on mathematics with singularease--which cost him precisely the price of the book the followingSeptember. 

Penrod departed to study in the backyard. There, after a cautious surveyof the neighbourhood, he managed to dislodge the iron cover of thecistern, and dropped the arithmetic within. A fine splash rewarded hislistening ear. Thus assured that when he looked for that book again noone would find it for him, he replaced the cover, and betook himselfpensively to the highway, discouraging Duke from following by repeatedvolleys of stones, some imaginary and others all too real. 

Distant strains of brazen horns and the throbbing of drums were borne tohim upon the kind breeze, reminding him that the world was made for joy, and that the Barzee and Potter Dog and Pony Show was exhibiting in abanlieue not far away. So, thither he bent his steps--the plentifulfunds in his pocket burning hot holes all the way. He had paidtwenty-two cents for the accordion, and fifteen for candy; he had boughtthe mercenary heart of Mitchy-Mitch for two: it certainly follows thatthere remained to him of his dollar, sixty-one cents--a fair fortune, and most unusual. 

Arrived upon the populous and festive scene of the Dog and Pony Show, he first turned his attention to the brightly decorated booths whichsurrounded the tent. The cries of the peanut vendors, of the popcornmen, of the toy-balloon sellers, the stirring music of the band, playingbefore the performance to attract a crowd, the shouting of excitedchildren and the barking of the dogs within the tent, all soundedexhilaratingly in Penrod's ears and set his blood a-tingle. Nevertheless, he did not squander his money or fling it to the winds inone grand splurge. Instead, he began cautiously with the purchase of anextraordinarily large pickle, which he obtained from an aged negress forhis odd cent, too obvious a bargain to be missed. At an adjacent standhe bought a glass of raspberry lemonade (so alleged) and sipped it as heate the pickle. He left nothing of either. 

Next, he entered a small restaurant-tent and for a modest nickel wassupplied with a fork and a box of sardines, previously opened, it istrue, but more than half full. He consumed the sardines utterly, butleft the tin box and the fork, after which he indulged in an inexpensivehalf-pint of lukewarm cider, at one of the open booths. Mug in hand, a gentle glow radiating toward his surface from various centres ofactivity deep inside him, he paused for breath--and the cool, sweetcadences of the watermelon man fell delectably upon his ear:

"Ice-cole WATER-melon; ice-cole water-MELON; the biggest slice ofICE-cole, ripe, red, ICE-cole, rich an' rare; the biggest slice ofice-cole watermelon ever cut by the hand of man! BUY our ICE-colewater-melon?"

Penrod, having drained the last drop of cider, complied with thewatermelon man's luscious entreaty, and received a round slice ofthe fruit, magnificent in circumference and something over an inch inthickness. Leaving only the really dangerous part of the rind behindhim, he wandered away from the vicinity of the watermelon man andsupplied himself with a bag of peanuts, which, with the expenditure of adime for admission, left a quarter still warm in his pocket. However, hemanaged to "break" the coin at a stand inside the tent, where a large, oblong paper box of popcorn was handed him, with twenty cents change. The box was too large to go into his pocket, but, having seated himselfamong some wistful Polack children, he placed it in his lap and devouredthe contents at leisure during the performance. The popcorn was heavilylarded with partially boiled molasses, and Penrod sandwiched mouthfulsof peanuts with gobs of this mass until the peanuts were all gone. Afterthat, he ate with less avidity; a sense almost of satiety beginningto manifest itself to him, and it was not until the close of theperformance that he disposed of the last morsel. 

He descended a little heavily to the outflowing crowd in the arena, andbought a caterwauling toy balloon, but showed no great enthusiasm inmanipulating it. Near the exit, as he came out, was a hot-waffle standwhich he had overlooked, and a sense of duty obliged him to consume thethree waffles, thickly powdered with sugar, which the waffle man cookedfor him upon command. 

They left a hottish taste in his mouth; they had not been quite up tohis anticipation, indeed, and it was with a sense of relief that heturned to the "hokey-pokey" cart which stood close at hand, laden withsquare slabs of "Neapolitan ice-cream" wrapped in paper. He thought theice-cream would be cooling, but somehow it fell short of the desiredeffect, and left a peculiar savour in his throat. 

He walked away, too languid to blow his balloon, and passed afresh-taffy booth with strange indifference. A bare-armed man wasmanipulating the taffy over a hook, pulling a great white mass to thedesired stage of "candying, " but Penrod did not pause to watch theoperation; in fact, he averted his eyes (which were slightly glazed) inpassing. He did not analyze his motives: simply, he was conscious thathe preferred not to look at the mass of taffy. 

For some reason, he put a considerable distance between himself and thetaffy-stand, but before long halted in the presence of a red-faced manwho flourished a long fork over a small cooking apparatus and shoutedjovially: "Winnies! HERE'S your hot winnies! Hot winny-WURST! Food forthe over-worked brain, nourishing for the weak stummick, entertainingfor the tired business man! HERE'S your hot winnies, three for a nickel, a half-a-dime, the twentieth-pot-of-a-dollah!"

This, above all nectar and ambrosia, was the favourite dish of PenrodSchofield. Nothing inside him now craved it--on the contrary! Butmemory is the great hypnotist; his mind argued against his inwards thatopportunity knocked at his door: "winny-wurst" was rigidly forbidden bythe home authorities. Besides, there was a last nickel in his pocket;and nature protested against its survival. Also, the redfaced man hadhimself proclaimed his wares nourishing for the weak stummick. 

Penrod placed the nickel in the red hand of the red-faced man. 

He ate two of the three greasy, cigarlike shapes cordially pressed uponhim in return. The first bite convinced him that he had made a mistake;these winnies seemed of a very inferior flavour, almost unpleasant, infact. But he felt obliged to conceal his poor opinion of them, for fearof offending the red-faced man. He ate without haste or eagerness--soslowly, indeed, that he began to think the redfaced man might dislikehim, as a deterrent of trade. Perhaps Penrod's mind was not workingwell, for he failed to remember that no law compelled him to remainunder the eye of the red-faced man, but the virulent repulsion excitedby his attempt to take a bite of the third sausage inspired him with atleast an excuse for postponement. 

"Mighty good, " he murmured feebly, placing the sausage in the pocketof his jacket with a shaking hand. "Guess I'll save this one to eat athome, after--after dinner. "

He moved sluggishly away, wishing he had not thought of dinner. Aside-show, undiscovered until now, failed to arouse his interest, noteven exciting a wish that he had known of its existence when he hadmoney. For a time he stared without attraction; the weather-worn coloursconveying no meaning to comprehension at a huge canvas poster depictingthe chief his torpid eye. Then, little by little, the poster became morevivid to his consciousness. There was a greenish-tinted person in thetent, it seemed, who thrived upon a reptilian diet. 

Suddenly, Penrod decided that it was time to go home. 

CHAPTER XX BROTHERS OF ANGELS

"Indeed, doctor, " said Mrs. Schofield, with agitation and profoundconviction, just after eight o'clock that evening, "I shall ALWAYSbelieve in mustard plasters--mustard plasters and hot--water bags. Ifit hadn't been for them I don't believed he'd have LIVED till you gothere--I do NOT!"

"Margaret, " called Mr. Schofield from the open door of a bedroom, "Margaret, where did you put that aromatic ammonia? Where's Margaret?"

But he had to find the aromatic spirits of ammonia himself, for Margaretwas not in the house. She stood in the shadow beneath a maple treenear the street corner, a guitar-case in her hand; and she scanned withanxiety a briskly approaching figure. The arc light, swinging above, revealed this figure as that of him she awaited. He was passing towardthe gate without seeing her, when she arrested him with a fatefulwhisper. 

"BOB!"

Mr. Robert Williams swung about hastily. "Why, Margaret!"

"Here, take your guitar, " she whispered hurriedly. "I was afraid iffather happened to find it he'd break it all to pieces!"

"What for?" asked the startled Robert. 

"Because I'm sure he knows it's yours. " "But what----"

"Oh, Bob, " she moaned, "I was waiting here to tell you. I was so afraidyou'd try to come in----"

"TRY!" exclaimed the unfortunate young man, quite dumfounded. "TRY tocome----"

"Yes, before I warned you. I've been waiting here to tell you, Bob, youmustn't come near the house if I were you I'd stay away from even thisneighbourhood--far away! For a while I don't think it would be actuallySAFE for----"

"Margaret, will you please----"

"It's all on account of that dollar you gave Penrod this morning, " shewalled. "First, he bought that horrible concertina that made papa sofurious--"

"But Penrod didn't tell that I----"

"Oh, wait!" she cried lamentably. "Listen! He didn't tell at lunch, buthe got home about dinner-time in the most--well! I've seen pale peoplebefore, but nothing like Penrod. Nobody could IMAGINE it--not unlessthey'd seen him! And he looked, so STRANGE, and kept making suchunnatural faces, and at first all he would say was that he'd eaten alittle piece of apple and thought it must have some microbes on it. Buthe got sicker and sicker, and we put him to bed--and then we all thoughthe was going to die--and, of COURSE, no little piece of apple wouldhave--well, and he kept getting worse and then he said he'd had adollar. He said he'd spent it for the concertina, and watermelon, andchocolate-creams, and licorice sticks, and lemon-drops, and peanuts, and jaw-breakers, and sardines, and raspberry lemonade, and pickles, andpopcorn, and ice-cream, and cider, and sausage--there was sausage inhis pocket, and mamma says his jacket is ruined--and cinnamon drops--andwaffles--and he ate four or five lobster croquettes at lunch--and papasaid, 'Who gave you that dollar?' Only he didn't say 'WHO'--he saidsomething horrible, Bob! And Penrod thought he was going to die, and hesaid you gave it to him, and oh! it was just pitiful to hear the poorchild, Bob, because he thought he was dying, you see, and he blamed youfor the whole thing. He said if you'd only let him alone and not givenit to him, he'd have grown up to be a good man--and now he couldn't! Inever heard anything so heart-rending--he was so weak he could hardlywhisper, but he kept trying to talk, telling us over and over it was allyour fault. "

In the darkness Mr. Williams' facial expression could not be seen, buthis voice sounded hopeful. 

"Is he--is he still in a great deal of pain?"

"They say the crisis is past, " said Margaret, "but the doctor's stillup there. He said it was the acutest case of indigestion he had evertreated in the whole course of his professional practice. "

"Of course _I_ didn't know what he'd do with the dollar, " said Robert. 

She did not reply. 

He began plaintively, "Margaret, you don't----"

"I've never seen papa and mamma so upset about anything, " she said, rather primly. 

"You mean they're upset about ME?"

"We ARE all very much upset, " returned Margaret, more starch in her toneas she remembered not only Penrod's sufferings but a duty she had vowedherself to perform. 

"Margaret! YOU don't----"

"Robert, " she said firmly and, also, with a rhetorical complexity whichbreeds a suspicion of pre-rehearsal--"Robert, for the present I can onlylook at it in one way: when you gave that money to Penrod you put intothe hands of an unthinking little child a weapon which might be, and, indeed was, the means of his undoing. Boys are not respon----"

"But you saw me give him the dollar, and you didn't----"

"Robert!" she checked him with increasing severity. "I am only a womanand not accustomed to thinking everything out on the spur of the moment;but I cannot change my mind. Not now, at least. "

"And you think I'd better not come in to-night?"

"To-night!" she gasped. "Not for WEEKS! Papa would----"

"But Margaret, " he urged plaintively, "how can you blame me for----"

"I have not used the word 'blame, '" she interrupted. "But I must insistthat for your carelessness to--to wreak such havoc--cannot fail to--tolessen my confidence in your powers of judgment. I cannot change myconvictions in this matter--not to-night--and I cannot remain hereanother instant. The poor child may need me. Robert, good-night. "

With chill dignity she withdrew, entered the house, and returned to thesick-room, leaving the young man in outer darkness to brood upon hiscrime--and upon Penrod. 

That sincere invalid became convalescent upon the third day; and aweek elapsed, then, before he found an opportunity to leave the houseunaccompanied--save by Duke. But at last he set forth and approached theJones neighbourhood in high spirits, pleasantly conscious of his pallor, hollow cheeks, and other perquisites of illness provocative of interest. 

One thought troubled him a little because it gave him a sense ofinferiority to a rival. He believed, against his will, that MauriceLevy could have successfully eaten chocolate-creams, licorice sticks, lemon-drops, jaw-breakers, peanuts, waffles, lobster croquettes, sardines, cinnamon-drops, watermelon, pickles, popcorn, ice-creamand sausage with raspberry lemonade and cider. Penrod had admitted tohimself that Maurice could do it and afterward attend to business, orpleasure, without the slightest discomfort; and this was probably nomore than a fair estimate of one of the great constitutions of all time. As a digester, Maurice Levy would have disappointed a Borgia. 

Fortunately, Maurice was still at Atlantic City--and now theconvalescent's heart leaped. In the distance he saw Marjorie coming--inpink again, with a ravishing little parasol over her head. And alone! NoMitchy-Mitch was to mar this meeting. 

Penrod increased the feebleness of his steps, now and then leaning uponthe fence as if for support. 

"How do you do, Marjorie?" he said, in his best sick-room voice, as shecame near. 

To his pained amazement, she proceeded on her way, her nose at acelebrated elevation--an icy nose. 

She cut him dead. 

He threw his invalid's airs to the winds, and hastened after her. 

"Marjorie, " he pleaded, "what's the matter? Are you mad? Honest, thatday you said to come back next morning, and you'd be on the corner, I was sick. Honest, I was AWFUL sick, Marjorie! I had to have thedoctor----"

"DOCTOR!" She whirled upon him, her lovely eyes blazing. 

"I guess WE'VE had to have the doctor enough at OUR house, thanks toyou, Mister Penrod Schofield. Papa says you haven't got NEAR senseenough to come in out of the rain, after what you did to poor littleMitchy-Mitch----"

"What?"

"Yes, and he's sick in bed YET!" Marjorie went on, with unabated fury. "And papa says if he ever catches you in this part of town----"

"WHAT'D I do to Mitchy-Mitch?" gasped Penrod. 

"You know well enough what you did to Mitchy-Mitch!" she cried. "Yougave him that great, big, nasty two-cent piece!"

"Well, what of it?"

"Mitchy-Mitch swallowed it!"

"What!"

"And papa says if he ever just lays eyes on you, once, in thisneighbourhood----"

But Penrod had started for home. 

In his embittered heart there was increasing a critical disapproval ofthe Creator's methods. When He made pretty girls, thought Penrod, whycouldn't He have left out their little brothers!

CHAPTER XXI RUPE COLLINS

For several days after this, Penrod thought of growing up to be amonk, and engaged in good works so far as to carry some kittens (thatotherwise would have been drowned) and a pair of Margaret's outworndancing-slippers to a poor, ungrateful old man sojourning in a shedup the alley. And although Mr. Robert Williams, after a very shortinterval, began to leave his guitar on the front porch again, exactly asif he thought nothing had happened, Penrod, with his younger vision ofa father's mood, remained coldly distant from the Jones neighbourhood. With his own family his manner was gentle, proud and sad, but not forlong enough to frighten them. The change came with mystifying abruptnessat the end of the week. 

It was Duke who brought it about. 

Duke could chase a much bigger dog out of the Schofields' yard and fardown the street. This might be thought to indicate unusual valour onthe part of Duke and cowardice on that of the bigger dogs whom heundoubtedly put to rout. On the contrary, all such flights were foundedin mere superstition, for dogs are even more superstitious than boysand coloured people; and the most firmly established of all dogsuperstitions is that any dog--be he the smallest and feeblest in theworld--can whip any trespasser whatsoever. 

A rat-terrier believes that on his home grounds he can whip an elephant. It follows, of course, that a big dog, away from his own home, will runfrom a little dog in the little dog's neighbourhood. Otherwise, the bigdog must face a charge of inconsistency, and dogs are as consistent asthey are superstitious. A dog believes in war, but he is convincedthat there are times when it is moral to run; and the thoughtfulphysiognomist, seeing a big dog fleeing out of a little dog's yard, mustobserve that the expression of the big dog's face is more conscientiousthan alarmed: it is the expression of a person performing a duty tohimself. 

Penrod understood these matters perfectly; he knew that the gaunt brownhound Duke chased up the alley had fled only out of deference to acustom, yet Penrod could not refrain from bragging of Duke to thehound's owner, a fat-faced stranger of twelve or thirteen, who hadwandered into the neighbourhood. 

"You better keep that ole yellow dog o' yours back, " said Penrodominously, as he climbed the fence. "You better catch him and hold himtill I get mine inside the yard again. Duke's chewed up some pretty badbulldogs around here. "

The fat-faced boy gave Penrod a fishy stare. "You'd oughta learn him notto do that, " he said. "It'll make him sick. "

"What will?"

The stranger laughed raspingly and gazed up the alley, where the hound, having come to a halt, now coolly sat down, and, with an expression ofroguish benevolence, patronizingly watched the tempered fury of Duke, whose assaults and barkings were becoming perfunctory. 

"What'll make Duke sick?" Penrod demanded. 

"Eatin' dead bulldogs people leave around here. "

This was not improvisation but formula, adapted from other occasions tothe present encounter; nevertheless, it was new to Penrod, and he wasso taken with it that resentment lost itself in admiration. Hastilycommitting the gem to memory for use upon a dog-owning friend, heinquired in a sociable tone:

"What's your dog's name?"

