"PENROD\n\n\nBy Booth Tarkington\n\n\n\nTo\n\nJohn, Donald And Booth Jameson\n\nFrom A Grateful Uncle\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\n I. A Boy and His Dog\n II. Romance\n III. The Costume\n IV. Desperation\n V. The Pageant of the Table Round\n VI. Evening\n VII. Evils of Drink\n VIII. School\n IX. Soaring\n X. Uncle John\n XI. Fidelity of a Little Dog\n XII. Miss Rennsdale Accepts\n XIII. The Smallpox Medicine\n XIV. Maurice Levy's Constitution\n XV. The Two Families\n XVI. The New Star\n XVII. Retiring from the Show-Business\n XVIII. Music\n XIX. The Inner Boy\n XX. Brothers of Angels\n XXI. Rupe Collins\n XXII. The Imitator\n XXIII. Coloured Troops in Action\n XXIV. \"Little Gentleman\"\n XXV. Tar\n XXVI. The Quiet Afternoon\n XXVII. Conclusion of the Quiet Afternoon\n XXVIII. Twelve\n XXIX. Fanchon\n XXX. The Birthday Party\n XXXI. Over the Fence\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER I A BOY AND HIS DOG\n\nPenrod sat morosely upon the back fence and gazed with envy at Duke, his\nwistful dog.\n\nA bitter soul dominated the various curved and angular surfaces known\nby a careless world as the face of Penrod Schofield. Except in solitude,\nthat face was almost always cryptic and emotionless; for Penrod had\ncome into his twelfth year wearing an expression carefully trained to be\ninscrutable. Since the world was sure to misunderstand everything, mere\ndefensive instinct prompted him to give it as little as possible to lay\nhold upon. Nothing is more impenetrable than the face of a boy who has\nlearned this, and Penrod's was habitually as fathomless as the depth\nof his hatred this morning for the literary activities of Mrs. Lora\nRewbush--an almost universally respected fellow citizen, a lady of\ncharitable and poetic inclinations, and one of his own mother's most\nintimate friends.\n\nMrs. Lora Rewbush had written something which she called \"The Children's\nPageant of the Table Round,\" and it was to be performed in public that\nvery afternoon at the Women's Arts and Guild Hall for the benefit of the\nColoured Infants' Betterment Society. And if any flavour of sweetness\nremained in the nature of Penrod Schofield after the dismal trials of\nthe school-week just past, that problematic, infinitesimal remnant was\nmade pungent acid by the imminence of his destiny to form a prominent\nfeature of the spectacle, and to declaim the loathsome sentiments of a\ncharacter named upon the programme the Child Sir Lancelot.\n\nAfter each rehearsal he had plotted escape, and only ten days earlier\nthere had been a glimmer of light: Mrs. Lora Rewbush caught a very\nbad cold, and it was hoped it might develop into pneumonia; but she\nrecovered so quickly that not even a rehearsal of the Children's Pageant\nwas postponed. Darkness closed in. Penrod had rather vaguely debated\nplans for a self-mutilation such as would make his appearance as the\nChild Sir Lancelot inexpedient on public grounds; it was a heroic\nand attractive thought, but the results of some extremely sketchy\npreliminary experiments caused him to abandon it.\n\nThere was no escape; and at last his hour was hard upon him. Therefore\nhe brooded on the fence and gazed with envy at his wistful Duke.\n\nThe dog's name was undescriptive of his person, which was obviously\nthe result of a singular series of mesalliances. He wore a grizzled\nmoustache and indefinite whiskers; he was small and shabby, and looked\nlike an old postman. Penrod envied Duke because he was sure Duke would\nnever be compelled to be a Child Sir Lancelot. He thought a dog free and\nunshackled to go or come as the wind listeth. Penrod forgot the life he\nled Duke.\n\nThere was a long soliloquy upon the fence, a plaintive monologue without\nwords: the boy's thoughts were adjectives, but they were expressed by\na running film of pictures in his mind's eye, morbidly prophetic of the\nhideosities before him. Finally he spoke aloud, with such spleen that\nDuke rose from his haunches and lifted one ear in keen anxiety.\n\n \"'I hight Sir Lancelot du Lake, the Child,\n Gentul-hearted, meek, and mild.\n What though I'm BUT a littul child,\n Gentul-hearted, meek, and----' OOF!\"\n\nAll of this except \"oof\" was a quotation from the Child Sir Lancelot, as\nconceived by Mrs. Lora Rewbush. Choking upon it, Penrod slid down from\nthe fence, and with slow and thoughtful steps entered a one-storied wing\nof the stable, consisting of a single apartment, floored with cement and\nused as a storeroom for broken bric-a-brac, old paint-buckets, decayed\ngarden-hose, worn-out carpets, dead furniture, and other condemned odds\nand ends not yet considered hopeless enough to be given away.\n\nIn one corner stood a large box, a part of the building itself: it was\neight feet high and open at the top, and it had been constructed as a\nsawdust magazine from which was drawn material for the horse's bed in\na stall on the other side of the partition. The big box, so high and\ntowerlike, so commodious, so suggestive, had ceased to fulfil its\nlegitimate function; though, providentially, it had been at least half\nfull of sawdust when the horse died. Two years had gone by since that\npassing; an interregnum in transportation during which Penrod's father\nwas \"thinking\" (he explained sometimes) of an automobile. Meanwhile, the\ngifted and generous sawdust-box had served brilliantly in war and peace:\nit was Penrod's stronghold.\n\nThere was a partially defaced sign upon the front wall of the box; the\ndonjon-keep had known mercantile impulses:\n\n The O. K. RaBiT Co.\n PENROD ScHoFiELD AND CO.\n iNQuiRE FOR PRicEs\n\nThis was a venture of the preceding vacation, and had netted, at one\ntime, an accrued and owed profit of $1.38. Prospects had been brightest\non the very eve of cataclysm. The storeroom was locked and guarded, but\ntwenty-seven rabbits and Belgian hares, old and young, had perished here\non a single night--through no human agency, but in a foray of cats, the\nbesiegers treacherously tunnelling up through the sawdust from the small\naperture which opened into the stall beyond the partition. Commerce has\nits martyrs.\n\nPenrod climbed upon a barrel, stood on tiptoe, grasped the rim of the\nbox; then, using a knot-hole as a stirrup, threw one leg over the top,\ndrew himself up, and dropped within. Standing upon the packed sawdust,\nhe was just tall enough to see over the top.