"Dan. You better call your ole pup, 'cause Dan eats LIVE dogs. "

Dan's actions poorly supported his master's assertion, for, upon Duke'sceasing to bark, Dan rose and showed the most courteous interest inmaking the little, old dog's acquaintance. Dan had a great deal ofmanner, and it became plain that Duke was impressed favourably in spiteof former prejudice, so that presently the two trotted amicably back totheir masters and sat down with the harmonious but indifferent air ofhaving known each other intimately for years. 

They were received without comment, though both boys looked at themreflectively for a time. It was Penrod who spoke first. 

"What number you go to?" (In an "oral lesson in English, " Penrod hadbeen instructed to put this question in another form: "May I ask whichof our public schools you attend?")

"Me? What number do I go to?" said the stranger, contemptuously. "Idon't go to NO number in vacation!"

"I mean when it ain't. "

"Third, " returned the fat-faced boy. "I got 'em ALL scared in THATschool. "

"What of?" innocently asked Penrod, to whom "the Third"--in a distantpart of town--was undiscovered country. 

"What of? I guess you'd soon see what of, if you ever was in that schoolabout one day. You'd be lucky if you got out alive!"

"Are the teachers mean?"

The other boy frowned with bitter scorn. "Teachers! Teachers don't orderME around, I can tell you! They're mighty careful how they try to runover Rupe Collins. "

"Who's Rupe Collins?"

"Who is he?" echoed the fat-faced boy incredulously. "Say, ain't you gotANY sense?"

"What?"

"Say, wouldn't you be just as happy if you had SOME sense?"

"Ye-es. " Penrod's answer, like the look he lifted to the impressivestranger, was meek and placative. "Rupe Collins is the principal at yourschool, guess. "

The other yelled with jeering laughter, and mocked Penrod's manner andvoice. "'Rupe Collins is the principal at your school, I guess!'" Helaughed harshly again, then suddenly showed truculence. "Say, 'bo, whyn't you learn enough to go in the house when it rains? What's thematter of you, anyhow?"

"Well, " urged Penrod timidly, "nobody ever TOLD me who Rupe Collins is:I got a RIGHT to think he's the principal, haven't I?"

The fat-faced boy shook his head disgustedly. "Honest, you make mesick!"

Penrod's expression became one of despair. "Well, who IS he?" he cried. 

"'Who IS he?'" mocked the other, with a scorn that withered. "'Who IShe?' ME!"

"Oh!" Penrod was humiliated but relieved: he felt that he had provedhimself criminally ignorant, yet a peril seemed to have passed. "RupeCollins is your name, then, I guess. I kind of thought it was, all thetime. "

The fat-faced boy still appeared embittered, burlesquing this speech ina hateful falsetto. "'Rupe Collins is YOUR name, then, I guess!' Oh, you'kind of thought it was, all the time, ' did you?" Suddenly concentratinghis brow into a histrionic scowl he thrust his face within an inch ofPenrod's. "Yes, sonny, Rupe Collins is my name, and you better lookout what you say when he's around or you'll get in big trouble! YOUUNDERSTAND THAT, 'BO?"

Penrod was cowed but fascinated: he felt that there was somethingdangerous and dashing about this newcomer. 

"Yes, " he said, feebly, drawing back. "My name's Penrod Schofield. "

"Then I reckon your father and mother ain't got good sense, " said Mr. Collins promptly, this also being formula. 

"Why?"

"'Cause if they had they'd of give you a good name!" And the agreeableyouth instantly rewarded himself for the wit with another yell ofrasping laughter, after which he pointed suddenly at Penrod's righthand. 

"Where'd you get that wart on your finger?" he demanded severely. 

"Which finger?" asked the mystified Penrod, extending his hand. 

"The middle one. "

"Where?"

"There!" exclaimed Rupe Collins, seizing and vigorously twisting thewartless finger naively offered for his inspection. 

"Quit!" shouted Penrod in agony. "QUEE-yut!"

"Say your prayers!" commanded Rupe, and continued to twist the lucklessfinger until Penrod writhed to his knees. 

"OW!" The victim, released, looked grievously upon the still painfulfinger. 

At this Rupe's scornful expression altered to one of contrition. "Well, I declare!" he exclaimed remorsefully. "I didn't s'pose it would hurt. Turn about's fair play; so now you do that to me. "

He extended the middle finger of his left hand and Penrod promptlyseized it, but did not twist it, for he was instantly swung round withhis back to his amiable new acquaintance: Rupe's right hand operatedupon the back of Penrod's slender neck; Rupe's knee tortured the smallof Penrod's back. 

"OW!" Penrod bent far forward involuntarily and went to his knees again. 

"Lick dirt, " commanded Rupe, forcing the captive's face to the sidewalk;and the suffering Penrod completed this ceremony. 

Mr. Collins evinced satisfaction by means of his horse laugh. 

"You'd last jest about one day up at the Third!" he said. "You'd comerunnin' home, yellin' 'MOM-MUH, MOM-muh, ' before recess was over!"

"No, I wouldn't, " Penrod protested rather weakly, dusting his knees. 

"You would, too!"

"No, I w----

"Looky here, " said the fat-faced boy, darkly, "what you mean, counterdicking me?"

He advanced a step and Penrod hastily qualified his contradiction. 

"I mean, I don't THINK I would. I----"

"You better look out!" Rupe moved closer, and unexpectedly grasped theback of Penrod's neck again. "Say, 'I WOULD run home yellin' "MOM-muh!"'"

"Ow! I WOULD run home yellin' 'Mom-muh. '"

"There!" said Rupe, giving the helpless nape a final squeeze. "That'sthe way we do up at the Third. "

Penrod rubbed his neck and asked meekly:

"Can you do that to any boy up at the Third?"

"See here now, " said Rupe, in the tone of one goaded beyond allendurance, "YOU say if I can! You better say it quick, or----"

"I knew you could, " Penrod interposed hastily, with the patheticsemblance of a laugh. "I only said that in fun. "

"In 'fun'!" repeated Rupe stormily. "You better look out how you----"

"Well, I SAID I wasn't in earnest!" Penrod retreated a few steps. "_I_knew you could, all the time. I expect _I_ could do it to some of theboys up at the Third, myself. Couldn't I?"

"No, you couldn't. "

"Well, there must be SOME boy up there that I could----"

"No, they ain't! You better----"

"I expect not, then, " said Penrod, quickly. 

"You BETTER 'expect not. ' Didn't I tell you once you'd never get backalive if you ever tried to come up around the Third? You want me to SHOWyou how we do up there, 'bo?"

He began a slow and deadly advance, whereupon Penrod timidly offered adiversion:

"Say, Rupe, I got a box of rats in our stable under a glass cover, soyou can watch 'em jump around when you hammer on the box. Come on andlook at 'em. "

"All right, " said the fat-faced boy, slightly mollified. "We'll let Dankill 'em. "

"No, SIR! I'm goin' to keep 'em. They're kind of pets; I've had 'em allsummer--I got names for em, and----"

"Looky here, 'bo. Did you hear me say we'll let 'Dan kill 'em?"

"Yes, but I won't----"

"WHAT won't you?" Rupe became sinister immediately. "It seems to meyou're gettin' pretty fresh around here. "

"Well, I don't want----"

Mr. Collins once more brought into play the dreadful eye-to-eye scowl aspractised "up at the Third, " and, sometimes, also by young leadingmen upon the stage. Frowning appallingly, and thrusting forward hisunderlip, he placed his nose almost in contact with the nose of Penrod, whose eyes naturally became crossed. 

"Dan kills the rats. See?" hissed the fat-faced boy, maintaining thehorrible juxtaposition. 

"Well, all right, " said Penrod, swallowing. "I don't want 'em much. "And when the pose had been relaxed, he stared at his new friend for amoment, almost with reverence. Then he brightened. 

"Come on, Rupe!" he cried enthusiastically, as he climbed the fence. "We'll give our dogs a little live meat--'bo!"

CHAPTER XXII THE IMITATOR

At the dinner-table, that evening, Penrod Surprised his family byremarking, in a voice they had never heard him attempt--a law-givingvoice of intentional gruffness:

"Any man that's makin' a hunderd dollars a month is makin' good money. "

"What?" asked Mr. Schofield, staring, for the previous conversation hadconcerned the illness of an infant relative in Council Bluffs. 

"Any man that's makin' a hunderd dollars a month is makin' good money. "

"What IS he talking about!" Margaret appealed to the invisible. 

"Well, " said Penrod, frowning, "that's what foremen at the ladder worksget. "

"How in the world do you know?" asked his mother. 

"Well, I KNOW it! A hunderd dollars a month is good money, I tell you!"

"Well, what of it?" said the father, impatiently. 

"Nothin'. I only said it was good money. "

Mr. Schofield shook his head, dismissing the subject; and here he madea mistake: he should have followed up his son's singular contributionto the conversation. That would have revealed the fact that there was acertain Rupe Collins whose father was a foreman at the ladder works. Allclues are important when a boy makes his first remark in a new key. 

"'Good money'?" repeated Margaret, curiously. "What is 'good' money?"

Penrod turned upon her a stern glance. "Say, wouldn't you be just ashappy if you had SOME sense?"

"Penrod!" shouted his father. But Penrod's mother gazed with dismay ather son: he had never before spoken like that to his sister. 

Mrs. Schofield might have been more dismayed than she was, if she hadrealized that it was the beginning of an epoch. After dinner, Penrod wasslightly scalded in the back as the result of telling Della, the cook, that there was a wart on the middle finger of her right hand. Della thusproving poor material for his new manner to work upon, he approachedDuke, in the backyard, and, bending double, seized the lowly animal bythe forepaws. 

"I let you know my name's Penrod Schofield, " hissed the boy. Heprotruded his underlip ferociously, scowled, and thrust forward his headuntil his nose touched the dog's. "And you better look out when PenrodSchofield's around, or you'll get in big trouble! YOU UNDERSTAN' THAT, 'BO?"

The next day, and the next, the increasing change in Penrod puzzled anddistressed his family, who had no idea of its source. 

How might they guess that hero-worship takes such forms? They werevaguely conscious that a rather shabby boy, not of the neighbourhood, came to "play" with Penrod several times; but they failed to connectthis circumstance with the peculiar behaviour of the son of the house, whose ideals (his father remarked) seemed to have suddenly becomeidentical with those of Gyp the Blood. 

Meanwhile, for Penrod himself, "life had taken on new meaning, newrichness. " He had become a fighting man--in conversation at least. "Doyou want to know how I do when they try to slip up on me from behind?"he asked Della. And he enacted for her unappreciative eye a scene offistic manoeuvres wherein he held an imaginary antagonist helpless in anet of stratagems. 

Frequently, when he was alone, he would outwit, and pummel this sameenemy, and, after a cunning feint, land a dolorous stroke full upon aface of air. "There! I guess you'll know better next time. That's theway we do up at the Third!"

Sometimes, in solitary pantomime, he encountered more than one opponentat a time, for numbers were apt to come upon him treacherously, especially at a little after his rising hour, when he might be caught ata disadvantage--perhaps standing on one leg to encase the other in hisknickerbockers. Like lightning, he would hurl the trapping garment fromhim, and, ducking and pivoting, deal great sweeping blows among thecircle of sneaking devils. (That was how he broke the clock in hisbedroom. ) And while these battles were occupying his attention, it wasa waste of voice to call him to breakfast, though if his mother, losingpatience, came to his room, she would find him seated on the bed pullingat a stocking. "Well, ain't I coming fast as I CAN?"

At the table and about the house generally he was bumptious, loud withfatuous misinformation, and assumed a domineering tone, which neithersatire nor reproof seemed able to reduce: but it was among his ownintimates that his new superiority was most outrageous. He twisted thefingers and squeezed the necks of all the boys of the neighbourhood, meeting their indignation with a hoarse and rasping laugh he hadacquired after short practice in the stable, where he jeered and tauntedthe lawn-mower, the garden-scythe and the wheelbarrow quite out ofcountenance. 

Likewise he bragged to the other boys by the hour, Rupe Collins beingthe chief subject of encomium--next to Penrod himself. "That's theway we do up at the Third, " became staple explanation of violence, forPenrod, like Tartarin, was plastic in the hands of his own imagination, and at times convinced himself that he really was one of those darkand murderous spirits exclusively of whom "the Third" wascomposed--according to Rupe Collins. 

Then, when Penrod had exhausted himself repeating to nausea accounts ofthe prowess of himself and his great friend, he would turn to two othersubjects for vainglory. These were his father and Duke. 

Mothers must accept the fact that between babyhood and manhood theirsons do not boast of them. The boy, with boys, is a Choctaw; and eitherthe influence or the protection of women is shameful. "Your mother won'tlet you, " is an insult. But, "My father won't let me, " is a dignifiedexplanation and cannot be hooted. A boy is ruined among his fellows ifhe talks much of his mother or sisters; and he must recognize it ashis duty to offer at least the appearance of persecution to all thingsranked as female, such as cats and every species of fowl. But he mustchampion his father and his dog, and, ever, ready to pit either againstany challenger, must picture both as ravening for battle and absolutelyunconquerable. 

Penrod, of course, had always talked by the code, but, under the newstimulus, Duke was represented virtually as a cross between Bob, Son ofBattle, and a South American vampire; and this in spite of the fact thatDuke himself often sat close by, a living lie, with the hope of peacein his heart. As for Penrod's father, that gladiator was painted as ofsentiments and dimensions suitable to a super-demon composed of equalparts of Goliath, Jack Johnson and the Emperor Nero. 

Even Penrod's walk was affected; he adopted a gait which was a kind oftaunting swagger; and, when he passed other children on the street, hepractised the habit of feinting a blow; then, as the victim dodged, he rasped the triumphant horse laugh which he gradually mastered tohorrible perfection. He did this to Marjorie Jones--ay! this wastheir next meeting, and such is Eros, young! What was even worse, inMarjorie's opinion, he went on his way without explanation, and lefther standing on the corner talking about it, long after he was out ofhearing. 

Within five days from his first encounter with Rupe Collins, Penrod hadbecome unbearable. He even almost alienated Sam Williams, who for a timesubmitted to finger twisting and neck squeezing and the new style ofconversation, but finally declared that Penrod made him "sick. " He madethe statement with fervour, one sultry afternoon, in Mr. Schofield'sstable, in the presence of Herman and Verman. 

"You better look out, 'bo, " said Penrod, threateningly. "I'll show you alittle how we do up at the Third. "

"Up at the Third!" Sam repeated with scorn. "You haven't ever been upthere. "

"I haven't?" cried Penrod. "I HAVEN'T?"

"No, you haven't!"

"Looky here!" Penrod, darkly argumentative, prepared to perform theeye-to-eye business. "When haven't I been up there?"

"You haven't NEVER been up there!" In spite of Penrod's closelyapproaching nose Sam maintained his ground, and appealed forconfirmation. "Has he, Herman?"

"I don' reckon so, " said Herman, laughing. 

"WHAT!" Penrod transferred his nose to the immediate vicinity ofHerman's nose. "You don't reckon so, 'bo, don't you? You better look outhow you reckon around here! YOU UNDERSTAN' THAT, 'BO?"

Herman bore the eye-to-eye very well; indeed, it seemed to pleasehim, for he continued to laugh while Verman chuckled delightedly. Thebrothers had been in the country picking berries for a week, and ithappened that this was their first experience of the new manifestationof Penrod. 

"HAVEN'T I been up at the Third?" the sinister Penrod demanded. 

"I don' reckon so. How come you ast ME?"

"Didn't you just hear me SAY I been up there?"

"Well, " said Herman mischievously, "hearin' ain't believin'!"

Penrod clutched him by the back of the neck, but Herman, laughingloudly, ducked and released himself at once, retreating to the wall. 

"You take that back!" Penrod shouted, striking out wildly. 

"Don' git mad, " begged the small darky, while a number of blows fallingupon his warding arms failed to abate his amusement, and a sound oneupon the cheek only made him laugh the more unrestrainedly. He behavedexactly as if Penrod were tickling him, and his brother, Verman, rolledwith joy in a wheelbarrow. Penrod pummelled till he was tired, andproduced no greater effect. 

"There!" he panted, desisting finally. "NOW I reckon you know whether Ibeen up there or not!"

Herman rubbed his smitten cheek. "Pow!" he exclaimed. "Pow-ee! Youcert'ny did lan' me good one NAT time! Oo-ee! she HURT!"

"You'll get hurt worse'n that, " Penrod assured him, "if you stay aroundhere much. Rupe Collins is comin' this afternoon, he said. We're goin'to make some policemen's billies out of the rake handle. "

"You go' spoil new rake you' pa bought?"

"What do WE care? I and Rupe got to have billies, haven't we?"

"How you make 'em?"

"Melt lead and pour in a hole we're goin' to make in the end of 'em. Then we're goin' to carry 'em in our pockets, and if anybody saysanything to us--OH, oh! look out! They won't get a crack on thehead--OH, no!"

"When's Rupe Collins coming?" Sam Williams inquired rather uneasily. He had heard a great deal too much of this personage, but as yet thepleasure of actual acquaintance had been denied him. 