\n\nDuke had not followed him into the storeroom, but remained near the open\ndoorway in a concave and pessimistic attitude. Penrod felt in a dark\ncorner of the box and laid hands upon a simple apparatus consisting of\nan old bushel-basket with a few yards of clothes-line tied to each of\nits handles. He passed the ends of the lines over a big spool, which\nrevolved upon an axle of wire suspended from a beam overhead, and, with\nthe aid of this improvised pulley, lowered the empty basket until it\ncame to rest in an upright position upon the floor of the storeroom at\nthe foot of the sawdust-box.\n\n\"Eleva-ter!\" shouted Penrod. \"Ting-ting!\"\n\nDuke, old and intelligently apprehensive, approached slowly, in a\nsemicircular manner, deprecatingly, but with courtesy. He pawed the\nbasket delicately; then, as if that were all his master had expected of\nhim, uttered one bright bark, sat down, and looked up triumphantly. His\nhypocrisy was shallow: many a horrible quarter of an hour had taught him\nhis duty in this matter.\n\n\"El-e-VAY-ter!\" shouted Penrod sternly. \"You want me to come down there\nto you?\"\n\nDuke looked suddenly haggard. He pawed the basket feebly again and,\nupon another outburst from on high, prostrated himself flat. Again\nthreatened, he gave a superb impersonation of a worm.\n\n\"You get in that el-e-VAY-ter!\"\n\nReckless with despair, Duke jumped into the basket, landing in a\ndishevelled posture, which he did not alter until he had been drawn\nup and poured out upon the floor of sawdust with the box. There,\nshuddering, he lay in doughnut shape and presently slumbered.\n\nIt was dark in the box, a condition that might have been remedied by\nsliding back a small wooden panel on runners, which would have let in\nample light from the alley; but Penrod Schofield had more interesting\nmeans of illumination. He knelt, and from a former soap-box, in a\ncorner, took a lantern, without a chimney, and a large oil-can, the leak\nin the latter being so nearly imperceptible that its banishment\nfrom household use had seemed to Penrod as inexplicable as it was\nprovidential.\n\nHe shook the lantern near his ear: nothing splashed; there was no sound\nbut a dry clinking. But there was plenty of kerosene in the can; and he\nfilled the lantern, striking a match to illumine the operation. Then he\nlit the lantern and hung it upon a nail against the wall. The sawdust\nfloor was slightly impregnated with oil, and the open flame quivered in\nsuggestive proximity to the side of the box; however, some rather deep\ncharrings of the plank against which the lantern hung offered evidence\nthat the arrangement was by no means a new one, and indicated at least a\npossibility of no fatality occurring this time.\n\nNext, Penrod turned up the surface of the sawdust in another corner\nof the floor, and drew forth a cigar-box in which were half a\ndozen cigarettes, made of hayseed and thick brown wrapping paper, a\nlead-pencil, an eraser, and a small note-book, the cover of which was\nlabelled in his own handwriting:\n\n\"English Grammar. Penrod Schofield. Room 6, Ward School Nomber Seventh.\"\n\nThe first page of this book was purely academic; but the study of\nEnglish undefiled terminated with a slight jar at the top of the second:\n\"Nor must an adverb be used to modif----\"\n\nImmediately followed:\n\n \"HARoLD RAMoREZ THE RoADAGENT\n OR WiLD LiFE AMoNG THE\n ROCKY MTS.\"\n\nAnd the subsequent entries in the book appeared to have little concern\nwith Room 6, Ward School Nomber Seventh.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II ROMANCE\n\nThe author of \"Harold Ramorez,\" etc., lit one of the hayseed cigarettes,\nseated himself comfortably, with his back against the wall and his\nright shoulder just under the lantern, elevated his knees to support the\nnote-book, turned to a blank page, and wrote, slowly and earnestly:\n\n\"CHAPITER THE SIXTH\"\n\n\nHe took a knife from his pocket, and, broodingly, his eyes upon the\ninward embryos of vision, sharpened his pencil. After that, he extended\na foot and meditatively rubbed Duke's back with the side of his shoe.\nCreation, with Penrod, did not leap, full-armed, from the brain; but\nfinally he began to produce. He wrote very slowly at first, and then\nwith increasing rapidity; faster and faster, gathering momentum and\ngrowing more and more fevered as he sped, till at last the true fire\ncame, without which no lamp of real literature may be made to burn.\n\n\nMr. Wilson reched for his gun but our hero had him covred and soon said\nWell I guess you don't come any of that on me my freind.\n\nWell what makes you so sure about it sneered the other bitting his lip\nso savageley that the blood ran. You are nothing but a common Roadagent\nany way and I do not propose to be bafled by such, Ramorez laughed at\nthis and kep Mr. Wilson covred by his ottomatick.\n\nSoon the two men were struggling together in the death-roes but soon Mr\nWilson got him bound and gaged his mouth and went away for awhile leavin\nour hero, it was dark and he writhd at his bonds writhing on the floor\nwile the rats came out of their holes and bit him and vernim got all\nover him from the floor of that helish spot but soon he managed to push\nthe gag out of his mouth with the end of his toungeu and got all his\nbonds off.\n\nSoon Mr Wilson came back to tant him with his helpless condition flowed\nby his gang of detectives and they said Oh look at Ramorez sneering at\nhis plight and tanted him with his helpless condition because Ramorez\nhad put the bonds back sos he would look the same but could throw them\noff him when he wanted to Just look at him now sneered they. To hear him\ntalk you would thought he was hot stuff and they said Look at him now,\nhim that was going to do so much, Oh I would not like to be in his fix.\n\nSoon Harold got mad at this and jumped up with blasing eyes throwin off\nhis bonds like they were air Ha Ha sneered he I guess you better not\ntalk so much next time. Soon there flowed another awful struggle and\nsiezin his ottomatick back from Mr Wilson he shot two of the detectives\nthrough the heart Bing Bing went the ottomatick and two more went to\nmeet their Maker only two detectives left now and so he stabbed one and\nthe scondrel went to meet his Maker for now our hero was fighting\nfor his very life. It was dark in there now for night had falen and a\nterrible view met the eye Blood was just all over everything and the\nrats were eatin the dead men.\n\nSoon our hero manged to get his back to the wall for he was fighting\nfor his very life now and shot Mr Wilson through the abodmen Oh said Mr\nWilson you---- ---- ---- (The dashes are Penrod's.)\n\nMr Wilson stagerd back vile oaths soilin his lips for he was in pain Why\nyou---- ----you sneered he I will get you yet---- ----you Harold Ramorez\n\nThe remainin scondrel had an ax which he came near our heros head with\nbut missed him and ramand stuck in the wall Our heros amunition was\nexhaused what was he to do, the remanin scondrel would soon get his ax\nlose so our hero sprung forward and bit him till his teeth met in the\nflech for now our hero was fighting for his very life. At this the\nremanin scondrel also cursed and swore vile oaths. Oh sneered he----\n---- ----you Harold Ramorez what did you bite me for Yes sneered Mr\nWilson also and he has shot me in the abdomen too the----\n\nSoon they were both cursin and reviln him together Why you---- ---- ----\n---- ----sneered they what did you want to injure us for----you Harold\nRamorez you have not got any sence and you think you are so much but you\nare no better than anybody else and you are a---- ---- ---- ---- ----\n----\n\nSoon our hero could stand this no longer. If you could learn to act like\ngentlmen said he I would not do any more to you now and your low vile\nexppresions have not got any effect on me only to injure your own self\nwhen you go to meet your Maker Oh I guess you have had enogh for one day\nand I think you have learned a lesson and will not soon atemp to beard\nHarold Ramorez again so with a tantig laugh he cooly lit a cigarrete and\ntakin the keys of the cell from Mr Wilson poket went on out.\n\nSoon Mr Wilson and the wonded detective manged to bind up their wonds\nand got up off the floor---- ----it I will have that dasstads life now\nsneered they if we have to swing for it---- ---- ---- ----him he shall\nnot eccape us again the low down---- ---- ---- ---- ----\n\nChapiter seventh\n\nA mule train of heavily laden burros laden with gold from the mines was\nto be seen wondering among the highest clifts and gorgs of the Rocky Mts\nand a tall man with a long silken mustash and a cartigde belt could be\nheard cursin vile oaths because he well knew this was the lair of Harold\nRamorez Why---- ---- ----you you---- ---- ---- ---- mules you sneered he\nbecause the poor mules were not able to go any quicker ---- you I will\nshow you Why---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ----it sneered he his oaths growing\nviler and viler I will whip you---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ----you\nsos you will not be able to walk for a week---- ----you you mean old----\n---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ----mules you\n\nScarcly had the vile words left his lips when----\n\n\n\"PENROD!\"\n\nIt was his mother's voice, calling from the back porch.\n\nSimultaneously, the noon whistles began to blow, far and near; and the\nromancer in the sawdust-box, summoned prosaically from steep mountain\npasses above the clouds, paused with stubby pencil halfway from lip to\nknee. His eyes were shining: there was a rapt sweetness in his gaze. As\nhe wrote, his burden had grown lighter; thoughts of Mrs. Lora Rewbush\nhad almost left him; and in particular as he recounted (even by\nthe chaste dash) the annoyed expressions of Mr. Wilson, the wounded\ndetective, and the silken moustached mule-driver, he had felt\nmysteriously relieved concerning the Child Sir Lancelot. Altogether he\nlooked a better and a brighter boy.\n\n\"Pen-ROD!\"\n\nThe rapt look faded slowly. He sighed, but moved not.\n\n\"Penrod! We're having lunch early just on your account, so you'll have\nplenty of time to be dressed for the pageant. Hurry!\"\n\nThere was silence in Penrod's aerie.\n\n\"PEN-rod!\"\n\nMrs. Schofields voice sounded nearer, indicating a threatened approach.\nPenrod bestirred himself: he blew out the lantern, and shouted\nplaintively:\n\n\"Well, ain't I coming fast's I can?\"\n\n\"Do hurry,\" returned the voice, withdrawing; and the kitchen door could\nbe heard to close.\n\nLanguidly, Penrod proceeded to set his house in order.\n\nReplacing his manuscript and pencil in the cigar-box, he carefully\nburied the box in the sawdust, put the lantern and oil-can back in the\nsoap-box, adjusted the elevator for the reception of Duke, and, in no\nuncertain tone, invited the devoted animal to enter.\n\nDuke stretched himself amiably, affecting not to hear; and when this\npretence became so obvious that even a dog could keep it up no longer,\nsat down in a corner, facing it, his back to his master, and his head\nperpendicular, nose upward, supported by the convergence of the two\nwalls. This, from a dog, is the last word, the comble of the immutable.\nPenrod commanded, stormed, tried gentleness; persuaded with honeyed\nwords and pictured rewards. Duke's eyes looked backward; otherwise\nhe moved not. Time elapsed. Penrod stooped to flattery, finally to\ninsincere caresses; then, losing patience spouted sudden threats.\n\nDuke remained immovable, frozen fast to his great gesture of implacable\ndespair.\n\nA footstep sounded on the threshold of the store-room.\n\n\"Penrod, come down from that box this instant!\"\n\n\"Ma'am?\"\n\n\"Are you up in that sawdust-box again?\" As Mrs. Schofield had just heard\nher son's voice issue from the box, and also, as she knew he was there\nanyhow, her question must have been put for oratorical purposes only.\n\"Because if you are,\" she continued promptly, \"I'm going to ask your\npapa not to let you play there any----\"\n\nPenrod's forehead, his eyes, the tops of his ears, and most of his hair,\nbecame visible to her at the top of the box. \"I ain't 'playing!'\" he\nsaid indignantly.\n\n\"Well, what ARE you doing?\"\n\n\"Just coming down,\" he replied, in a grieved but patient tone.\n\n\"Then why don't you COME?\"\n\n\"I got Duke here. I got to get him DOWN, haven't I? You don't suppose I\nwant to leave a poor dog in here to starve, do you?\"\n\n\"Well, hand him down over the side to me. Let me----\"\n\n\"I'll get him down all right,\" said Penrod. \"I got him up here, and I\nguess I can get him down!\"\n\n\"Well then, DO it!\"\n\n\"I will if you'll let me alone. If you'll go on back to the house I\npromise to be there inside of two minutes. Honest!\"\n\nHe put extreme urgency into this, and his mother turned toward the\nhouse. \"If you're not there in two minutes----\"\n\n\"I will be!