"He's liable to be here any time, " answered Penrod. "You better lookout. You'll be lucky if you get home alive, if you stay till HE comes. "

"I ain't afraid of him, " Sam returned, conventionally. 

"You are, too!" (There was some truth in the retort. ) "There ain't anyboy in this part of town but me that wouldn't be afraid of him. You'd beafraid to talk to him. You wouldn't get a word out of your mouth beforeold Rupie'd have you where you'd wished you never come around HIM, lettin' on like you was so much! YOU wouldn't run home yellin' 'Mom-muh'or nothin'! OH, no!"

"Who Rupe Collins?" asked Herman. 

"'Who Rupe Collins?'" Penrod mocked, and used his rasping laugh, but, instead of showing fright, Herman appeared to think he was meant tolaugh, too; and so he did, echoed by Verman. "You just hang around herea little while longer, " Penrod added, grimly, "and you'll find out whoRupe Collins is, and I pity YOU when you do!"

"What he go' do?"

"You'll see; that's all! You just wait and----"

At this moment a brown hound ran into the stable through the alley door, wagged a greeting to Penrod, and fraternized with Duke. The fat-facedboy appeared upon the threshold and gazed coldly about the littlecompany in the carriage-house, whereupon the coloured brethren, ceasingfrom merriment, were instantly impassive, and Sam Williams moved alittle nearer the door leading into the yard. 

Obviously, Sam regarded the newcomer as a redoubtable if not ominousfigure. He was a head taller than either Sam or Penrod; head andshoulders taller than Herman, who was short for his age; and Vermancould hardly be used for purposes of comparison at all, being a meresquat brown spot, not yet quite nine years on this planet. And toSam's mind, the aspect of Mr. Collins realized Penrod's portentousforeshadowings. Upon the fat face there was an expression of truculentintolerance which had been cultivated by careful habit to suchperfection that Sam's heart sank at sight of it. A somewhat enfeebledtwin to this expression had of late often decorated the visage ofPenrod, and appeared upon that ingenuous surface now, as he advanced towelcome the eminent visitor. 

The host swaggered toward the door with a great deal of shouldermovement, carelessly feinting a slap at Verman in passing, and creatingby various means the atmosphere of a man who has contemptuously amusedhimself with underlings while awaiting an equal. 

"Hello, 'bo!" Penrod said in the deepest voice possible to him. 

"Who you callin' 'bo?" was the ungracious response, accompanied byimmediate action of a similar nature. Rupe held Penrod's head in thecrook of an elbow and massaged his temples with a hard-pressing knuckle. 

"I was only in fun, Rupie, " pleaded the sufferer, and then, being setfree, "Come here, Sam, " he said. 

"What for?"

Penrod laughed pityingly. "Pshaw, I ain't goin' to hurt you. Come on. "Sam, maintaining his position near the other door, Penrod went to himand caught him round the neck. 

"Watch me, Rupie!" Penrod called, and performed upon Sam the knuckleoperation which he had himself just undergone, Sam submittingmechanically, his eyes fixed with increasing uneasiness upon RupeCollins. Sam had a premonition that something even more painful thanPenrod's knuckle was going to be inflicted upon him. 

"THAT don' hurt, " said Penrod, pushing him away. 

"Yes, it does, too!" Sam rubbed his temple. 

"Puh! It didn't hurt me, did it, Rupie? Come on in, Rupe: show this babywhere he's got a wart on his finger. "

"You showed me that trick, " Sam objected. "You already did that tome. You tried it twice this afternoon and I don't know how many timesbefore, only you weren't strong enough after the first time. Anyway, Iknow what it is, and I don't----"

"Come on, Rupe, " said Penrod. "Make the baby lick dirt. "

At this bidding, Rupe approached, while Sam, still protesting, moved tothe threshold of the outer door; but Penrod seized him by the shouldersand swung him indoors with a shout. 

"Little baby wants to run home to its Mom-muh! Here he is, Rupie. "

Thereupon was Penrod's treachery to an old comrade properly rewarded, for as the two struggled, Rupe caught each by the back of the neck, simultaneously, and, with creditable impartiality, forced both boys totheir knees. 

"Lick dirt!" he commanded, forcing them still forward, until their faceswere close to the stable floor. 

At this moment he received a real surprise. With a loud whack somethingstruck the back of his head, and, turning, he beheld Verman in the actof lifting a piece of lath to strike again. 

"Em moys ome!" said Verman, the Giant Killer. 

"He tongue-tie', " Herman explained. "He say, let 'em boys alone. "

Rupe addressed his host briefly:

"Chase them nigs out o' here!"

"Don' call me nig, " said Herman. "I mine my own biznuss. You let 'emboys alone. "

Rupe strode across the still prostrate Sam, stepped upon Penrod, and, equipping his countenance with the terrifying scowl and protruded jaw, lowered his head to the level of Herman's. 

"Nig, you'll be lucky if you leave here alive!" And he leaned forwardtill his nose was within less than an inch of Herman's nose. 

It could be felt that something awful was about to happen, and Penrod, as he rose from the floor, suffered an unexpected twinge of apprehensionand remorse: he hoped that Rupe wouldn't REALLY hurt Herman. A suddendislike of Rupe and Rupe's ways rose within him, as he looked at the bigboy overwhelming the little darky with that ferocious scowl. Penrod, all at once, felt sorry about something indefinable; and, with equalvagueness, he felt foolish. "Come on, Rupe, " he suggested, feebly, "letHerman go, and let's us make our billies out of the rake handle. "

The rake handle, however, was not available, if Rupe had inclined tofavour the suggestion. Verman had discarded his lath for the rake, whichhe was at this moment lifting in the air. 

"You ole black nigger, " the fat-faced boy said venomously to Herman, "I'm agoin' to----"

But he had allowed his nose to remain too long near Herman's. 

Penrod's familiar nose had been as close with only a ticklish spinaleffect upon the not very remote descendant of Congo man-eaters. Theresult produced by the glare of Rupe's unfamiliar eyes, and bythe dreadfully suggestive proximity of Rupe's unfamiliar nose, wasaltogether different. Herman's and Verman's Bangala great-grandfathersnever considered people of their own jungle neighbourhood propermaterial for a meal, but they looked upon strangers especially truculentstrangers--as distinctly edible. 

Penrod and Sam heard Rupe suddenly squawk and bellow; saw him writhe andtwist and fling out his arms like flails, though without removing hisface from its juxtaposition; indeed, for a moment, the two heads seemedeven closer. 

Then they separated--and battle was on!

CHAPTER XXIII COLOURED TROOPS IN ACTION

How neat and pure is the task of the chronicler who has the tale to tellof a "good rousing fight" between boys or men who fight in the "good oldEnglish way, " according to a model set for fights in books long beforeTom Brown went to Rugby. There are seconds and rounds and rules offair-play, and always there is great good feeling in the end--thoughsometimes, to vary the model, "the Butcher" defeats the hero--and thechronicler who stencils this fine old pattern on his page is certain ofapplause as the stirrer of "red blood. " There is no surer recipe. 

But when Herman and Verman set to 't the record must be no more than afew fragments left by the expurgator. It has been perhaps sufficientlysuggested that the altercation in Mr. Schofield's stable opened withmayhem in respect to the aggressor's nose. Expressing vocally hisindignation and the extremity of his pained surprise, Mr. Collinsstepped backward, holding his left hand over his nose, and striking atHerman with his right. Then Verman hit him with the rake. 

Verman struck from behind. He struck as hard as he could. And he struckwith the tines down--For, in his simple, direct African way he wished tokill his enemy, and he wished to kill him as soon as possible. That washis single, earnest purpose. 

On this account, Rupe Collins was peculiarly unfortunate. He was pluckyand he enjoyed conflict, but neither his ambitions nor his anticipationshad ever included murder. He had not learned that an habituallyaggressive person runs the danger of colliding with beings in one ofthose lower stages of evolution wherein theories about "hitting belowthe belt" have not yet made their appearance. 

The rake glanced from the back of Rupe's head to his shoulder, but itfelled him. Both darkies jumped full upon him instantly, and the threerolled and twisted upon the stable-floor, unloosing upon the air sinceremaledictions closely connected with complaints of cruel and unusualtreatment; while certain expressions of feeling presently emanating fromHerman and Verman indicated that Rupe Collins, in this extremity, wasproving himself not too slavishly addicted to fighting by rule. Dan andDuke, mistaking all for mirth, barked gayly. 

From the panting, pounding, yelling heap issued words and phraseshitherto quite unknown to Penrod and Sam; also, a hoarse repetitionin the voice of Rupe concerning his ear left it not to be doubtedthat additional mayhem was taking place. Appalled, the two spectatorsretreated to the doorway nearest the yard, where they stood dumblywatching the cataclysm. 

The struggle increased in primitive simplicity: time and again thehowling Rupe got to his knees only to go down again as the earnestbrothers, in their own way, assisted him to a more reclining position. Primal forces operated here, and the two blanched, slightly higherproducts of evolution, Sam and Penrod, no more thought of interferingthan they would have thought of interfering with an earthquake. 

At last, out of the ruck rose Verman, disfigured and maniacal. With awild eye he looked about him for his trusty rake; but Penrod, in horror, had long since thrown the rake out into the yard. Naturally, it had notseemed necessary to remove the lawn-mower. 

The frantic eye of Verman fell upon the lawn-mower, and instantlyhe leaped to its handle. Shrilling a wordless war-cry, he charged, propelling the whirling, deafening knives straight upon the pronelegs of Rupe Collins. The lawn-mower was sincerely intended to passlongitudinally over the body of Mr. Collins from heel to head; and itwas the time for a death-song. Black Valkyrie hovered in the shriekingair. 

"Cut his gizzud out!" shrieked Herman, urging on the whirling knives. 

They touched and lacerated the shin of Rupe, as, with the supreme agonyof effort a creature in mortal peril puts forth before succumbing, hetore himself free of Herman and got upon his feet. 

Herman was up as quickly. He leaped to the wall and seized thegarden-scythe that hung there. 

"I'm go to cut you' gizzud out, " he announced definitely, "an' eat it!"

Rupe Collins had never run from anybody (except his father) in his life;he was not a coward; but the present situation was very, very unusual. He was already in a badly dismantled condition, and yet Herman andVerman seemed discontented with their work: Verman was swinging thegrass-cutter about for a new charge, apparently still wishing to mowhim, and Herman had made a quite plausible statement about what heintended to do with the scythe. 

Rupe paused but for an extremely condensed survey of the horribleadvance of the brothers, and then, uttering a blood-curdled scream offear, ran out of the stable and up the alley at a speed he had neverbefore attained, so that even Dan had hard work to keep within barkingdistance. And a 'cross-shoulder glance, at the corner, revealing Vermanand Herman in pursuit, the latter waving his scythe overhead, Mr. Collins slackened not his gait, but, rather, out of great anguish, increased it; the while a rapidly developing purpose became firm in hismind--and ever after so remained--not only to refrain from visiting thatneighbourhood again, but never by any chance to come within a mile ofit. 

From the alley door, Penrod and Sam watched the flight, and were withoutwords. When the pursuit rounded the corner, the two looked wanly ateach other, but neither spoke until the return of the brothers from thechase. 

Herman and Verman came back, laughing and chuckling. 

"Hiyi!" cackled Herman to Verman, as they came, "See 'at ole boy run!"

"Who-ee!" Verman shouted in ecstasy. 

"Nev' did see boy run so fas'!" Herman continued, tossing the scytheinto the wheelbarrow. "I bet he home in bed by viss time!"

Verman roared with delight, appearing to be wholly unconscious that thelids of his right eye were swollen shut and that his attire, not toofinical before the struggle, now entitled him to unquestioned rank as asansculotte. Herman was a similar ruin, and gave as little heed to hiscondition. 

Penrod looked dazedly from Herman to Verman and back again. So did SamWilliams. 

"Herman, " said Penrod, in a weak voice, "you wouldn't HONEST of cut hisgizzard out, would you?"

"Who? Me? I don' know. He mighty mean ole boy!" Herman shook his headgravely, and then, observing that Verman was again convulsed withunctuous merriment, joined laughter with his brother. "Sho'! I guess Iuz dess TALKIN' whens I said 'at! Reckon he thought I meant it, f'm deway he tuck an' run. Hiyi! Reckon he thought ole Herman bad man! No, suh! I uz dess talkin', 'cause I nev' would cut NObody! I ain' tryin'git in no jail--NO, suh!"

Penrod looked at the scythe: he looked at Herman. He looked at thelawn-mower, and he looked at Verman. Then he looked out in the yard atthe rake. So did Sam Williams. 

"Come on, Verman, " said Herman. "We ain' go' 'at stove-wood f' supperyit. "

Giggling reminiscently, the brothers disappeared leaving silence behindthem in the carriage-house. Penrod and Sam retired slowly into theshadowy interior, each glancing, now and then, with a preoccupied air, at the open, empty doorway where the late afternoon sunshine was growingruddy. At intervals one or the other scraped the floor reflectivelywith the side of his shoe. Finally, still without either having madeany effort at conversation, they went out into the yard and stood, continuing their silence. 

"Well, " said Sam, at last, "I guess it's time I better be gettin' home. So long, Penrod!"

"So long, Sam, " said Penrod, feebly. 

With a solemn gaze he watched his friend out of sight. Then he wentslowly into the house, and after an interval occupied in a uniquemanner, appeared in the library, holding a pair of brilliantly gleamingshoes in his hand. 

Mr. Schofield, reading the evening paper, glanced frowningly over it athis offspring. 

"Look, papa, " said Penrod. "I found your shoes where you'd taken 'emoff in your room, to put on your slippers, and they were all dusty. So Itook 'em out on the back porch and gave 'em a good blacking. They shineup fine, don't they?"

"Well, I'll be d-dud-dummed!" said the startled Mr. Schofield. 

Penrod was zigzagging back to normal. 

CHAPTER XXIV "LITTLE GENTLEMAN"

The midsummer sun was stinging hot outside the little barber-shop nextto the corner drug store and Penrod, undergoing a toilette preliminaryto his very slowly approaching twelfth birthday, was adhesive enough toretain upon his face much hair as it fell from the shears. There is amystery here: the tonsorial processes are not unagreeable to manhood; intruth, they are soothing; but the hairs detached from a boy's head getinto his eyes, his ears, his nose, his mouth, and down his neck, and hedoes everywhere itch excruciatingly. Wherefore he blinks, winks, weeps, twitches, condenses his countenance, and squirms; and perchance thebarber's scissors clip more than intended--belike an outlying flange ofear. 

"Um--muh--OW!" said Penrod, this thing having happened. 

"D' I touch y' up a little?" inquired the barber, smiling falsely. 

"Ooh--UH!" The boy in the chair offered inarticulate protest, as thewound was rubbed with alum. 

"THAT don't hurt!" said the barber. "You WILL get it, though, if youdon't sit stiller, " he continued, nipping in the bud any attempt on thepart of his patient to think that he already had "it. "

"Pfuff!" said Penrod, meaning no disrespect, but endeavoring to dislodgea temporary moustache from his lip. 

"You ought to see how still that little Georgie Bassett sits, " thebarber went on, reprovingly. "I hear everybody says he's the best boy intown. "

"Pfuff! PHIRR!" There was a touch of intentional contempt in this. 

"I haven't heard nobody around the neighbourhood makin' no suchremarks, " added the barber, "about nobody of the name of PenrodSchofield. "

"Well, " said Penrod, clearing his mouth after a struggle, "who wants 'emto? Ouch!"

"I hear they call Georgie Bassett the 'little gentleman, '" ventured thebarber, provocatively, meeting with instant success. 

"They better not call ME that, " returned Penrod truculently. "I'd liketo hear anybody try. Just once, that's all! I bet they'd never try itag----OUCH!"

"Why? What'd you do to 'em?"

"It's all right what I'd DO! I bet they wouldn't want to call me thatagain long as they lived!"

"What'd you do if it was a little girl? You wouldn't hit her, wouldyou?"

"Well, I'd----Ouch!"

"You wouldn't hit a little girl, would you?" the barber persisted, gathering into his powerful fingers a mop of hair from the top ofPenrod's head and pulling that suffering head into an unnaturalposition. "Doesn't the Bible say it ain't never right to hit the weaksex?"

"Ow! SAY, look OUT!"

"So you'd go and punch a pore, weak, little girl, would you?" said thebarber, reprovingly. 

"Well, who said I'd hit her?" demanded the chivalrous Penrod. "I bet I'dFIX her though, all right. She'd see!"

"You wouldn't call her names, would you?"

"No, I wouldn't! What hurt is it to call anybody names?"

"Is that SO!" exclaimed the barber. "Then you was intending what I heardyou hollering at Fisher's grocery delivery wagon driver fer a favour, the other day when I was goin' by your house, was you? I reckon I bettertell him, because he says to me after-WERDS if he ever lays eyes on youwhen you ain't in your own yard, he's goin' to do a whole lot o' thingsyou ain't goin' to like! Yessir, that's what he says to ME!"

"He better catch me first, I guess, before he talks so much. "

"Well, " resumed the barber, "that ain't sayin' what you'd do if a younglady ever walked up and called you a little gentleman. _I_ want to hearwhat you'd do to her. I guess I know, though--come to think of it. "

"What?" demanded Penrod. 

"You'd sick that pore ole dog of yours on her cat, if she had one, Iexpect, " guessed the barber derisively. 

"No, I would not!"

"Well, what WOULD you do?"

"I'd do enough. Don't worry about that!"

"Well, suppose it was a boy, then: what'd you do if a boy come up to youand says, 'Hello, little gentleman'?"

"He'd be lucky, " said Penrod, with a sinister frown, "if he got homealive. "

"Suppose it was a boy twice your size?"

"Just let him try, " said Penrod ominously. "You just let him try. He'dnever see daylight again; that's all!"

The barber dug ten active fingers into the helpless scalp before himand did his best to displace it, while the anguished Penrod, becominginstantly a seething crucible of emotion, misdirected his naturalresentment into maddened brooding upon what he would do to a boy "twicehis size" who should dare to call him "little gentleman. " The barbershook him as his father had never shaken him; the barber buffeted him, rocked him frantically to and fro; the barber seemed to be trying towring his neck; and Penrod saw himself in staggering zigzag pictures, destroying large, screaming, fragmentary boys who had insulted him. 

The torture stopped suddenly; and clenched, weeping eyes began to seeagain, while the barber applied cooling lotions which made Penrod smelllike a coloured housemaid's ideal. 

"Now what, " asked the barber, combing the reeking locks gently, "whatwould it make you so mad fer, to have somebody call you a littlegentleman? It's a kind of compliment, as it were, you might say. Whatwould you want to hit anybody fer THAT fer?"

To the mind of Penrod, this question was without meaning orreasonableness. It was within neither his power nor his desire toanalyze the process by which the phrase had become offensive to him, and was now rapidly assuming the proportions of an outrage. He knew onlythat his gorge rose at the thought of it. 

"You just let 'em try it!" he said threateningly, as he slid down fromthe chair. And as he went out of the door, after further conversationon the same subject, he called back those warning words once more: "Justlet 'em try it! Just once--that's all _I_ ask 'em to. They'll find outwhat they GET!"

The barber chuckled. Then a fly lit on the barber's nose and he slappedat it, and the slap missed the fly but did not miss the nose. The barberwas irritated. At this moment his birdlike eye gleamed a gleam as itfell upon customers approaching: the prettiest little girl in the world, leading by the hand her baby brother, Mitchy-Mitch, coming to haveMitchy-Mitch's hair clipped, against the heat. 

It was a hot day and idle, with little to feed the mind--and the barberwas a mischievous man with an irritated nose. He did his worst. 

Meanwhile, the brooding Penrod pursued his homeward way; no greatdistance, but long enough for several one-sided conflicts with maligninsulters made of thin air. "You better NOT call me that!" he muttered. "You just try it, and you'll get what other people got when THEY triedit. You better not ack fresh with ME! Oh, you WILL, will you?" Hedelivered a vicious kick full upon the shins of an iron fence-post, which suffered little, though Penrod instantly regretted hisindiscretion. "Oof!" he grunted, hopping; and went on after bestowing alook of awful hostility upon the fence-post. "I guess you'll know betternext time, " he said, in parting, to this antagonist. "You just let mecatch you around here again and I'll----" His voice sank to inarticulatebut ominous murmurings. He was in a dangerous mood. 

Nearing home, however, his belligerent spirit was diverted to happierinterests by the discovery that some workmen had left a caldron of tarin the cross-street, close by his father's stable. He tested it, butfound it inedible. Also, as a substitute for professional chewing-gumit was unsatisfactory, being insufficiently boiled down and too thin, though of a pleasant, lukewarm temperature. But it had an excess of onequality--it was sticky. It was the stickiest tar Penrod had ever usedfor any purposes whatsoever, and nothing upon which he wiped his handsserved to rid them of it; neither his polka-dotted shirt waist nor hisknickerbockers; neither the fence, nor even Duke, who came unthinkinglywagging out to greet him, and retired wiser. 

Nevertheless, tar is tar. Much can be done with it, no matter what itscondition; so Penrod lingered by the caldron, though from a neighbouringyard could be heard the voices of comrades, including that of SamWilliams. On the ground about the caldron were scattered chips andsticks and bits of wood to the number of a great multitude. Penrod mixedquantities of this refuse into the tar, and interested himself inseeing how much of it he could keep moving in slow swirls upon the ebonsurface. 

Other surprises were arranged for the absent workmen. The caldron wasalmost full, and the surface of the tar near the rim. 

Penrod endeavoured to ascertain how many pebbles and brickbats, droppedin, would cause an overflow. Labouring heartily to this end, hehad almost accomplished it, when he received the suggestion for anexperiment on a much larger scale. Embedded at the corner of agrassplot across the street was a whitewashed stone, the size of a smallwatermelon and serving no purpose whatever save the questionable one ofdecoration. It was easily pried up with a stick; though getting it tothe caldron tested the full strength of the ardent labourer. Instructedto perform such a task, he would have sincerely maintained itsimpossibility but now, as it was unbidden, and promised ratherdestructive results, he set about it with unconquerable energy, feelingcertain that he would be rewarded with a mighty splash. Perspiring, grunting vehemently, his back aching and all muscles strained, heprogressed in short stages until the big stone lay at the base of thecaldron. He rested a moment, panting, then lifted the stone, and wasbending his shoulders for the heave that would lift it over the rim, when a sweet, taunting voice, close behind him, startled him cruelly. 

"How do you do, LITTLE GENTLEMAN!"

Penrod squawked, dropped the stone, and shouted, "Shut up, you dernfool!" purely from instinct, even before his about-face made him awarewho had so spitefully addressed him. 

It was Marjorie Jones. Always dainty, and prettily dressed, she was inspeckless and starchy white to-day, and a refreshing picture she made, with the new-shorn and powerfully scented Mitchy-Mitch clinging toher hand. They had stolen up behind the toiler, and now stood laughingtogether in sweet merriment. Since the passing of Penrod's Rupe Collinsperiod he had experienced some severe qualms at the recollection of hislast meeting with Marjorie and his Apache behaviour; in truth, his heartinstantly became as wax at sight of her, and he would have offeredher fair speech; but, alas! in Marjorie's wonderful eyes there shonea consciousness of new powers for his undoing, and she denied himopportunity. 

"Oh, OH!" she cried, mocking his pained outcry. "What a way for a LITTLEGENTLEMAN to talk! Little gentleman don't say wicked----"

"Marjorie!" Penrod, enraged and dismayed, felt himself stung beyond allendurance. Insult from her was bitterer to endure than from any other. "Don't you call me that again!"

"Why not, LITTLE GENTLEMAN?"

He stamped his foot. "You better stop!"

Marjorie sent into his furious face her lovely, spiteful laughter. 

"Little gentleman, little gentleman, little gentleman!" she saiddeliberately. "How's the little gentleman, this afternoon? Hello, littlegentleman!"

Penrod, quite beside himself, danced eccentrically. "Dry up!" he howled. "Dry up, dry up, dry up, dry UP!"

Mitchy-Mitch shouted with delight and applied a finger to the sideof the caldron--a finger immediately snatched away and wiped upon ahandkerchief by his fastidious sister. 

"'Ittle gellamun!" said Mitchy-Mitch. 

"You better look out!" Penrod whirled upon this small offender withgrim satisfaction. Here was at least something male that could withoutdishonour be held responsible. "You say that again, and I'll give youthe worst----"

"You will NOT!" snapped Marjorie, instantly vitriolic. "He'll say justwhatever he wants to, and he'll say it just as MUCH as he wants to. Sayit again, Mitchy-Mitch!"

"'Ittle gellamun!" said Mitchy-Mitch promptly. 

"Ow-YAH!" Penrod's tone-production was becoming affected by his mentalcondition. "You say that again, and I'll----"

"Go on, Mitchy-Mitch, " cried Marjorie. "He can't do a thing. He don'tDARE! Say it some more, Mitchy-Mitch--say it a whole lot!"

Mitchy-Mitch, his small, fat face shining with confidence in hisimmunity, complied. 

"'Ittle gellamun!" he squeaked malevolently. "'Ittle gellamun! 'Ittlegellamun! 'Ittle gellamun!"

The desperate Penrod bent over the whitewashed rock, lifted it, andthen--outdoing Porthos, John Ridd, and Ursus in one miraculous burst ofstrength--heaved it into the air. 

Marjorie screamed. 

But it was too late. The big stone descended into the precise midst ofthe caldron and Penrod got his mighty splash. It was far, far beyond hisexpectations. 

Spontaneously there were grand and awful effects--volcanic spectacles ofnightmare and eruption. A black sheet of eccentric shape rose out of thecaldron and descended upon the three children, who had no time to evadeit. 

After it fell, Mitchy-Mitch, who stood nearest the caldron, was thethickest, though there was enough for all. Br'er Rabbit would have fledfrom any of them. 

CHAPTER XXV TAR

When Marjorie and Mitchy-Mitch got their breath, they used it vocally;and seldom have more penetrating sounds issued from human throats. Coincidentally, Marjorie, quite baresark, laid hands upon the largeststick within reach and fell upon Penrod with blind fury. He had thepresence of mind to flee, and they went round and round the caldron, while Mitchy-Mitch feebly endeavoured to follow--his appearance, inthis pursuit, being pathetically like that of a bug fished out of anink-well, alive but discouraged. 

Attracted by the riot, Samuel Williams made his appearance, vaulting afence, and was immediately followed by Maurice Levy and Georgie Bassett. They stared incredulously at the extraordinary spectacle before them. 

"Little GEN-TIL-MUN!" shrieked Marjorie, with a wild stroke that landedfull upon Penrod's tarry cap. 

"OOOCH!" bleated Penrod. 

"It's Penrod!" shouted Sam Williams, recognizing him by the voice. Foran instant he had been in some doubt. 

"Penrod Schofield!" exclaimed Georgie Bassett. "WHAT does this mean?"That was Georgie's style, and had helped to win him his title. 

Marjorie leaned, panting, upon her stick. "I cu-called--uh--him--oh!" she sobbed--"I called him a lul-little--oh--gentleman!And oh--lul-look!--oh! lul-look at my du-dress! Lul-look atMumitchy--oh--Mitch--oh!"

Unexpectedly, she smote again--with results--and then, seizing theindistinguishable hand of Mitchy-Mitch, she ran wailing homeward downthe street. 

"'Little gentleman'?" said Georgie Bassett, with some evidences ofdisturbed complacency. "Why, that's what they call ME!"

"Yes, and you ARE one, too!" shouted the maddened Penrod. "But youbetter not let anybody call ME that! I've stood enough around here forone day, and you can't run over ME, Georgie Bassett. Just you put thatin your gizzard and smoke it!"

"Anybody has a perfect right, " said Georgie, with, dignity, "to call aperson a little gentleman. There's lots of names nobody ought to call, but this one's a NICE----"

"You better look out!"

Unavenged bruises were distributed all over Penrod, both upon his bodyand upon his spirit. Driven by subtle forces, he had dipped his hands incatastrophe and disaster: it was not for a Georgie Bassett to beard him. Penrod was about to run amuck. 

"I haven't called you a little gentleman, yet, " said Georgie. "I onlysaid it. Anybody's got a right to SAY it. "

"Not around ME! You just try it again and----"

"I shall say it, " returned Georgie, "all I please. Anybody in this townhas a right to SAY 'little gentleman'----"

Bellowing insanely, Penrod plunged his right hand into the caldron, rushed upon Georgie and made awful work of his hair and features. 

Alas, it was but the beginning! Sam Williams and Maurice Levy screamedwith delight, and, simultaneously infected, danced about the strugglingpair, shouting frantically:

"Little gentleman! Little gentleman! Sick him, Georgie! Sick him, littlegentleman! Little gentleman! Little gentleman!"

The infuriated outlaw turned upon them with blows and more tar, whichgave Georgie Bassett his opportunity and later seriously impaired thepurity of his fame. Feeling himself hopelessly tarred, he dipped bothhands repeatedly into the caldron and applied his gatherings to Penrod. It was bringing coals to Newcastle, but it helped to assuage the justwrath of Georgie. 

The four boys gave a fine imitation of the Laocoon group complicatedby an extra figure frantic splutterings and chokings, strange cries andstranger words issued from this tangle; hands dipped lavishly into theinexhaustible reservoir of tar, with more and more picturesque results. The caldron had been elevated upon bricks and was not perfectlybalanced; and under a heavy impact of the struggling group it lurchedand went partly over, pouring forth a Stygian tide which formed a deeppool in the gutter. 

It was the fate of Master Roderick Bitts, that exclusive and immaculateperson, to make his appearance upon the chaotic scene at this juncture. All in the cool of a white "sailor suit, " he turned aside from the pathof duty--which led straight to the house of a maiden aunt--and pausedto hop with joy upon the sidewalk. A repeated epithet continuously halfpanted, half squawked, somewhere in the nest of gladiators, caught hisear, and he took it up excitedly, not knowing why. 

"Little gentleman!" shouted Roderick, jumping up and down in childishglee. "Little gentleman! Little gentleman! Lit----"

A frightful figure tore itself free from the group, encircled thisinnocent bystander with a black arm, and hurled him headlong. Fulllength and flat on his face went Roderick into the Stygian pool. Thefrightful figure was Penrod. 

Instantly, the pack flung themselves upon him again, and, carryingthem with him, he went over upon Roderick, who from that instant was asactive 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 ofthe combatants. Marjorie said Penrod began it; Penrod said Mitchy-Mitchbegan it; Sam Williams said Georgie Bassett began it; Georgie andMaurice Levy said Penrod began it; Roderick Bitts, who had notrecognized 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. Somehow, we never manage to hang the realoffender. 

The end came only with the arrival of Penrod's mother, who had beenhaving a painful conversation by telephone with Mrs. Jones, the motherof Marjorie, and came forth to seek an errant son. It is a mystery howshe was able to pick out her own, for by the time she got there hisvoice was too hoarse to be recognizable. Mr. Schofield's version ofthings was that Penrod was insane. "He's a stark, raving lunatic!"declared the father, descending to the library from a before-dinnerinterview with the outlaw, that evening. "I'd send him to militaryschool, but I don't believe they'd take him. Do you know WHY he says allthat awfulness happened?"

"When Margaret and I were trying to scrub him, " responded Mrs. Schofieldwearily, "he said 'everybody' had been calling him names. "

"'Names!'" snorted her husband. "'Little gentleman!' THAT'S the vileepithet they called him! And because of it he wrecks the peace of sixhomes!"

"SH! Yes; he told us about it, " said Mrs. Schofield, moaning. "He toldus several hundred times, I should guess, though I didn't count. He'sgot it fixed in his head, and we couldn't get it out. All we could dowas to put him in the closet. He'd have gone out again after those boysif we hadn't. I don't know WHAT to make of him!"

"He's a mystery to ME!" said her husband. "And he refuses to explainwhy he objects to being called 'little gentleman. ' Says he'd do the samething--and worse--if anybody dared to call him that again. He said ifthe President of the United States called him that he'd try to whip him. How long did you have him locked up in the closet?"

"SH!" said Mrs. Schofield warningly. "About two hours; but I don't thinkit softened his spirit at all, because when I took him to the barber'sto get his hair clipped again, on account of the tar in it, SammyWilliams and Maurice Levy were there for the same reason, and they justWHISPERED 'little gentleman, ' so low you could hardly hear them--andPenrod began fighting with them right before me, and it was really allthe barber and I could do to drag him away from them. The barber wasvery kind about it, but Penrod----"

"I tell you he's a lunatic!" Mr. Schofield would have said the samething of a Frenchman infuriated by the epithet "camel. " The philosophyof insult needs expounding. 

"SH!" said Mrs. Schofield. "It does seem a kind of frenzy. "

"Why on earth should any sane person mind being called----"

"SH!" said Mrs. Schofield. "It's beyond ME!"

"What are you SH-ing me for?" demanded Mr. Schofield explosively. 

"SH!" said Mrs. Schofield. "It's Mr. Kinosling, the new rector of SaintJoseph's. "

"Where?"

"SH! On the front porch with Margaret; he's going to stay for dinner. Ido hope----"

"Bachelor, isn't he?"

"Yes. "

"OUR old minister was speaking of him the other day, " said Mr. Schofield, "and he didn't seem so terribly impressed. "

"SH! Yes; about thirty, and of course so superior to most of Margaret'sfriends--boys home from college. She thinks she likes young RobertWilliams, I know--but he laughs so much! Of course there isn't anycomparison. Mr. Kinosling talks so intellectually; it's a good thing forMargaret to hear that kind of thing, for a change and, of course, he'svery spiritual. He seems very much interested in her. " She paused tomuse. "I think Margaret likes him; he's so different, too. It's thethird time he's dropped in this week, and I----"

"Well, " said Mr. Schofield grimly, "if you and Margaret want him to comeagain, you'd better not let him see Penrod. "

"But he's asked to see him; he seems interested in meeting all thefamily. And Penrod nearly always behaves fairly well at table. "She paused, and then put to her husband a question referring to hisinterview with Penrod upstairs. "Did you--did you--do it?"