\"\n\nAfter her departure, Penrod expended some finalities of eloquence upon\nDuke, then disgustedly gathered him up in his arms, dumped him into the\nbasket and, shouting sternly, \"All in for the ground floor--step back\nthere, madam--all ready, Jim!\" lowered dog and basket to the floor\nof the storeroom. Duke sprang out in tumultuous relief, and bestowed\nfrantic affection upon his master as the latter slid down from the box.\n\nPenrod dusted himself sketchily, experiencing a sense of satisfaction,\ndulled by the overhanging afternoon, perhaps, but perceptible: he had\nthe feeling of one who has been true to a cause. The operation of the\nelevator was unsinful and, save for the shock to Duke's nervous system,\nit was harmless; but Penrod could not possibly have brought himself to\nexhibit it in the presence of his mother or any other grown person in\nthe world. The reasons for secrecy were undefined; at least, Penrod did\nnot define them.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III THE COSTUME\n\nAfter lunch his mother and his sister Margaret, a pretty girl of\nnineteen, dressed him for the sacrifice. They stood him near his\nmother's bedroom window and did what they would to him.\n\nDuring the earlier anguishes of the process he was mute, exceeding the\npathos of the stricken calf in the shambles; but a student of eyes\nmight have perceived in his soul the premonitory symptoms of a sinister\nuprising. At a rehearsal (in citizens' clothes) attended by mothers and\ngrown-up sisters, Mrs. Lora Rewbush had announced that she wished the\ncostuming to be \"as medieval and artistic as possible.\" Otherwise, and\nas to details, she said, she would leave the costumes entirely to the\ngood taste of the children's parents. Mrs. Schofield and Margaret were\nno archeologists, but they knew that their taste was as good as that of\nother mothers and sisters concerned; so with perfect confidence they had\nplanned and executed a costume for Penrod; and the only misgiving they\nfelt was connected with the tractability of the Child Sir Lancelot\nhimself.\n\nStripped to his underwear, he had been made to wash himself vehemently;\nthen they began by shrouding his legs in a pair of silk stockings, once\nblue but now mostly whitish. Upon Penrod they visibly surpassed mere\nampleness; but they were long, and it required only a rather loose\nimagination to assume that they were tights.\n\nThe upper part of his body was next concealed from view by a garment\nso peculiar that its description becomes difficult. In 1886, Mrs.\nSchofield, then unmarried, had worn at her \"coming-out party\" a dress of\nvivid salmon silk which had been remodelled after her marriage to accord\nwith various epochs of fashion until a final, unskilful campaign at a\ndye-house had left it in a condition certain to attract much attention\nto the wearer. Mrs. Schofield had considered giving it to Della, the\ncook; but had decided not to do so, because you never could tell how\nDella was going to take things, and cooks were scarce.\n\nIt may have been the word \"medieval\" (in Mrs. Lora Rewbush's rich\nphrase) which had inspired the idea for a last conspicuous usefulness;\nat all events, the bodice of that once salmon dress, somewhat modified\nand moderated, now took a position, for its farewell appearance in\nsociety, upon the back, breast, and arms of the Child Sir Lancelot.\n\nThe area thus costumed ceased at the waist, leaving a Jaeger-like and\nunmedieval gap thence to the tops of the stockings. The inventive genius\nof woman triumphantly bridged it, but in a manner which imposes upon\nhistory almost insuperable delicacies of narration. Penrod's father\nwas an old-fashioned man: the twentieth century had failed to shake his\nfaith in red flannel for cold weather; and it was while Mrs. Schofield\nwas putting away her husband's winter underwear that she perceived how\nhopelessly one of the elder specimens had dwindled; and simultaneously\nshe received the inspiration which resulted in a pair of trunks for the\nChild Sir Lancelot, and added an earnest bit of colour, as well as a\ngenuine touch of the Middle Ages, to his costume. Reversed, fore to aft,\nwith the greater part of the legs cut off, and strips of silver braid\ncovering the seams, this garment, she felt, was not traceable to its\noriginal source.\n\nWhen it had been placed upon Penrod, the stockings were attached to it\nby a system of safety-pins, not very perceptible at a distance. Next,\nafter being severely warned against stooping, Penrod got his feet into\nthe slippers he wore to dancing-school--\"patent-leather pumps\" now\ndecorated with large pink rosettes.\n\n\"If I can't stoop,\" he began, smolderingly, \"I'd like to know how'm I\ngoin' to kneel in the pag----\"\n\n\"You must MANAGE!\" This, uttered through pins, was evidently thought to\nbe sufficient.\n\nThey fastened some ruching about his slender neck, pinned ribbons at\nrandom all over him, and then Margaret thickly powdered his hair.\n\n\"Oh, yes, that's all right,\" she said, replying to a question put by her\nmother. \"They always powdered their hair in Colonial times.\"\n\n\"It doesn't seem right to me--exactly,\" objected Mrs. Schofield, gently.\n\"Sir Lancelot must have been ever so long before Colonial times.\"\n\n\"That doesn't matter,\" Margaret reassured her. \"Nobody'll know the\ndifference--Mrs. Lora Rewbush least of all. I don't think she knows a\nthing about it, though, of course, she does write splendidly and the\nwords of the pageant are just beautiful. Stand still, Penrod!\" (The\nauthor of \"Harold Ramorez\" had moved convulsively.) \"Besides, powdered\nhair's always becoming. Look at him. You'd hardly know it was Penrod!\"\n\nThe pride and admiration with which she pronounced this undeniable truth\nmight have been thought tactless, but Penrod, not analytical, found his\nspirits somewhat elevated. No mirror was in his range of vision and,\nthough he had submitted to cursory measurements of his person a week\nearlier, he had no previous acquaintance with the costume. He began\nto form a not unpleasing mental picture of his appearance, something\nsomewhere between the portraits of George Washington and a vivid memory\nof Miss Julia Marlowe at a matinee of \"Twelfth Night.