"No, " he answered gloomily. "No, I didn't, but----" He was interruptedby a violent crash of china and metal in the kitchen, a shriek fromDella, and the outrageous voice of Penrod. The well-informed Della, ill-inspired to set up for a wit, had ventured to address the scion ofthe house roguishly as "little gentleman, " and Penrod, by means of therapid elevation of his right foot, had removed from her supportinghands a laden tray. Both parents, started for the kitchen, Mr. Schofieldcompleting his interrupted sentence on the way. 

"But I will, now!"

The rite thus promised was hastily but accurately performed in thatapartment most distant from the front porch; and, twenty minutes later, Penrod descended to dinner. The Rev. Mr. Kinosling had asked for thepleasure of meeting him, and it had been decided that the only coursepossible was to cover up the scandal for the present, and to offer anundisturbed and smiling family surface to the gaze of the visitor. 

Scorched but not bowed, the smouldering Penrod was led forward for thesocial formulae simultaneously with the somewhat bleak departure ofRobert Williams, who took his guitar with him, this time, and went inforlorn unconsciousness of the powerful forces already set in secretmotion to be his allies. 

The punishment just undergone had but made the haughty and unyieldingsoul of Penrod more stalwart in revolt; he was unconquered. Every timethe one intolerable insult had been offered him, his resentment hadbecome the hotter, his vengeance the more instant and furious. And, still burning with outrage, but upheld by the conviction of right, hewas determined to continue to the last drop of his blood the defenseof his honour, whenever it should be assailed, no matter how mighty oraugust the powers that attacked it. In all ways, he was a very sore boy. 

During the brief ceremony of presentation, his usually inscrutablecountenance wore an expression interpreted by his father as one ofinsane obstinacy, while Mrs. Schofield found it an incentive to inwardprayer. The fine graciousness of Mr. Kinosling, however, was unimpairedby the glare of virulent suspicion given him by this little brother: Mr. Kinosling mistook it for a natural curiosity concerning one who mightpossibly become, in time, a member of the family. He patted Penrod uponthe head, which was, for many reasons, in no condition to be patted withany pleasure to the patter. Penrod felt himself in the presence of a newenemy. 

"How do you do, my little lad, " said Mr. Kinosling. "I trust we shallbecome fast friends. "

To the ear of his little lad, it seemed he said, "A trost we shallbick-home fawst frainds. " Mr. Kinosling's pronunciation was, in fact, slightly precious; and, the little lad, simply mistaking it for somecryptic form of mockery of himself, assumed a manner and expressionwhich argued so ill for the proposed friendship that Mrs. Schofieldhastily interposed the suggestion of dinner, and the small processionwent in to the dining-room. 

"It has been a delicious day, " said Mr. Kinosling, presently; "warm butbalmy. " With a benevolent smile he addressed Penrod, who sat oppositehim. "I suppose, little gentleman, you have been indulging in the usualoutdoor sports of vacation?"

Penrod laid down his fork and glared, open-mouthed at Mr. Kinosling. 

"You'll have another slice of breast of the chicken?" Mr. Schofieldinquired, loudly and quickly. 

"A lovely day!" exclaimed Margaret, with equal promptitude and emphasis. "Lovely, oh, lovely! Lovely!"

"Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful!" said Mrs. Schofield, and after aglance at Penrod which confirmed her impression that he intended tosay something, she continued, "Yes, beautiful, beautiful, beautiful, beautiful, beautiful beautiful!"

Penrod closed his mouth and sank back in his chair--and his relativestook breath. 

Mr. Kinosling looked pleased. This responsive family, with its readyenthusiasm, made the kind of audience he liked. He passed a delicatewhite hand gracefully over his tall, pale forehead, and smiledindulgently. 

"Youth relaxes in summer, " he said. "Boyhood is the age of relaxation;one is playful, light, free, unfettered. One runs and leaps and enjoysone's self with one's companions. It is good for the little lads to playwith their friends; they jostle, push, and wrestle, and simulate little, happy struggles with one another in harmless conflict. The young musclesare toughening. It is good. Boyish chivalry develops, enlarges, expands. The young learn quickly, intuitively, spontaneously. They perceive theobligations of noblesse oblige. They begin to comprehend the necessityof caste and its requirements. They learn what birth means--ah, --thatis, they learn what it means to be well born. They learn courtesy intheir games; they learn politeness, consideration for one another intheir pastimes, amusements, lighter occupations. I make it my pleasureto join them often, for I sympathize with them in all their wholesomejoys as well as in their little bothers and perplexities. I understandthem, you see; and let me tell you it is no easy matter to understandthe little lads and lassies. " He sent to each listener his beamingglance, and, permitting it to come to rest upon Penrod, inquired:

"And what do you say to that, little gentleman?"

Mr. Schofield uttered a stentorian cough. "More? You'd better have somemore chicken! More! Do!"

"More chicken!" urged Margaret simultaneously. "Do please! Please! More!Do! More!"

"Beautiful, beautiful, " began Mrs. Schofield. "Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful, beautiful----"

It is not known in what light Mr. Kinosling viewed the expression ofPenrod's face. Perhaps he mistook it for awe; perhaps he receivedno impression at all of its extraordinary quality. He was a ratherself-engrossed young man, just then engaged in a double occupation, forhe not only talked, but supplied from his own consciousness a criticalthough favourable auditor as well, which of course kept him quite busy. Besides, it is oftener than is expected the case that extremely peculiarexpressions upon the countenances of boys are entirely overlooked, and suggest nothing to the minds of people staring straight at them. Certainly Penrod's expression--which, to the perception of his family, was perfectly horrible--caused not the faintest perturbation in thebreast of Mr. Kinosling. 

Mr. Kinosling waived the chicken, and continued to talk. "Yes, I thinkI may claim to understand boys, " he said, smiling thoughtfully. "Onehas been a boy one's self. Ah, it is not all playtime! I hope our youngscholar here does not overwork himself at his Latin, at his classics, as I did, so that at the age of eight years I was compelled to wearglasses. He must be careful not to strain the little eyes at hisscholar's tasks, not to let the little shoulders grow round over hisscholar's desk. Youth is golden; we should keep it golden, bright, glistening. Youth should frolic, should be sprightly; it should play itscricket, its tennis, its hand-ball. It should run and leap; it shouldlaugh, should sing madrigals and glees, carol with the lark, ring out inchanties, folk-songs, ballads, roundelays----"

He talked on. At any instant Mr. Schofield held himself ready to coughvehemently and shout, "More chicken, " to drown out Penrod in case thefatal words again fell from those eloquent lips; and Mrs. Schofield andMargaret kept themselves prepared at all times to assist him. So passeda threatening meal, which Mrs. Schofield hurried, by every means withdecency, to its conclusion. She felt that somehow they would all besafer out in the dark of the front porch, and led the way thither assoon as possible. 

"No cigar, I thank you. " Mr. Kinosling, establishing himself in a wickerchair beside Margaret, waved away her father's proffer. "I do not smoke. I have never tasted tobacco in any form. " Mrs. Schofield was confirmedin her opinion that this would be an ideal son-in-law. Mr. Schofield wasnot so sure. 

"No, " said Mr. Kinosling. "No tobacco for me. No cigar, no pipe, nocigarette, no cheroot. For me, a book--a volume of poems, perhaps. Verses, rhymes, lines metrical and cadenced--those are my dissipation. Tennyson by preference: 'Maud, ' or 'Idylls of the King'--poetry of thesound Victorian days; there is none later. Or Longfellow will rest mein a tired hour. Yes; for me, a book, a volume in the hand, held lightlybetween the fingers. "

Mr. Kinosling looked pleasantly at his fingers as he spoke, waving hishand in a curving gesture which brought it into the light of a windowfaintly illumined from the interior of the house. Then he passed thosegraceful fingers over his hair, and turned toward Penrod, who wasperched upon the railing in a dark corner. 

"The evening is touched with a slight coolness, " said Mr. Kinosling. "Perhaps I may request the little gentleman----"

"B'gr-r-RUFF!" coughed Mr. Schofield. "You'd better change your mindabout a cigar. "

"No, I thank you. I was about to request the lit----"

"DO try one, " Margaret urged. "I'm sure papa's are nice ones. Dotry----"

"No, I thank you. I remarked a slight coolness in the air, and my hat isin the hallway. I was about to request----"

"I'll get it for you, " said Penrod suddenly. 

"If you will be so good, " said Mr. Kinosling. "It is a black bowler hat, little gentleman, and placed upon a table in the hall. "

"I know where it is. " Penrod entered the door, and a feeling of relief, mutually experienced, carried from one to another of his three relativestheir interchanged congratulations that he had recovered his sanity. 

"'The day is done, and the darkness, '" began Mr. Kinosling--and recitedthat poem entire. He followed it with "The Children's Hour, " and after apause, at the close, to allow his listeners time for a little reflectionupon his rendition, he passed his handagain over his head, and called, in the direction of the doorway:

"I believe I will take my hat now, little gentleman. "

"Here it is, " said Penrod, unexpectedly climbing over the porch railing, in the other direction. His mother and father and Margaret had supposedhim to be standing in the hallway out of deference, and because hethought it tactful not to interrupt the recitations. All of themremembered, later, that this supposed thoughtfulness on his part struckthem as unnatural. 

"Very good, little gentleman!" said Mr. Kinosling, and being somewhatchilled, placed the hat firmly upon his head, pulling it down as faras it would go. It had a pleasant warmth, which he noticed at once. Thenext instant, he noticed something else, a peculiar sensation of thescalp--a sensation which he was quite unable to define. He lifted hishand to take the hat off, and entered upon a strange experience: his hatseemed to have decided to remain where it was. 

"Do you like Tennyson as much as Longfellow, Mr. Kinosling?" inquiredMargaret. 

"I--ah--I cannot say, " he returned absently. "I--ah--each has hisown--ugh! flavour and savour, each his--ah--ah----"

Struck by a strangeness in his tone, she peered at him curiously throughthe dusk. His outlines were indistinct, but she made out that his armswere, uplifted in a singular gesture. He seemed to be wrenching at hishead. 

"Is--is anything the matter?" she asked anxiously. "Mr. Kinosling, areyou ill?"

"Not at--ugh!--all, " he replied, in the same odd tone. "I--ah--Ibelieve--UGH!"

He dropped his hands from his hat, and rose. His manner wasslightly agitated. "I fear I may have taken a trifling--ah--cold. I should--ah--perhaps be--ah--better at home. I will--ah--saygood-night. "

At the steps, he instinctively lifted his hand to remove his hat, but did not do so, and, saying "Goodnight, " again in a frigid voice, departed with visible stiffness from that house, to return no more. 

"Well, of all----!" cried Mrs. Schofield, astounded. "What was thematter? He just went--like that!" She made a flurried gesture. "Inheaven's name, Margaret, what DID you say to him?"

"_I_!" exclaimed Margaret indignantly. "Nothing! He just WENT!"

"Why, he didn't even take off his hat when he said good-night!" saidMrs. Schofield. 

Margaret, who had crossed to the doorway, caught the ghost of a whisperbehind her, where stood Penrod. 

"YOU BET HE DIDN'T!"

He knew not that he was overheard. 

A frightful suspicion flashed through Margaret's mind--a suspicion thatMr. Kinosling's hat would have to be either boiled off or shaved off. With growing horror she recalled Penrod's long absence when he went tobring the hat. 

"Penrod, " she cried, "let me see your hands!"

She had toiled at those hands herself late that afternoon, nearlyscalding her own, but at last achieving a lily purity. 

"Let me see your hands!"

She seized them. 

Again they were tarred!

CHAPTER XXVI THE QUIET AFTERNOON

Perhaps middle-aged people might discern Nature's real intentions in thematter of pain if they would examine a boy's punishments and sorrows, for he prolongs neither beyond their actual duration. With a boy, trouble must be of Homeric dimensions to last overnight. To him, everynext day is really a new day. Thus, Penrod woke, next morning, withneither the unspared rod, nor Mr. Kinosling in his mind. Tar, itself, so far as his consideration of it went, might have been an undiscoveredsubstance. His mood was cheerful and mercantile; some process havingworked mysteriously within him, during the night, to the result thathis first waking thought was of profits connected with the sale of oldiron--or perhaps a ragman had passed the house, just before he woke. 

By ten o'clock he had formed a partnership with the indeed amiable Sam, and the firm of Schofield and Williams plunged headlong into commerce. Heavy dealings in rags, paper, old iron and lead gave the firm a balanceof twenty-two cents on the evening of the third day; but a venture inglassware, following, proved disappointing on account of the scepticismof all the druggists in that part of town, even after seven laborioushours had been spent in cleansing a wheelbarrow-load of old medicinebottles with hydrant water and ashes. Likewise, the partners weredisheartened by their failure to dispose of a crop of "greens, " althoughthey had uprooted specimens of that decorative and unappreciated flower, the dandelion, with such persistence and energy that the Schofields' andWilliams' lawns looked curiously haggard for the rest of that summer. 

The fit passed: business languished; became extinct. The dog-days hadset in. 

One August afternoon was so hot that even boys sought indoor shade. Inthe dimness of the vacant carriage-house of the stable, lounged MastersPenrod Schofield, Samuel Williams, Maurice Levy, Georgie Bassett, andHerman. They sat still and talked. It is a hot day, in rare truth, whenboys devote themselves principally to conversation, and this day wasthat hot. 

Their elders should beware such days. Peril hovers near when thefierceness of weather forces inaction and boys in groups are quiet. The more closely volcanoes, Western rivers, nitroglycerin, and boysare pent, the deadlier is their action at the point of outbreak. Thus, parents and guardians should look for outrages of the most singularviolence and of the most peculiar nature during the confining weather ofFebruary and August. 

The thing which befell upon this broiling afternoon began to brew andstew peacefully enough. All was innocence and languor; no one could haveforetold the eruption. 

They were upon their great theme: "When I get to be a man!" Being human, though boys, they considered their present estate too commonplace to bedwelt upon. So, when the old men gather, they say: "When I was a boy!"It really is the land of nowadays that we never discover. 

"When I'm a man, " said Sam Williams, "I'm goin' to hire me a couple ofcoloured waiters to swing me in a hammock and keep pourin' ice-water onme all day out o' those waterin'-cans they sprinkle flowers from. I'llhire you for one of 'em, Herman. "

"No; you ain' goin' to, " said Herman promptly. "You ain' no flowuh. But nev' min' nat, anyway. Ain' nobody goin' haih me whens _I_'m a man. Goin' be my own boss. _I_'m go' be a rai'road man!"

"You mean like a superintendent, or sumpthing like that, and selltickets?" asked Penrod. 

"Sup'in--nev' min' nat! Sell ticket? NO suh! Go' be a PO'tuh! My uncle apo'tuh right now. Solid gole buttons--oh, oh!"

"Generals get a lot more buttons than porters, " said Penrod. "Generals----"

"Po'tuhs make the bes' l'vin', " Herman interrupted. "My uncle spen' mo'money 'n any white man n'is town. "

"Well, I rather be a general, " said Penrod, "or a senator, or sumpthinglike that. "

"Senators live in Warshington, " Maurice Levy contributed theinformation. "I been there. Warshington ain't so much; Niag'ra Falls isa hundred times as good as Warshington. So's 'Tlantic City, I was there, too. I been everywhere there is. I----"

"Well, anyway, " said Sam Williams, raising his voice in order to obtainthe floor, "anyway, I'm goin' to lay in a hammock all day, and haveice-water sprinkled on top o' me, and I'm goin' to lay there all night, too, and the next day. I'm goin' to lay there a couple o' years, maybe. "

"I bet you don't!" exclaimed Maurice. "What'd you do in winter?"

"What?"

"What you goin' to do when it's winter, out in a hammock with watersprinkled on top o' you all day? I bet you----"

"I'd stay right there, " Sam declared, with strong conviction, blinkingas he looked out through the open doors at the dazzling lawn and trees, trembling in the heat. "They couldn't sprinkle too much for ME!"

"It'd make icicles all over you, and----"

"I wish it would, " said Sam. "I'd eat 'em up. "

"And it'd snow on you----"

"Yay! I'd swaller it as fast as it'd come down. I wish I had a BARRELo' snow right now. I wish this whole barn was full of it. I wish theywasn't anything in the whole world except just good ole snow. "

Penrod and Herman rose and went out to the hydrant, where they dranklong and ardently. Sam was still talking about snow when they returned. 

"No, I wouldn't just roll in it. I'd stick it all round inside myclo'es, and fill my hat. No, I'd freeze a big pile of it all hard, andI'd roll her out flat and then I'd carry her down to some ole tailor'sand have him make me a SUIT out of her, and----"

"Can't you keep still about your ole snow?" demanded Penrod petulantly. "Makes me so thirsty I can't keep still, and I've drunk so much now Ibet I bust. That ole hydrant water's mighty near hot anyway. "

"I'm goin' to have a big store, when I grow up, " volunteered Maurice. 

"Candy store?" asked Penrod. 

"NO, sir! I'll have candy in it, but not to eat, so much. It's goin' tobe a deportment store: ladies' clothes, gentlemen's clothes, neckties, china goods, leather goods, nice lines in woollings and lace goods----"

"Yay! I wouldn't give a five-for-a-cent marble for your whole store, "said Sam. "Would you, Penrod?"

"Not for ten of 'em; not for a million of 'em! _I_'m goin' to have----"

"Wait!" clamoured Maurice. "You'd be foolish, because they'd be a toydeportment in my store where they'd be a hunderd marbles! So, how muchwould you think your five-for-a-cent marble counts for? And when I'mkeepin' my store I'm goin' to get married. "

"Yay!" shrieked Sam derisively. "MARRIED! Listen!" Penrod and Hermanjoined in the howl of contempt. 

"Certumly I'll get married, " asserted Maurice stoutly. "I'll get marriedto Marjorie Jones. She likes me awful good, and I'm her beau. "

"What makes you think so?" inquired Penrod in a cryptic voice. 

"Because she's my beau, too, " came the prompt answer. "I'm her beaubecause she's my beau; I guess that's plenty reason! I'll get married toher as soon as I get my store running nice. "

Penrod looked upon him darkly, but, for the moment, held his peace. 

"Married!" jeered Sam Williams. "Married to Marjorie Jones! You're theonly boy I ever heard say he was going to get married. I wouldn'tget married for--why, I wouldn't for--for----" Unable to think ofany inducement the mere mention of which would not be ridiculouslyincommensurate, he proceeded: "I wouldn't do it! What you want to getmarried for? What do married people do, except just come home tired, andworry around and kind of scold? You better not do it, M'rice; you'll bemighty sorry. "

"Everybody gets married, " stated Maurice, holding his ground. 

"They gotta. "

"I'll bet _I_ don't!" Sam returned hotly. "They better catch me beforethey tell ME I have to. Anyway, I bet nobody has to get married unlessthey want to. "

"They do, too, " insisted Maurice. "They GOTTA!"

"Who told you?"

"Look at what my own papa told me!" cried Maurice, heated with argument. "Didn't he tell me your papa had to marry your mamma, or else henever'd got to handle a cent of her money? Certumly, people gotta marry. Everybody. You don't know anybody over twenty years old that isn'tmarried--except maybe teachers. "

"Look at policemen!" shouted Sam triumphantly. "You don't s'pose anybodycan make policemen get married, I reckon, do you?"

"Well, policemen, maybe, " Maurice was forced to admit. "Policemen andteachers don't, but everybody else gotta. "

"Well, I'll be a policeman, " said Sam. "THEN I guess they won't comearound tellin' me I have to get married. What you goin' to be, Penrod?"

"Chief police, " said the laconic Penrod. 

"What you?" Sam inquired of quiet Georgie Bassett. 

"I am going to be, " said Georgie, consciously, "a minister. "

This announcement created a sensation so profound that it was followedby silence. Herman was the first to speak. 

"You mean preachuh?" he asked incredulously. "You go' PREACH?"

"Yes, " answered Georgie, looking like Saint Cecilia at the organ. 

Herman was impressed. "You know all 'at preachuh talk?"

"I'm going to learn it, " said Georgie simply. 

"How loud kin you holler?" asked Herman doubtfully. 

"He can't holler at all, " Penrod interposed with scorn. "He hollers likea girl. He's the poorest hollerer in town!"

Herman shook his head. Evidently he thought Georgie's chance of beingordained very slender. Nevertheless, a final question put to thecandidate by the coloured expert seemed to admit one ray of hope. 

"How good kin you clim a pole?"

"He can't climb one at all, " Penrod answered for Georgie. "Over at Sam'sturning-pole you ought to see him try to----"

"Preachers don't have to climb poles, " Georgie said with dignity. 

"GOOD ones do, " declared Herman. "Bes' one ev' _I_ hear, he clim up an'down same as a circus man. One n'em big 'vivals outen whens we livin' ona fahm, preachuh clim big pole right in a middle o' the church, whatwas to hol' roof up. He clim way high up, an' holler: 'Goin' to heavum, goin' to heavum, goin' to heavum NOW. Hallelujah, praise my Lawd!' An'he slide down little, an' holler: 'Devil's got a hol' o' my coat-tails;devil tryin' to drag me down! Sinnuhs, take wawnun! Devil got a hol' o'my coat-tails; I'm a-goin' to hell, oh Lawd!' Nex', he clim up littlemo', an' yell an' holler: 'Done shuck ole devil loose; goin' straight toheavum agin! Goin' to heavum, goin' to heavum, my Lawd!' Nex', he slidedown some mo' an' holler, 'Leggo my coat-tails, ole devil! Goin' tohell agin, sinnuhs! Goin' straight to hell, my Lawd!' An' he clim an' heslide, an' he slide, an' he clim, an' all time holler: 'Now 'm a-goin'to heavum; now 'm a-goin' to hell! Goin'to heavum, heavum, heavum, myLawd!' Las' he slide all a-way down, jes' a-squallin' an' a-kickin' an'a-rarin' up an' squealin', 'Goin' to hell. Goin' to hell! Ole Satum gotmy soul! Goin' to hell! Goin' to hell! Goin' to hell, hell, hell!"

Herman possessed that extraordinary facility for vivid acting which isthe great native gift of his race, and he enchained his listeners. Theysat fascinated and spellbound. 

"Herman, tell that again!" said Penrod, breathlessly. 

Herman, nothing loath, accepted the encore and repeated the Miltonicepisode, expanding it somewhat, and dwelling with a fine art upon thoseportions of the narrative which he perceived to be most exciting to hisaudience. Plainly, they thrilled less to Paradise gained than to itslosing, and the dreadful climax of the descent into the Pit was thegreatest treat of all. 

The effect was immense and instant. Penrod sprang to his feet. 

"Georgie Bassett couldn't do that to save his life, " he declared. "_I_'mgoin' to be a preacher! I'D be all right for one, wouldn't I, Herman?"

"So am I!" Sam Williams echoed loudly. "I guess I can do it if YOU can. I'd be better'n Penrod, wouldn't I, Herman?"

"I am, too!" Maurice shouted. "I got a stronger voice than anybody here, and I'd like to know what----"

The three clamoured together indistinguishably, each asserting hisqualifications for the ministry according to Herman's theory, which hadbeen accepted by these sudden converts without question. 

"Listen to ME!" Maurice bellowed, proving his claim to at least thevoice by drowning the others. "Maybe I can't climb a pole so good, butwho can holler louder'n this? Listen to ME-E-E!"

"Shut up!" cried Penrod, irritated. "Go to heaven; go to hell!"

"Oo-o-oh!" exclaimed Georgie Bassett, profoundly shocked. 

Sam and Maurice, awed by Penrod's daring, ceased from turmoil, staringwide-eyed. 

"You cursed and swore!" said Georgie. 

"I did not!" cried Penrod, hotly. "That isn't swearing. "

"You said, 'Go to a big H'!" said Georgie. 

"I did not! I said, 'Go to heaven, ' before I said a big H. That isn'tswearing, is it, Herman? It's almost what the preacher said, ain't it, Herman? It ain't swearing now, any more--not if you put 'go to heaven'with it, is it, Herman? You can say it all you want to, long as yousay 'go to heaven' first, CAN'T you, Herman? Anybody can say it ifthe preacher says it, can't they, Herman? I guess I know when I ain'tswearing, don't I, Herman?"

Judge Herman ruled for the defendant, and Penrod was considered to havecarried his point. With fine consistency, the conclave establishedthat it was proper for the general public to "say it, " provided "go toheaven" should in all cases precede it. This prefix was pronounced aperfect disinfectant, removing all odour of impiety or insult; and, withthe exception of Georgie Bassett (who maintained that the minister'swords were "going" and "gone, " not "go"), all the boys proceeded toexercise their new privilege so lavishly that they tired of it. 

But there was no diminution of evangelical ardour; again were heard theclamours of dispute as to which was the best qualified for the ministry, each of the claimants appealing passionately to Herman, who, pleased butconfused, appeared to be incapable of arriving at a decision. 

During a pause, Georgie Bassett asserted his prior rights. "Who saidit first, I'd like to know?" he demanded. "I was going to be a ministerfrom long back of to-day, I guess. And I guess I said I was going to bea minister right to-day before any of you said anything at all. DIDN'TI, Herman? YOU heard me, didn't you, Herman? That's the very thingstarted you talking about it, wasn't it, Herman?"

"You' right, " said Herman. "You the firs' one to say it. "

Penrod, Sam, and Maurice immediately lost faith in Herman. 

"What if you did say it first?" Penrod shouted. "You couldn't BE aminister if you were a hunderd years old!"

"I bet his mother wouldn't let him be one, " said Sam. "She never letshim do anything. "

"She would, too, " retorted Georgie. "Ever since I was little, she----"

"He's too sissy to be a preacher!" cried Maurice. "Listen at his squeakyvoice!"

"I'm going to be a better minister, " shouted Georgie, "than all three ofyou put together. I could do it with my left hand!"

The three laughed bitingly in chorus. They jeered, derided, scoffed, and raised an uproar which would have had its effect upon much strongernerves than Georgie's. For a time he contained his rising choler andchanted monotonously, over and over: "I COULD! I COULD, TOO! I COULD!I COULD, TOO!" But their tumult wore upon him, and he decided to availhimself of the recent decision whereby a big H was rendered innocuousand unprofane. Having used the expression once, he found it comforting, and substituted it for: "I could! I could, too!"

But it relieved him only temporarily. His tormentors were unaffectedby it and increased their howlings, until at last Georgie lost his headaltogether. Badgered beyond bearing, his eyes shining with a wild light, he broke through the besieging trio, hurling little Maurice from hispath with a frantic hand. 

"I'll show you!" he cried, in this sudden frenzy. "You give me a chance, and I'll prove it right NOW!"

"That's talkin' business!" shouted Penrod. "Everybody keep still aminute. Everybody!"

He took command of the situation at once, displaying a fine capacity fororganization and system. It needed only a few minutes to set order inthe place of confusion and to determine, with the full concurrence ofall parties, the conditions under which Georgie Bassett was to defendhis claim by undergoing what may be perhaps intelligibly defined as theHerman test. Georgie declared he could do it easily. He was in a stateof great excitement and in no condition to think calmly or, probably, hewould not have made the attempt at all. Certainly he was overconfident. 

CHAPTER XXVII CONCLUSION OF THE QUIET AFTERNOON

It was during the discussion of the details of this enterprise thatGeorgie's mother, a short distance down the street, received a fewfemale callers, who came by appointment to drink a glass of iced teawith her, and to meet the Rev. Mr. Kinosling. Mr. Kinosling was provingalmost formidably interesting to the women and girls of his ownand other flocks. What favour of his fellow clergymen a slightprecociousness of manner and pronunciation cost him was more thanbalanced by the visible ecstasies of ladies. They blossomed at histouch. 

He had just entered Mrs. Bassett's front door, when the son of thehouse, followed by an intent and earnest company of four, opened thealley gate and came into the yard. The unconscious Mrs. Bassett wasabout to have her first experience of a fatal coincidence. It was herfirst, because she was the mother of a boy so well behaved that he hadbecome a proverb of transcendency. Fatal coincidences were plentifulin the Schofield and Williams families, and would have been familiar toMrs. Bassett had Georgie been permitted greater intimacy with Penrod andSam. 

Mr. Kinosling sipped his iced tea and looked about, him approvingly. Seven ladies leaned forward, for it was to be seen that he meant tospeak. 

"This cool room is a relief, " he said, waving a graceful hand ina neatly limited gesture, which everybody's eyes followed, his ownincluded. "It is a relief and a retreat. The windows open, the blindsclosed--that is as it should be. It is a retreat, a fastness, a bastionagainst the heat's assault. For me, a quiet room--a quiet room and abook, a volume in the hand, held lightly between the fingers. A volumeof poems, lines metrical and cadenced; something by a sound Victorian. We have no later poets. "

"Swinburne?" suggested Miss Beam, an eager spinster. "Swinburne, Mr. Kinosling? Ah, SWINBURNE!"

"Not Swinburne, " said Mr. Kinosling chastely. "No. "

That concluded all the remarks about Swinburne. 

Miss Beam retired in confusion behind another lady; and somehow therebecame diffused an impression that Miss Beam was erotic. 

"I do not observe your manly little son, " Mr. Kinosling addressed hishostess. 

"He's out playing in the yard, " Mrs. Bassett returned. "I heard hisvoice just now, I think. "

"Everywhere I hear wonderful report of him, " said Mr. Kinosling. "Imay say that I understand boys, and I feel that he is a rare, a fine, apure, a lofty spirit. I say spirit, for spirit is the word I hear spokenof him. "

A chorus of enthusiastic approbation affirmed the accuracy of thisproclamation, and Mrs. Bassett flushed with pleasure. Georgie'sspiritual perfection was demonstrated by instances of it, related bythe visitors; his piety was cited, and wonderful things he had said werequoted. 

"Not all boys are pure, of fine spirit, of high mind, " said Mr. Kinosling, and continued with true feeling: "You have a neighbour, dearMrs. Bassett, whose household I indeed really feel it quite impossibleto visit until such time when better, firmer, stronger handed, moredetermined discipline shall prevail. I find Mr. And Mrs. Schofield andtheir daughter charming----"

Three or four ladies said "Oh!" and spoke a name simultaneously. It wasas if they had said, "Oh, the bubonic plague!"

"Oh! Penrod Schofield!"

"Georgie does not play with him, " said Mrs. Bassett quickly--"thatis, he avoids him as much as he can without hurting Penrod's feelings. Georgie is very sensitive to giving pain. I suppose a mother should nottell these things, and I know people who talk about their own childrenare dreadful bores, but it was only last Thursday night that Georgielooked up in my face so sweetly, after he had said his prayers and hislittle cheeks flushed, as he said: 'Mamma, I think it would be right forme to go more with Penrod. I think it would make him a better boy. '"

A sibilance went about the room. "Sweet! How sweet! The sweet littlesoul! Ah, SWEET!"

"And that very afternoon, " continued Mrs. Bassett, "he had come home ina dreadful state. Penrod had thrown tar all over him. "

"Your son has a forgiving spirit!" said Mr. Kinosling with vehemence. "Atoo forgiving spirit, perhaps. " He set down his glass. "No more, I thankyou. No more cake, I thank you. Was it not Cardinal Newman who said----"

He was interrupted by the sounds of an altercation just outside theclosed blinds of the window nearest him. 

"Let him pick his tree!" It was the voice of Samuel Williams. "Didn't wecome over here to give him one of his own trees? Give him a fair show, can't you?"

"The little lads!" Mr. Kinosling smiled. "They have their games, theiroutdoor sports, their pastimes. The young muscles are toughening. Thesun will not harm them. They grow; they expand; they learn. They learnfair play, honour, courtesy, from one another, as pebbles grow roundin the brook. They learn more from themselves than from us. They takeshape, form, outline. Let them. "

"Mr. Kinosling!" Another spinster--undeterred by what had happenedto Miss Beam--leaned fair forward, her face shining and ardent. "Mr. Kinosling, there's a question I DO wish to ask you. "

"My dear Miss Cosslit, " Mr. Kinosling responded, again waving his handand watching it, "I am entirely at your disposal. "

"WAS Joan of Arc, " she asked fervently, "inspired by spirits?"

He smiled indulgently. "Yes--and no, " he said. "One must give bothanswers. One must give the answer, yes; one must give the answer, no. "

"Oh, THANK you!" said Miss Cosslit, blushing. 

"She's one of my great enthusiasms, you know. "

"And I have a question, too, " urged Mrs. Lora Rewbush, after a moment'shasty concentration. "'I've never been able to settle it for myself, butNOW----"

"Yes?" said Mr. Kinosling encouragingly. 

"Is--ah--is--oh, yes: Is Sanskrit a more difficult language thanSpanish, Mr. Kinosling?"

"It depends upon the student, " replied the oracle smiling. "One must notlook for linguists everywhere. In my own especial case--if one may citeone's self as an example--I found no great, no insurmountable difficultyin mastering, in conquering either. "

"And may _I_ ask one?" ventured Mrs. Bassett. "Do you think it is rightto wear egrets?"

"There are marks of quality, of caste, of social distinction, " Mr. Kinosling began, "which must be permitted, allowed, though perhapsregulated. Social distinction, one observes, almost invariablyimplies spiritual distinction as well. Distinction of circumstancesis accompanied by mental distinction. Distinction is hereditary; itdescends from father to son, and if there is one thing more truethan 'Like father, like son, ' it is--" he bowed gallantly to Mrs. Bassett--"it is, 'Like mother, like son. ' What these good ladies havesaid this afternoon of YOUR----"

This was the fatal instant. There smote upon all ears the voice ofGeorgie, painfully shrill and penetrating--fraught with protest andprotracted, strain. His plain words consisted of the newly sanctionedand disinfected curse with a big H. 

With an ejaculation of horror, Mrs. Bassett sprang to the window andthrew open the blinds. 

Georgie's back was disclosed to the view of the tea-party. He wasendeavouring to ascend a maple tree about twelve feet from the window. Embracing the trunk with arms and legs, he had managed to squirm to apoint above the heads of Penrod and Herman, who stood close by, watchinghim earnestly--Penrod being obviously in charge of the performance. Across the yard were Sam Williams and Maurice Levy, acting as a jury onthe question of voice-power, and it was to a complaint of theirs thatGeorgie had just replied. 

"That's right, Georgie, " said Penrod encouragingly. "They can, too, hearyou. Let her go!"

"Going to heaven!" shrieked Georgie, squirming up another inch. "Goingto heaven, heaven, heaven!"