\"\n\nHe was additionally cheered by a sword which had been borrowed from a\nneighbor, who was a Knight of Pythias. Finally there was a mantle, an\nold golf cape of Margaret's. Fluffy polka-dots of white cotton had been\nsewed to it generously; also it was ornamented with a large cross of\nred flannel, suggested by the picture of a Crusader in a newspaper\nadvertisement. The mantle was fastened to Penrod's shoulder (that is,\nto the shoulder of Mrs. Schofield's ex-bodice) by means of large\nsafety-pins, and arranged to hang down behind him, touching his heels,\nbut obscuring nowise the glory of his facade. Then, at last, he was\nallowed to step before a mirror.\n\nIt was a full-length glass, and the worst immediately happened. It might\nhave been a little less violent, perhaps, if Penrod's expectations had\nnot been so richly and poetically idealized; but as things were, the\nrevolt was volcanic.\n\nVictor Hugo's account of the fight with the devil-fish, in \"Toilers\nof the Sea,\" encourages a belief that, had Hugo lived and increased in\npower, he might have been equal to a proper recital of the half\nhour which followed Penrod's first sight of himself as the Child Sir\nLancelot. But Mr. Wilson himself, dastard but eloquent foe of Harold\nRamorez, could not have expressed, with all the vile dashes at\nhis command, the sentiments which animated Penrod's bosom when the\ninstantaneous and unalterable conviction descended upon him that he was\nintended by his loved ones to make a public spectacle of himself in his\nsister's stockings and part of an old dress of his mother's.\n\nTo him these familiar things were not disguised at all; there seemed no\npossibility that the whole world would not know them at a glance. The\nstockings were worse than the bodice. He had been assured that these\ncould not be recognized, but, seeing them in the mirror, he was sure\nthat no human eye could fail at first glance to detect the difference\nbetween himself and the former purposes of these stockings. Fold,\nwrinkle, and void shrieked their history with a hundred tongues,\ninvoking earthquake, eclipse, and blue ruin. The frantic youth's final\nsubmission was obtained only after a painful telephonic conversation\nbetween himself and his father, the latter having been called up and\nupon, by the exhausted Mrs. Schofield, to subjugate his offspring by\nwire.\n\nThe two ladies made all possible haste, after this, to deliver\nPenrod into the hands of Mrs. Lora Rewbush; nevertheless, they found\nopportunity to exchange earnest congratulations upon his not having\nrecognized the humble but serviceable paternal garment now brilliant\nabout the Lancelotish middle. Altogether, they felt that the costume\nwas a success. Penrod looked like nothing ever remotely imagined by\nSir Thomas Malory or Alfred Tennyson;--for that matter, he looked like\nnothing ever before seen on earth; but as Mrs. Schofield and Margaret\ntook their places in the audience at the Women's Arts and Guild Hall,\nthe anxiety they felt concerning Penrod's elocutionary and gesticular\npowers, so soon to be put to public test, was pleasantly tempered by\ntheir satisfaction that, owing to their efforts, his outward appearance\nwould be a credit to the family.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV DESPERATION\n\nThe Child Sir Lancelot found himself in a large anteroom behind the\nstage--a room crowded with excited children, all about equally medieval\nand artistic. Penrod was less conspicuous than he thought himself, but\nhe was so preoccupied with his own shame, steeling his nerves to meet\nthe first inevitable taunting reference to his sister's stockings,\nthat he failed to perceive there were others present in much of his own\nunmanned condition. Retiring to a corner, immediately upon his entrance,\nhe managed to unfasten the mantle at the shoulders, and, drawing it\nround him, pinned it again at his throat so that it concealed the rest\nof his costume. This permitted a temporary relief, but increased his\nhorror of the moment when, in pursuance of the action of the \"pageant,\"\nthe sheltering garment must be cast aside.\n\nSome of the other child knights were also keeping their mantles close\nabout them. A few of the envied opulent swung brilliant fabrics\nfrom their shoulders, airily, showing off hired splendours from a\nprofessional costumer's stock, while one or two were insulting examples\nof parental indulgence, particularly little Maurice Levy, the Child Sir\nGalahad. This shrinking person went clamorously about, making it known\neverywhere that the best tailor in town had been dazzled by a great\nsum into constructing his costume. It consisted of blue velvet\nknickerbockers, a white satin waistcoat, and a beautifully cut little\nswallow-tailed coat with pearl buttons. The medieval and artistic\ntriumph was completed by a mantle of yellow velvet, and little white\nboots, sporting gold tassels.\n\nAll this radiance paused in a brilliant career and addressed the Child\nSir Lancelot, gathering an immediately formed semicircular audience of\nlittle girls. Woman was ever the trailer of magnificence.\n\n\"What YOU got on?\" inquired Mr. Levy, after dispensing information.\n\"What you got on under that ole golf cape?\"\n\nPenrod looked upon him coldly. At other times his questioner would have\napproached him with deference, even with apprehension. But to-day the\nChild Sir Galahad was somewhat intoxicated with the power of his own\nbeauty.\n\n\"What YOU got on?\" he repeated.\n\n\"Oh, nothin',\" said Penrod, with an indifference assumed at great cost\nto his nervous system.\n\nThe elate Maurice was inspired to set up as a wit. \"Then you're nakid!\"\nhe shouted exultantly. \"Penrod Schofield says he hasn't got nothin' on\nunder that ole golf cape! He's nakid! He's nakid.\"\n\nThe indelicate little girls giggled delightedly, and a javelin pierced\nthe inwards of Penrod when he saw that the Child Elaine, amber-curled\nand beautiful Marjorie Jones, lifted golden laughter to the horrid jest.\n\nOther boys and girls came flocking to the uproar. \"He's nakid, he's\nnakid!\" shrieked the Child Sir Galahad. \"Penrod Schofield's nakid! He's\nNA-A-A-KID!\"\n\n\"Hush, hush!\" said Mrs. Lora Rewbush, pushing her way into the group.\n\"Remember, we are all little knights and ladies to-day. Little knights\nand ladies of the Table Round would not make so much noise. Now\nchildren, we must begin to take our places on the stage. Is everybody\nhere?