His mother's frenzied attempts to attract his attention failed utterly. Georgie was using the full power of his lungs, deafening his own ears toall other sounds. Mrs. Bassett called in vain; while the tea-party stoodpetrified in a cluster about the window. 

"Going to heaven!" Georgie bellowed. "Going to heaven! Going to heaven, my Lord! Going to heaven, heaven, heaven!"

He tried to climb higher, but began to slip downward, his exertionscausing damage to his apparel. A button flew into the air, and hisknickerbockers and his waistband severed relations. 

"Devil's got my coat-tails, sinners! Old devil's got my coat-tails!" heannounced appropriately. Then he began to slide. 

He relaxed his clasp of the tree and slid to the ground. 

"Going to hell!" shrieked Georgie, reaching a high pitch of enthusiasmin this great climax. "Going to hell! Going to hell! I'm gone to hell, hell, hell!"

With a loud scream, Mrs. Bassett threw herself out of the window, alighting by some miracle upon her feet with ankles unsprained. 

Mr. Kinosling, feeling that his presence as spiritual adviser wasdemanded in the yard, followed with greater dignity through the frontdoor. At the corner of the house a small departing figure collided withhim violently. It was Penrod, tactfully withdrawing from what promisedto be a family scene of unusual painfulness. 

Mr. Kinosling seized him by the shoulders and, giving way to emotion, shook him viciously. 

"You horrible boy!" exclaimed Mr. Kinosling. "You ruffianly creature! Doyou know what's going to happen to you when you grow up? Do you realizewhat you're going to BE!"

With flashing eyes, the indignant boy made know his unshaken purpose. Heshouted the reply:

"A minister!"

CHAPTER XXVIII TWELVE

This busy globe which spawns us is as incapable of flattery and asintent upon its own affair, whatever that is, as a gyroscope; it keepssteadily whirling along its lawful track, and, thus far seeming to holda right of way, spins doggedly on, with no perceptible diminution ofspeed to mark the most gigantic human events--it did not pause to pantand recuperate even when what seemed to Penrod its principal purposewas accomplished, and an enormous shadow, vanishing westward over itssurface, marked the dawn of his twelfth birthday. 

To be twelve is an attainment worth the struggle. A boy, just twelve, islike a Frenchman just elected to the Academy. 

Distinction and honour wait upon him. Younger boys show deference to aperson of twelve: his experience is guaranteed, his judgment, therefore, mellow; consequently, his influence is profound. Eleven is not quitesatisfactory: it is only an approach. Eleven has the disadvantage ofsix, of nineteen, of forty-four, and of sixty-nine. But, like twelve, seven is an honourable age, and the ambition to attain it is laudable. People look forward to being seven. Similarly, twenty is worthy, and so, arbitrarily, is twenty-one; forty-five has great solidity; seventy ismost commendable and each year thereafter an increasing honour. Thirteenis embarrassed by the beginnings of a new colthood; the child becomes ayouth. But twelve is the very top of boyhood. 

Dressing, that morning, Penrod felt that the world was changed from theworld of yesterday. For one thing, he seemed to own more of it; thisday was HIS day. And it was a day worth owning; the midsummer sunshine, pouring gold through his window, came from a cool sky, and a breezemoved pleasantly in his hair as he leaned from the sill to watch thetribe of clattering blackbirds take wing, following their leaderfrom the trees in the yard to the day's work in the open country. Theblackbirds were his, as the sunshine and the breeze were his, for theyall belonged to the day which was his birthday and therefore most surelyhis. Pride suffused him: he was twelve!

His father and his mother and Margaret seemed to understand thedifference between to-day and yesterday. They were at the table whenhe descended, and they gave him a greeting which of itself marked themilestone. Habitually, his entrance into a room where his elders satbrought a cloud of apprehension: they were prone to look up in patheticexpectancy, as if their thought was, "What new awfulness is he going tostart NOW?" But this morning they laughed; his mother rose and kissedhim twelve times, so did Margaret; and his father shouted, "Well, well!How's the MAN?"

Then his mother gave him a Bible and "The Vicar of Wakefield"; Margaretgave him a pair of silver-mounted hair brushes; and his father gave hima "Pocket Atlas" and a small compass. 

"And now, Penrod, " said his mother, after breakfast, "I'm going totake you out in the country to pay your birthday respects to Aunt SarahCrim. "

Aunt Sarah Crim, Penrod's great-aunt, was his oldest living relative. She was ninety, and when Mrs. Schofield and Penrod alighted from acarriage at her gate they found her digging with a spade in the garden. 

"I'm glad you brought him, " she said, desisting from labour. "Jinny'sbaking a cake I'm going to send for his birthday party. Bring him in thehouse. I've got something for him. "

She led the way to her "sitting-room, " which had a pleasant smell, unlike any other smell, and, opening the drawer of a shining oldwhat-not, took therefrom a boy's "sling-shot, " made of a forked stick, two strips of rubber and a bit of leather. 

"This isn't for you, " she said, placing it in Penrod's eager hand. "No. It would break all to pieces the first time you tried to shootit, because it is thirty-five years old. I want to send it back to yourfather. I think it's time. You give it to him from me, and tell himI say I believe I can trust him with it now. I took it away from himthirty-five years ago, one day after he'd killed my best hen withit, accidentally, and broken a glass pitcher on the back porch withit--accidentally. He doesn't look like a person who's ever done thingsof that sort, and I suppose he's forgotten it so well that he believeshe never DID, but if you give it to him from me I think he'll remember. You look like him, Penrod. He was anything but a handsome boy. "

After this final bit of reminiscence--probably designed to be repeatedto Mr. Schofield--she disappeared in the direction of the kitchen, and returned with a pitcher of lemonade and a blue china dish sweetlyfreighted with flat ginger cookies of a composition that was her ownsecret. Then, having set this collation before her guests, she presentedPenrod with a superb, intricate, and very modern machine of destructivecapacities almost limitless. She called it a pocket-knife. 

"I suppose you'll do something horrible with it, " she said, composedly. "I hear you do that with everything, anyhow, so you might as well do itwith this, and have more fun out of it. They tell me you're the WorstBoy in Town. "

"Oh, Aunt Sarah!" Mrs. Schofield lifted a protesting hand. 

"Nonsense!" said Mrs. Crim. 

"But on his birthday!"

"That's the time to say it. Penrod, aren't you the Worst Boy in Town?"

Penrod, gazing fondly upon his knife and eating cookies rapidly, answered as a matter of course, and absently, "Yes'm. "

"Certainly!" said Mrs. Crim. "Once you accept a thing about yourselfas established and settled, it's all right. Nobody minds. Boys are justpeople, really. "

"No, no!" Mrs. Schofield cried, involuntarily. 

"Yes, they are, " returned Aunt Sarah. "Only they're not quite so awful, because they haven't learned to cover themselves all over with littlepretences. When Penrod grows up he'll be just the same as he is now, except that whenever he does what he wants to do he'll tell himself andother people a little story about it to make his reason for doing itseem nice and pretty and noble. "

"No, I won't!" said Penrod suddenly. 

"There's one cookie left, " observed Aunt Sarah. "Are you going to eatit?"

"Well, " said her great-nephew, thoughtfully, "I guess I better. "

"Why?" asked the old lady. "Why do you guess you'd 'better'?"

"Well, " said Penrod, with a full mouth, "it might get all dried up ifnobody took it, and get thrown out and wasted. "

"You're beginning finely, " Mrs. Crim remarked. "A year ago you'd havetaken the cookie without the same sense of thrift. "

"Ma'am?"

"Nothing. I see that you're twelve years old, that's all. There are morecookies, Penrod. " She went away, returning with a fresh supply and theobservation, "Of course, you'll be sick before the day's over; you mightas well get a good start. "

Mrs. Schofield looked thoughtful. "Aunt Sarah, " she ventured, "don't youreally think we improve as we get older?"

"Meaning, " said the old lady, "that Penrod hasn't much chance to escapethe penitentiary if he doesn't? Well, we do learn to restrain ourselvesin some things; and there are people who really want someone else totake the last cookie, though they aren't very common. But it's allright, the world seems to be getting on. " She gazed whimsically upon hergreat-nephew and added, "Of course, when you watch a boy and think abouthim, it doesn't seem to be getting on very fast. "

Penrod moved uneasily in his chair; he was conscious that he was hertopic but unable to make out whether or not her observations werecomplimentary; he inclined to think they were not. Mrs. Crim settled thequestion for him. 

"I suppose Penrod is regarded as the neighbourhood curse?"

"Oh, no, " cried Mrs. Schofield. "He----"

"I dare say the neighbours are right, " continued the old lady placidly. "He's had to repeat the history of the race and go through all thestages from the primordial to barbarism. You don't expect boys to becivilized, do you?"

"Well, I----"

"You might as well expect eggs to crow. No; you've got to take boys asthey are, and learn to know them as they are. "

"Naturally, Aunt Sarah, " said Mrs. Schofield, "I KNOW Penrod. "

Aunt Sarah laughed heartily. "Do you think his father knows him, too?"

"Of course, men are different, " Mrs. Schofield returned, apologetically. "But a mother knows----"

"Penrod, " said Aunt Sarah, solemnly, "does your father understand you?"

"Ma'am?"

"About as much as he'd understand Sitting Bull!" she laughed. 

"And I'll tell you what your mother thinks you are, Penrod. Her realbelief is that you're a novice in a convent. "

"Ma'am?"

"Aunt Sarah!"

"I know she thinks that, because whenever you don't behave like a noviceshe's disappointed in you. And your father really believes that you'rea decorous, well-trained young business man, and whenever you don'tlive up to that standard you get on his nerves and he thinks you need awalloping. I'm sure a day very seldom passes without their both sayingthey don't know what on earth to do with you. Does whipping do you anygood, Penrod?"

"Ma'am?"

"Go on and finish the lemonade; there's about glassful left. Oh, takeit, take it; and don't say why! Of COURSE you're a little pig. "

Penrod laughed gratefully, his eyes fixed upon her over the rim of hisuptilted glass. 

"Fill yourself up uncomfortably, " said the old lady. "You're twelveyears old, and you ought to be happy--if you aren't anything else. It'staken over nineteen hundred years of Christianity and some hundreds ofthousands of years of other things to produce you, and there you sit!"

"Ma'am?"

"It'll be your turn to struggle and muss things up, for the bettermentof posterity, soon enough, " said Aunt Sarah Crim. "Drink your lemonade!"

CHAPTER XXIX FANCHON

"Aunt Sarah's a funny old lady, " Penrod observed, on the way back to thetown. "What's she want me to give papa this old sling for? Last thingshe said was to be sure not to forget to give it to him. HE don't wantit; and she said, herself, it ain't any good. She's older than you orpapa, isn't she?"

"About fifty years older, " answered Mrs. Schofield, turning upon him astare of perplexity. "Don't cut into the leather with your new knife, dear; the livery man might ask us to pay if----No. I wouldn't scrapethe paint off, either--nor whittle your shoe with it. COULDN'T you putit up until we get home?"

"We goin' straight home?"

"No. We're going to stop at Mrs. Gelbraith's and ask a strange littlegirl to come to your party, this afternoon. "

"Who?"

"Her name is Fanchon. She's Mrs. Gelbraith's little niece. "

"What makes her so queer?"

"I didn't say she's queer. "

"You said----"

"No; I mean that she is a stranger. She lives in New York and has cometo visit here. "

"What's she live in New York for?"

"Because her parents live there. You must be very nice to her, Penrod;she has been very carefully brought up. Besides, she doesn't know thechildren here, and you must help to keep her from feeling lonely at yourparty. "

"Yes'm. "

When they reached Mrs. Gelbraith's, Penrod sat patiently humped upon agilt chair during the lengthy exchange of greetings between his mother. And Mrs. Gelbraith. That is one of the things a boy must learn to bear:when his mother meets a compeer there is always a long and dreary waitfor him, while the two appear to be using strange symbols of speech, talking for the greater part, it seems to him, simultaneously, andemploying a wholly incomprehensible system of emphasis at other timesnot in vogue. Penrod twisted his legs, his cap and his nose. 

"Here she is!" Mrs. Gelbraith cried, unexpectedly, and a dark-haired, demure person entered the room wearing a look of gracious socialexpectancy. In years she was eleven, in manner about sixty-five, and evidently had lived much at court. She performed a curtsey inacknowledgment of Mrs. Schofield's greeting, and bestowed her handupon Penrod, who had entertained no hope of such an honour, showed hissurprise that it should come to him, and was plainly unable to decidewhat to do about it. 

"Fanchon, dear, " said Mrs. Gelbraith, "take Penrod out in the yard for awhile, and play. "

"Let go the little girl's hand, Penrod, " Mrs. Schofield laughed, as thechildren turned toward the door. 

Penrod hastily dropped the small hand, and exclaiming, with simplehonesty, "Why, _I_ don't want it!" followed Fanchon out into thesunshiny yard, where they came to a halt and surveyed each other. 

Penrod stared awkwardly at Fanchon, no other occupation suggestingitself to him, while Fanchon, with the utmost coolness, made a verythorough visual examination of Penrod, favouring him with an estimatingscrutiny which lasted until he literally wiggled. Finally, she spoke. 

"Where do you buy your ties?" she asked. 

"What?"

"Where do you buy your neckties? Papa gets his at Skoone's. You ought toget yours there. I'm sure the one you're wearing isn't from Skoone's. "

"Skoone's?" Penrod repeated. "Skoone's?"

"On Fifth Avenue, " said Fanchon. "It's a very smart shop, the men say. "

"Men?" echoed Penrod, in a hazy whisper. "Men?"

"Where do your people go in summer?" inquired the lady. "WE go to LongShore, but so many middle-class people have begun coming there, mammathinks of leaving. The middle classes are simply awful, don't youthink?"

"What?"

"They're so boorjaw. You speak French, of course?"

"Me?"

"We ran over to Paris last year. It's lovely, don't you think? Don't youLOVE the Rue de la Paix?"

Penrod wandered in a labyrinth. This girl seemed to be talking, but herwords were dumfounding, and of course there was no way for him to knowthat he was really listening to her mother. It was his first meetingwith one of those grown-up little girls, wonderful product of the winterapartment and summer hotel; and Fanchon, an only child, was a star ofthe brand. He began to feel resentful. 

"I suppose, " she went on, "I'll find everything here fearfully Western. Some nice people called yesterday, though. Do you know the MagsworthBittses? Auntie says they're charming. Will Roddy be at your party?"

"I guess he will, " returned Penrod, finding this intelligible. "Themutt!"

"Really!" Fanchon exclaimed airily. "Aren't you great pals with him?"

"What's 'pals'?"

"Good heavens! Don't you know what it means to say you're 'great pals'with any one? You ARE an odd child!"

It was too much. 

"Oh, Bugs!" said Penrod. 

This bit of ruffianism had a curious effect. Fanchon looked upon himwith sudden favour. 

"I like you, Penrod!" she said, in an odd way, and, whatever else theremay have been in her manner, there certainly was no shyness. 

"Oh, Bugs!" This repetition may have lacked gallantry, but it wasuttered in no very decided tone. Penrod was shaken. 

"Yes, I do!" She stepped closer to him, smiling. "Your hair is ever sopretty. "

Sailors' parrots swear like mariners, they say; and gay mothers ought torealize that all children are imitative, for, as the precocious Fanchonleaned toward Penrod, the manner in which she looked into his eyes mighthave made a thoughtful observer wonder where she had learned her prettyways. 

Penrod was even more confused than he had been by her previousmysteries: but his confusion was of a distinctly pleasant and alluringnature: he wanted more of it. Looking intentionally into anotherperson's eyes is an act unknown to childhood; and Penrod's discoverythat it could be done was sensational. He had never thought of lookinginto the eyes of Marjorie Jones. 

Despite all anguish, contumely, tar, and Maurice Levy, he still secretlythought of Marjorie, with pathetic constancy, as his "beau"--though thatis not how he would have spelled it. Marjorie was beautiful; hercurls were long and the colour of amber; her nose was straight andher freckles were honest; she was much prettier than this accomplishedvisitor. But beauty is not all. 

"I do!" breathed Fanchon, softly. 

She seemed to him a fairy creature from some rosier world than this. Sohumble is the human heart, it glorifies and makes glamorous almost anypoor thing that says to it: "I like you!"

Penrod was enslaved. He swallowed, coughed, scratched the back of hisneck, and said, disjointedly:

"Well--I don't care if you want to. I just as soon. "

"We'll dance together, " said Fanchon, "at your party. "

"I guess so. I just as soon. "

"Don't you want to, Penrod?"

"Well, I'm willing to. "

"No. Say you WANT to!"

"Well----"

He used his toe as a gimlet, boring into the ground, his wide open eyesstaring with intense vacancy at a button on his sleeve. 

His mother appeared upon the porch in departure, calling farewells overher shoulder to Mrs. Gelbraith, who stood in the doorway. 

"Say it!" whispered Fanchon. 

"Well, I just as SOON. "

She seemed satisfied. 

CHAPTER XXX THE BIRTHDAY PARTY

A dancing floor had been laid upon a platform in the yard, when Mrs. Schofield and her son arrived at their own abode; and a white andscarlet striped canopy was in process of erection overhead, to shelterthe dancers from the sun. Workmen were busy everywhere under thedirection of Margaret, and the smitten heart of Penrod began to beatrapidly. All this was for him; he was Twelve!