\"\n\nPenrod made his escape under cover of this diversion: he slid behind\nMrs. Lora Rewbush, and being near a door, opened it unnoticed and went\nout quickly, closing it behind him. He found himself in a narrow and\nvacant hallway which led to a door marked \"Janitor's Room.\"\n\nBurning with outrage, heart-sick at the sweet, cold-blooded laughter\nof Marjorie Jones, Penrod rested his elbows upon a window-sill and\nspeculated upon the effects of a leap from the second story. One of the\nreasons he gave it up was his desire to live on Maurice Levy's account:\nalready he was forming educational plans for the Child Sir Galahad.\n\nA stout man in blue overalls passed through the hallway muttering to\nhimself petulantly. \"I reckon they'll find that hall hot enough NOW!\" he\nsaid, conveying to Penrod an impression that some too feminine women had\nsent him upon an unreasonable errand to the furnace. He went into the\nJanitor's Room and, emerging a moment later, minus the overalls, passed\nPenrod again with a bass rumble--\"Dern 'em!\" it seemed he said--and\nmade a gloomy exit by the door at the upper end of the hallway.\n\nThe conglomerate and delicate rustle of a large, mannerly audience was\nheard as the janitor opened and closed the door; and stage-fright\nseized the boy. The orchestra began an overture, and, at that, Penrod,\ntrembling violently, tiptoed down the hall into the Janitor's Room. It\nwas a cul-de-sac: There was no outlet save by the way he had come.\n\nDespairingly he doffed his mantle and looked down upon himself for\na last sickening assurance that the stockings were as obviously and\ndisgracefully Margaret's as they had seemed in the mirror at home. For a\nmoment he was encouraged: perhaps he was no worse than some of the\nother boys. Then he noticed that a safety-pin had opened; one of those\nconnecting the stockings with his trunks. He sat down to fasten it\nand his eye fell for the first time with particular attention upon the\ntrunks. Until this instant he had been preoccupied with the stockings.\n\nSlowly recognition dawned in his eyes.\n\nThe Schofields' house stood on a corner at the intersection of two\nmain-travelled streets; the fence was low, and the publicity obtained by\nthe washable portion of the family apparel, on Mondays, had often been\npainful to Penrod; for boys have a peculiar sensitiveness in these\nmatters. A plain, matter-of-fact washerwoman' employed by Mrs.\nSchofield, never left anything to the imagination of the passer-by; and\nof all her calm display the scarlet flaunting of his father's winter\nwear had most abashed Penrod. One day Marjorie Jones, all gold and\nstarch, had passed when the dreadful things were on the line: Penrod had\nhidden himself, shuddering. The whole town, he was convinced, knew these\ngarments intimately and derisively.\n\nAnd now, as he sat in the janitor's chair, the horrible and paralyzing\nrecognition came. He had not an instant's doubt that every fellow actor,\nas well as every soul in the audience, would recognize what his mother\nand sister had put upon him. For as the awful truth became plain to\nhimself it seemed blazoned to the world; and far, far louder than the\nstockings, the trunks did fairly bellow the grisly secret: WHOSE they\nwere and WHAT they were!\n\nMost people have suffered in a dream the experience of finding\nthemselves very inadequately clad in the midst of a crowd of\nwell-dressed people, and such dreamers' sensations are comparable to\nPenrod's, though faintly, because Penrod was awake and in much too full\npossession of the most active capacities for anguish.\n\nA human male whose dress has been damaged, or reveals some vital lack,\nsuffers from a hideous and shameful loneliness which makes every\nsecond absolutely unbearable until he is again as others of his sex and\nspecies; and there is no act or sin whatever too desperate for him in\nhis struggle to attain that condition. Also, there is absolutely no\nembarrassment possible to a woman which is comparable to that of a man\nunder corresponding circumstances and in this a boy is a man. Gazing\nupon the ghastly trunks, the stricken Penrod felt that he was a degree\nworse then nude; and a great horror of himself filled his soul.\n\n\"Penrod Schofield!\"\n\nThe door into the hallway opened, and a voice demanded him. He could not\nbe seen from the hallway, but the hue and the cry was up; and he knew\nhe must be taken. It was only a question of seconds. He huddled in his\nchair.\n\n\"Penrod Schofield!\" cried Mrs. Lora Rewbush angrily.\n\nThe distracted boy rose and, as he did so, a long pin sank deep into his\nback. He extracted it frenziedly, which brought to his ears a protracted\nand sonorous ripping, too easily located by a final gesture of horror.\n\n\"Penrod Schofield!\" Mrs. Lora Rewbush had come out into the hallway.\n\nAnd now, in this extremity, when all seemed lost indeed, particularly\nincluding honour, the dilating eye of the outlaw fell upon the blue\noveralls which the janitor had left hanging upon a peg.\n\nInspiration and action were almost simultaneous.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V THE PAGEANT OF THE TABLE ROUND\n\n\n\"Penrod!\" Mrs. Lora Rewbush stood in the doorway, indignantly gazing\nupon a Child Sir Lancelot mantled to the heels. \"Do you know that you\nhave kept an audience of five hundred people waiting for ten minutes?\"\nShe, also, detained the five hundred while she spake further.\n\n\"Well,\" said Penrod contentedly, as he followed her toward the buzzing\nstage, \"I was just sitting there thinking.\"\n\nTwo minutes later the curtain rose on a medieval castle hall richly done\nin the new stage-craft made in Germany and consisting of pink and blue\ncheesecloth. The Child King Arthur and the Child Queen Guinevere were\ndisclosed upon thrones, with the Child Elaine and many other celebrities\nin attendance; while about fifteen Child Knights were seated at a\ndining-room table round, which was covered with a large Oriental rug,\nand displayed (for the knights' refreshment) a banquet service of silver\nloving-cups and trophies, borrowed from the Country Club and some local\nautomobile manufacturers.\n\nIn addition to this splendour, potted plants and palms have seldom been\nmore lavishly used in any castle on the stage or off.\n\nThe footlights were aided by a \"spot-light\" from the rear of the hall;\nand the children were revealed in a blaze of glory.\n\nA hushed, multitudinous \"O-OH\" of admiration came from the decorous and\ndelighted audience. Then the children sang feebly:\n\n \"Chuldrun of the Tabul Round,\n Lit-tul knights and ladies we.\n Let our voy-siz all resound\n Faith and hope and charitee!\"\n\nThe Child King Arthur rose, extended his sceptre with the decisive\ngesture of a semaphore, and spake:\n\n \"Each littul knight and lady born\n Has noble deeds TO perform\n In THEE child-world of shivullree,\n No matter how small his share may be.\n Let each advance and tell in turn\n What claim has each to knighthood earn.\"\n\nThe Child Sir Mordred, the villain of this piece, rose in his place\nat the table round, and piped the only lines ever written by Mrs. Lora\nRewbush which Penrod Schofield could have pronounced without loathing.\nGeorgie Bassett, a really angelic boy, had been selected for the role of\nMordred. His perfect conduct had earned for him the sardonic sobriquet,\n\"The Little Gentleman,\" among his boy acquaintances. (Naturally he had\nno friends.) Hence the other boys supposed that he had been selected for\nthe wicked Mordred as a reward of virtue. He declaimed serenely:\n\n \"I hight Sir Mordred the Child, and I teach\n Lessons of selfishest evil, and reach\n Out into darkness. Thoughtless, unkind,\n And ruthless is Mordred, and unrefined.\"\n\nThe Child Mordred was properly rebuked and denied the accolade, though,\nlike the others, he seemed to have assumed the title already. He made\na plotter's exit. Whereupon Maurice Levy rose, bowed, announced that he\nhighted the Child Sir Galahad, and continued with perfect sang-froid:\n\n \"I am the purest of the pure.\n I have but kindest thoughts each day.\n I give my riches to the poor,\n And follow in the Master's way.\"\n\nThis elicited tokens of approval from the Child King Arthur, and he bade\nMaurice \"stand forth\" and come near the throne, a command obeyed with\nthe easy grace of conscious merit.\n\nIt was Penrod's turn. He stepped back from his chair, the table between\nhim and the audience, and began in a high, breathless monotone:\n\n \"I hight Sir Lancelot du Lake, the Child,\n Gentul-hearted, meek, and mild.\n What though I'm BUT a littul child,\n Gentul-heartud, meek, and mild,\n I do my share though but--though but----\"\n\nPenrod paused and gulped. The voice of Mrs. Lora Rewbush was heard from\nthe wings, prompting irritably, and the Child. Sir Lancelot repeated:\n\n \"I do my share though but--though but a tot,\n I pray you knight Sir Lancelot!\"\n\nThis also met the royal favour, and Penrod was bidden to join Sir\nGalahad at the throne. As he crossed the stage, Mrs. Schofield whispered\nto Margaret:\n\n\"That boy! He's unpinned his mantle and fixed it to cover his whole\ncostume. After we worked so hard to make it becoming!\"\n\n\"Never mind; he'll have to take the cape off in a minute,\" returned\nMargaret. She leaned forward suddenly, narrowing her eyes to see\nbetter. \"What IS that thing hanging about his left ankle?\" she whispered\nuneasily. \"How queer! He must have got tangled in something.\"\n\n\"Where?\" asked Mrs. Schofield, in alarm.\n\n\"His left foot. It makes him stumble. Don't you see? It looks--it looks\nlike an elephant's foot!\"\n\nThe Child Sir Lancelot and the Child Sir Galahad clasped hands before\ntheir Child King. Penrod was conscious of a great uplift; in a moment he\nwould have to throw aside his mantle, but even so he was protected and\nsheltered in the human garment of a man. His stage-fright had passed,\nfor the audience was but an indistinguishable blur of darkness beyond\nthe dazzling lights. His most repulsive speech (that in which he\nproclaimed himself a \"tot\") was over and done with; and now at last the\nsmall, moist hand of the Child Sir Galahad lay within his own. Craftily\nhis brown fingers stole from Maurice's palm to the wrist. The two boys\ndeclaimed in concert:\n\n \"We are two chuldrun of the Tabul Round\n Strewing kindness all a-round.\n With love and good deeds striving ever for the best,\n May our littul efforts e'er be blest.\n Two littul hearts we offer. See\n United in love, faith, hope, and char--OW!\"\n\nThe conclusion of the duet was marred. The Child Sir Galahad suddenly\nstiffened, and, uttering an irrepressible shriek of anguish, gave a\nbrief exhibition of the contortionist's art. (\"HE'S TWISTIN' MY WRIST!\nDERN YOU, LEGGO!\")\n\nThe voice of Mrs. Lora Rewbush was again heard from the wings; it\nsounded bloodthirsty. Penrod released his victim; and the Child King\nArthur, somewhat disconcerted, extended his sceptre and, with the\nassistance of the enraged prompter, said:\n\n \"Sweet child-friends of the Tabul Round,\n In brotherly love and kindness abound,\n Sir Lancelot, you have spoken well,\n Sir Galahad, too, as clear as bell.\n So now pray doff your mantles gay.\n You shall be knighted this very day.\"\n\nAnd Penrod doffed his mantle.\n\nSimultaneously, a thick and vasty gasp came from the audience, as\nfrom five hundred bathers in a wholly unexpected surf. This gasp was\npunctuated irregularly, over the auditorium, by imperfectly subdued\nscreams both of dismay and incredulous joy, and by two dismal shrieks.\nAltogether it was an extraordinary sound, a sound never to be forgotten\nby any one who heard it. It was almost as unforgettable as the sight\nwhich caused it; the word \"sight\" being here used in its vernacular\nsense, for Penrod, standing unmantled and revealed in all the medieval\nand artistic glory of the janitor's blue overalls, falls within its\nmeaning.\n\nThe janitor was a heavy man, and his overalls, upon Penrod, were merely\noceanic. The boy was at once swaddled and lost within their blue\ngulfs and vast saggings; and the left leg, too hastily rolled up, had\ndescended with a distinctively elephantine effect, as Margaret had\nobserved. Certainly, the Child Sir Lancelot was at least a sight.\n\nIt is probable that a great many in that hall must have had, even then,\na consciousness that they were looking on at History in the Making.\nA supreme act is recognizable at sight: it bears the birthmark of\nimmortality. But Penrod, that marvellous boy, had begun to declaim, even\nwith the gesture of flinging off his mantle for the accolade:\n\n \"I first, the Child Sir Lancelot du Lake,\n Will volunteer to knighthood take,\n And kneeling here before your throne\n I vow to----\"\n\nHe finished his speech unheard. The audience had recovered breath, but\nhad lost self-control, and there ensued something later described by a\nparticipant as a sort of cultured riot.