After lunch, he underwent an elaborate toilette and murmured not. Forthe first time in his life he knew the wish to be sand-papered, waxed, and polished to the highest possible degree. And when the operation wasover, he stood before the mirror in new bloom, feeling encouraged tohope that his resemblance to his father was not so strong as Aunt Sarahseemed to think. 

The white gloves upon his hands had a pleasant smell, he found; and, ashe came down the stairs, he had great content in the twinkling of hisnew dancing slippers. He stepped twice on each step, the better to enjoytheir effect and at the same time he deeply inhaled the odour of thegloves. In spite of everything, Penrod had his social capacities. Already it is to be perceived that there were in him the makings of acotillon leader. 

Then came from the yard a sound of tuning instruments, squeak of fiddle, croon of 'cello, a falling triangle ringing and tinkling to the floor;and he turned pale. 

Chosen guests began to arrive, while Penrod, suffering from stage-frightand perspiration, stood beside his mother, in the "drawing-room, "to receive them. He greeted unfamiliar acquaintances and intimatefellow-criminals with the same frigidity, murmuring: "'M glad to seey', " to all alike, largely increasing the embarrassment which alwaysprevails at the beginning of children's festivities. His unnatural pompand circumstance had so thoroughly upset him, in truth, that MarjorieJones received a distinct shock, now to be related. Doctor Thrope, thekind old clergyman who had baptized Penrod, came in for a moment tocongratulate the boy, and had just moved away when it was Marjorie'sturn, in the line of children, to speak to Penrod. She gave him what sheconsidered a forgiving look, and, because of the occasion, addressed himin a perfectly courteous manner. 

"I wish you many happy returns of the day, Penrod. "

"Thank you, sir!" he returned, following Dr. Thrope with a glassystare in which there was absolutely no recognition of Marjorie. Then hegreeted Maurice Levy, who was next to Marjorie: "'M glad to see y'!"

Dumfounded, Marjorie turned aside, and stood near, observing Penrod withgravity. It was the first great surprise of her life. Customarily, she had seemed to place his character somewhere between that of theprofessional rioter and that of the orang-outang; nevertheless, hermanner at times just hinted a consciousness that this Caliban was herproperty. Wherefore, she stared at him incredulously as his head bobbedup and down, in the dancing-school bow, greeting his guests. Then sheheard an adult voice, near her, exclaim:

"What an exquisite child!"

Mariorie galanced up--a little consciously, though she was used toit--naturally curious to ascertain who was speaking of her. It was SamWilliams' mother addressing Mrs. Bassett, both being present to helpMrs. Schofield make the festivities festive. 

"Exquisite!"

Here was a second heavy surprise for Marjorie: they were not lookingat her. They were looking with beaming approval at a girl she had neverseen; a dark and modish stranger of singularly composed and yet modestaspect. Her downcast eyes, becoming in one thus entering a crowded room, were all that produced the effect of modesty, counteracting somethingabout her which might have seemed too assured. She was very slender, very dainty, and her apparel was disheartening to the other girls; itwas of a knowing picturesqueness wholly unfamiliar to them. There wasa delicate trace of powder upon the lobe of Fanchon's left ear, andthe outlines of her eyelids, if very closely scrutinized, would haverevealed successful experimentation with a burnt match. 

Marjorie's lovely eyes dilated: she learned the meaning of hatred atfirst sight. Observing the stranger with instinctive suspicion, allat once she seemed, to herself, awkward. Poor Marjorie underwent thatexperience which hearty, healthy, little girls and big girls undergo atone time or another--from heels to head she felt herself, somehow, tooTHICK. 

Fanchon leaned close to Penrod and whispered in his ear:

"Don't you forget!"

Penrod blushed. 

Marjorie saw the blush. Her lovely eyes opened even wider, and in themthere began to grow a light. It was the light of indignation;--at least, people whose eyes glow with that light always call it indignation. 

Roderick Magsworth Bitts, Junior, approached Fanchon, when she had madeher courtesy to Mrs. Schofield. Fanchon whispered in Roderick's earalso. 

"Your hair is pretty, Roddy! Don't forget what you said yesterday!"

Roderick likewise blushed. 

Maurice Levy, captivated by the newcomer's appearance, pressed close toRoderick. 

"Give us an intaduction, Roddy?"

Roddy being either reluctant or unable to perform the rite, Fanchon tookmatters into her own hands, and was presently favourably impressed withMaurice, receiving the information that his tie had been brought to himby his papa from Skoone's, whereupon she privately informed him that sheliked wavy hair, and arranged to dance with him. Fanchon also thoughtsandy hair attractive, Sam Williams discovered, a few minutes later, andso catholic was her taste that a ring of boys quite encircled her beforethe musicians in the yard struck up their thrilling march, and Mrs. Schofield brought Penrod to escort the lady from out-of-town to thedancing pavilion. 

Headed by this pair, the children sought partners and paraded solemnlyout of the front door and round a corner of the house. There they foundthe gay marquee; the small orchestra seated on the lawn at one sideof it, and a punch bowl of lemonade inviting attention, under a tree. Decorously the small couples stepped upon the platform, one afteranother, and began to dance. 

"It's not much like a children's party in our day, " Mrs. Williams saidto Penrod's mother. "We'd have been playing 'Quaker-meeting, ' 'Clap-in, Clap-out, ' or 'Going to Jerusalem, ' I suppose. "

"Yes, or 'Post-office' and 'Drop-the-handkerchief, '" said Mrs. Schofield. "Things change so quickly. Imagine asking little FanchonGelbraith to play 'London Bridge'! Penrod seems to be having a difficulttime with her, poor boy; he wasn't a shining light in the dancingclass. "

However, Penrod's difficulty was not precisely of the kind his mothersupposed. Fanchon was showing him a new step, which she taught hernext partner in turn, continuing instructions during the dancing. Thechildren crowded the floor, and in the kaleidoscopic jumble of bobbingheads and intermingling figures her extremely different style ofmotion was unobserved by the older people, who looked on, nodding timebenevolently. 

Fanchon fascinated girls as well as boys. Many of the former eagerlysought her acquaintance and thronged about her between the dances, when, accepting the deference due a cosmopolitan and an oracle of the mode, she gave demonstrations of the new step to succeeding groups, professingastonishment to find it unknown: it had been "all the go, " sheexplained, at the Long Shore Casino for fully two seasons. Shepronounced "slow" a "Fancy Dance" executed during an intermission byBaby Rennsdale and Georgie Bassett, giving it as her opinion that MissRennsdale and Mr. Bassett were "dead ones"; and she expressed surprisethat the punch bowl contained lemonade and not champagne. 

The dancing continued, the new step gaining instantly in popularity, fresh couples adventuring with every number. The word "step" is somewhatmisleading, nothing done with the feet being vital to the evolutionsintroduced by Fanchon. Fanchon's dance came from the Orient by aroundabout way; pausing in Spain, taking on a Gallic frankness ingallantry at the Bal Bullier in Paris, combining with a relative fromthe South Seas encountered in San Francisco, flavouring itself witha carefree negroid abandon in New Orleans, and, accumulating, too, something inexpressible from Mexico and South America, it kept, throughout its travels, to the underworld, or to circles where natureis extremely frank and rank, until at last it reached the dives of NewYork, when it immediately broke out in what is called civilizedsociety. Thereafter it spread, in variously modified forms--some ofthem disinfected--to watering-places, and thence, carried by hundreds ofolder male and female Fanchons, over the country, being eagerly adoptedeverywhere and made wholly pure and respectable by the supreme moralaxiom that anything is all right if enough people do it. Everybody wasdoing it. 

Not quite everybody. It was perhaps some test of this dance that earthcould furnish no more grotesque sight than that of children doing it. 

Earth, assisted by Fanchon, was furnishing this sight at Penrod's party. By the time ice-cream and cake arrived, about half the guests hadeither been initiated into the mysteries by Fanchon or were learningby imitation, and the education of the other half was resumed with thedancing, when the attendant ladies, unconscious of what was happening, withdrew into the house for tea. 

"That orchestra's a dead one, " Fanchon remarked to Penrod. "We ought toliven them up a little!"

She approached the musicians. 

"Don't you know, " she asked the leader, "the Slingo Sligo Slide?"

The leader giggled, nodded, rapped with his bow upon his violin; andPenrod, following Fanchon back upon the dancing floor, blindly brushedwith his elbow a solitary little figure standing aloof on the lawn atthe edge of the platform. 

It was Marjorie. 

In no mood to approve of anything introduced by Fanchon, she hadscornfully refused, from the first, to dance the new "step, " and, because of its bonfire popularity, found herself neglected in a societywhere she had reigned as beauty and belle. Faithless Penrod, dazed bythe sweeping Fanchon, had utterly forgotten the amber curls; he had notonce asked Marjorie to dance. All afternoon the light of indignation hadbeen growing brighter in her eyes, though Maurice Levy's defectionto the lady from New York had not fanned this flame. From the momentFanchon had whispered familiarly in Penrod's ear, and Penrod hadblushed, Marjorie had been occupied exclusively with resentment againstthat guilty pair. It seemed to her that Penrod had no right to allow astrange girl to whisper in his ear; that his blushing, when the strangegirl did it, was atrocious; and that the strange girl, herself, ought tobe arrested. 

Forgotten by the merrymakers, Marjorie stood alone upon the lawn, clenching her small fists, watching the new dance at its high tide, and hating it with a hatred that made every inch of her tremble. And, perhaps because jealousy is a great awakener of the virtues, she hada perception of something in it worse than lack of dignity--somethingvaguely but outrageously reprehensible. Finally, when Penrod brushed byher, touched her with his elbow, and, did not even see her, Marjorie'sstate of mind (not unmingled with emotion!) became dangerous. In fact, atrained nurse, chancing to observe her at this juncture, would probablyhave advised that she be taken home and put to bed. Marjorie was on theverge of hysterics. 

She saw Fanchon and Penrod assume the double embrace required by thedance; the "Slingo Sligo Slide" burst from the orchestra like thelunatic shriek of a gin-maddened nigger; and all the little couplesbegan to bob and dip and sway. 

Marjorie made a scene. She sprang upon the platform and stamped herfoot. 

"Penrod Schofield!" she shouted. "You BEHAVE yourself!"

The remarkable girl took Penrod by the ear. By his ear she swung himaway from Fanchon and faced him toward the lawn. 

"You march straight out of here!" she commanded. 

Penrod marched. 

He was stunned; obeyed automatically, without question, and had verylittle realization of what was happening to him. Altogether, and withoutreason, he was in precisely the condition of an elderly spouse detectedin flagrant misbehaviour. Marjorie, similarly, was in precisely thecondition of the party who detects such misbehaviour. It may be addedthat she had acted with a promptness, a decision and a disregard ofsocial consequences all to be commended to the attention of ladies inlike predicament. 

"You ought to be ashamed of yourself!" she raged, when they reached thelawn. "Aren't you ashamed of yourself?"

"What for?" he inquired, helplessly. 

"You be quiet!"

"But what'd _I_ do, Marjorie? _I_ haven't done anything to you, " hepleaded. "I haven't even seen you, all aftern----"

"You be quiet!" she cried, tears filling her eyes. "Keep still! You uglyboy! Shut up!"

She slapped him. 

He should have understood from this how much she cared for him. But herubbed his cheek and declared ruefully:

"I'll never speak to you again!"

"You will, too!" she sobbed, passionately. 

"I will not!"

He turned to leave her, but paused. 

His mother, his sister Margaret, and their grownup friends had finishedtheir tea and were approaching from the house. Other parents andguardians were with them, coming for their children; and there werecarriages and automobiles waiting in the street. But the "Slingo Slide"went on, regardless. 

The group of grown-up people hesitated and came to a halt, gazing at thepavilion. 

"What are they doing?" gasped Mrs. Williams, blushing deeply. "What isit? What IS it?"

"WHAT IS IT?" Mrs. Gelbraith echoed in a frightened whisper. "WHAT----"

"They're Tangoing!" cried Margaret Schofield. "Or Bunny Hugging orGrizzly Bearing, or----"

"They're only Turkey Trotting, " said Robert Williams. 

With fearful outcries the mothers, aunts, and sisters rushed upon thepavilion. 

"Of course it was dreadful, " said Mrs. Schofield, an hour later, rendering her lord an account of the day, "but it was every bit thefault of that one extraordinary child. And of all the quiet, demurlittle things--that is, I mean, when she first came. We all spoke of howexquisite she seemed--so well trained, so finished! Eleven years old! Inever saw anything like her in my life!"

"I suppose it's the New Child, " her husband grunted. 

"And to think of her saying there ought to have been champagne in thelemonade!"

"Probably she'd forgotten to bring her pocket flask, " he suggestedmusingly. 

"But aren't you proud of Penrod?" cried Penrod's mother. "It was just asI told you: he was standing clear outside the pavilion----"

"I never thought to see the day! And Penrod was the only boy not doingit, the only one to refuse? ALL the others were----"

"Every one!" she returned triumphantly. "Even Georgie Bassett!"

"Well, " said Mr. Schofield, patting her on the shoulder. "I guess we canhold up our heads at last. "

CHAPTER XXXI OVER THE FENCE

Penrod was out in the yard, staring at the empty marquee. The sun was onthe horizon line, so far behind the back fence, and a western window ofthe house blazed in gold unbearable to the eye: his day was nearlyover. He sighed, and took from the inside pocket of his new jacket the"sling-shot" aunt Sarah Crim had given him that morning. 

He snapped the rubbers absently. They held fast; and his next impulsewas entirely irresistible. He found a shapely stone, fitted it to theleather, and drew back the ancient catapult for a shot. A sparrow hoppedupon a branch between him and the house, and he aimed at the sparrow, but the reflection from the dazzling window struck in his eyes as heloosed the leather. 

He missed the sparrow, but not the window. There was a loud crash, and to his horror he caught a glimpse of his father, stricken inmid-shaving, ducking a shower of broken glass, glittering razorflourishing wildly. Words crashed with the glass, stentorian words, fragmentary but collossal. 

Penrod stood petrified, a broken sling in his hand. He could hear hisparent's booming descent of the back stairs, instant and furious; andthen, red-hot above white lather, Mr. Schofield burst out of the kitchendoor and hurtled forth upon his son. 

"What do you mean?" he demanded, shaking Penrod by the shoulder. "Tenminutes ago, for the very first time in our lives, your mother and Iwere saying we were proud of you, and here you go and throw a rock at methrough the window when I'm shaving for dinner!"

"I didn't!" Penrod quavered. "I was shooting at a sparrow, and the sungot in his eyes, and the sling broke----"

"What sling?"

"This'n. "

"Where'd you get that devilish thing? Don't you know I've forbidden youa thousand times----"

"It ain't mine, " said Penrod. "It's yours. "

"What?"

"Yes, sir, " said the boy meekly. "Aunt Sarah Crim gave it to me thismorning and told me to give it back to you. She said she took it awayfrom you thirty-five years ago. You killed her hen, she said. She toldme some more to tell you, but I've forgotten. "

"Oh!" said Mr. Schofield. 

He took the broken sling in his hand, looked at it long andthoughtfully--and he looked longer, and quite as thoughtfully, atPenrod. Then he turned away, and walked toward the house. 

"I'm sorry, papa, " said Penrod. 

Mr. Schofield coughed, and, as he reached the door, called back, butwithout turning his head. 

"Never mind, little boy. A broken window isn't much harm. "

When he had gone in, Penrod wandered down the yard to the back fence, climbed upon it, and sat in reverie there. 

A slight figure appeared, likewise upon a fence, beyond two neighbouringyards. 

"Yay, Penrod!" called comrade Sam Williams. 

"Yay!" returned Penrod, mechanically. 

"I caught Billy Blue Hill!" shouted Sam, describing retribution in amanner perfectly clear to his friend. "You were mighty lucky to get outof it. "

"I know that!"

"You wouldn't of, if it hadn't been for Marjorie. "

"Well, don't I know that?" Penrod shouted, with heat. 

"Well, so long!" called Sam, dropping from his fence; and the friendlyvoice came then, more faintly, "Many happy returns of the day, Penrod!"

And now, a plaintive little whine sounded from below Penrod's feet, and, looking down, he saw that Duke, his wistful, old, scraggly dog sat inthe grass, gazing seekingly up at him. 

The last shaft of sunshine of that day fell graciously and like ablessing upon the boy sitting on the fence. Years afterward, a quietsunset would recall to him sometimes the gentle evening of his twelfthbirthday, and bring him the picture of his boy self, sitting in rosylight upon the fence, gazing pensively down upon his wistful, scraggly, little old dog, Duke. But something else, surpassing, he would rememberof that hour, for, in the side street, close by, a pink skirt flickeredfrom behind a shade tree to the shelter of the fence, there was a gleamof amber curls, and Penrod started, as something like a tiny white wingfluttered by his head, and there came to his ears the sound of a lightlaugh and of light footsteps departing, the laughter tremulous, thefootsteps fleet. 

In the grass, between Duke's forepaws, there lay a white note, folded inthe shape of a cocked hat, and the sun sent forth a final amazing gloryas Penrod opened it and read:

"Your my bow. "