\n\nThe actors in the \"pageant\" were not so dumfounded by Penrod's costume\nas might have been expected. A few precocious geniuses perceived\nthat the overalls were the Child Lancelot's own comment on maternal\nintentions; and these were profoundly impressed: they regarded him with\nthe grisly admiration of young and ambitious criminals for a jail-mate\nabout to be distinguished by hanging. But most of the children simply\ntook it to be the case (a little strange, but not startling) that\nPenrod's mother had dressed him like that--which is pathetic. They tried\nto go on with the \"pageant.\"\n\nThey made a brief, manful effort. But the irrepressible outbursts from\nthe audience bewildered them; every time Sir Lancelot du Lake the Child\nopened his mouth, the great, shadowy house fell into an uproar, and the\nchildren into confusion. Strong women and brave girls in the audience\nwent out into the lobby, shrieking and clinging to one another. Others\nremained, rocking in their seats, helpless and spent. The neighbourhood\nof Mrs. Schofield and Margaret became, tactfully, a desert. Friends of\nthe author went behind the scenes and encountered a hitherto unknown\nphase of Mrs. Lora Rewbush; they said, afterward, that she hardly seemed\nto know what she was doing. She begged to be left alone somewhere with\nPenrod Schofield, for just a little while.\n\nThey led her away.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI EVENING\n\nThe sun was setting behind the back fence (though at a considerable\ndistance) as Penrod Schofield approached that fence and looked\nthoughtfully up at the top of it, apparently having in mind some purpose\nto climb up and sit there. Debating this, he passed his fingers gently\nup and down the backs of his legs; and then something seemed to decide\nhim not to sit anywhere. He leaned against the fence, sighed profoundly,\nand gazed at Duke, his wistful dog.\n\nThe sigh was reminiscent: episodes of simple pathos were passing before\nhis inward eye. About the most painful was the vision of lovely\nMarjorie Jones, weeping with rage as the Child Sir Lancelot was dragged,\ninsatiate, from the prostrate and howling Child Sir Galahad, after an\nonslaught delivered the precise instant the curtain began to fall upon\nthe demoralized \"pageant.\" And then--oh, pangs! oh, woman!--she slapped\nat the ruffian's cheek, as he was led past her by a resentful janitor;\nand turning, flung her arms round the Child Sir Galahad's neck.\n\n\"PENROD SCHOFIELD, DON'T YOU DARE EVER SPEAK TO ME AGAIN AS LONG AS\nYOU LIVE!\" Maurice's little white boots and gold tassels had done their\nwork.\n\nAt home the late Child Sir Lancelot was consigned to a locked\nclothes-closet pending the arrival of his father. Mr. Schofield came\nand, shortly after, there was put into practice an old patriarchal\ncustom. It is a custom of inconceivable antiquity: probably primordial,\ncertainly prehistoric, but still in vogue in some remaining citadels of\nthe ancient simplicities of the Republic.\n\nAnd now, therefore, in the dusk, Penrod leaned against the fence and\nsighed.\n\nHis case is comparable to that of an adult who could have survived a\nsimilar experience. Looking back to the sawdust-box, fancy pictures this\ncomparable adult a serious and inventive writer engaged in congenial\nliterary activities in a private retreat. We see this period marked\nby the creation of some of the most virile passages of a Work dealing\nexclusively in red corpuscles and huge primal impulses. We see\nthis thoughtful man dragged from his calm seclusion to a horrifying\npublicity; forced to adopt the stage and, himself a writer, compelled\nto exploit the repulsive sentiments of an author not only personally\ndistasteful to him but whose whole method and school in belles lettres\nhe despises.\n\nWe see him reduced by desperation and modesty to stealing a pair of\noveralls. We conceive him to have ruined, then, his own reputation,\nand to have utterly disgraced his family; next, to have engaged in\nthe duello and to have been spurned by his lady-love, thus lost to him\n(according to her own declaration) forever. Finally, we must behold:\nimprisonment by the authorities; the third degree and flagellation.\n\nWe conceive our man decided that his career had been perhaps too\neventful. Yet Penrod had condensed all of it into eight hours.\n\nIt appears that he had at least some shadowy perception of a recent\nfulness of life, for, as he leaned against the fence, gazing upon his\nwistful Duke, he sighed again and murmured aloud:\n\n\"WELL, HASN'T THIS BEEN A DAY!\"\n\nBut in a little while a star came out, freshly lighted, from the highest\npart of the sky, and Penrod, looking up, noticed it casually and\na little drowsily. He yawned. Then he sighed once more, but not\nreminiscently: evening had come; the day was over. It was a sigh of pure\nennui.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VII EVILS OF DRINK\n\nNext day, Penrod acquired a dime by a simple and antique process which\nwas without doubt sometimes practised by the boys of Babylon. When the\nteacher of his class in Sunday-school requested the weekly contribution,\nPenrod, fumbling honestly (at first) in the wrong pockets, managed to\nlook so embarrassed that the gentle lady told him not to mind, and said\nshe was often forgetful herself. She was so sweet about it that, looking\ninto the future, Penrod began to feel confident of a small but regular\nincome.\n\nAt the close of the afternoon services he did not go home, but proceeded\nto squander the funds just withheld from China upon an orgy of the most\npungently forbidden description. In a Drug Emporium, near the church, he\npurchased a five-cent sack of candy consisting for the most part of the\nheavily flavoured hoofs of horned cattle, but undeniably substantial,\nand so generously capable of resisting solution that the purchaser must\nneeds be avaricious beyond reason who did not realize his money's worth.\n\nEquipped with this collation, Penrod contributed his remaining nickel to\na picture show, countenanced upon the seventh day by the legal but not\nthe moral authorities. Here, in cozy darkness, he placidly insulted his\nliver with jaw-breaker upon jaw-breaker from the paper sack, and in a\nsurfeit of content watched the silent actors on the screen.\n\nOne film made a lasting impression upon him. It depicted with relentless\npathos the drunkard's progress; beginning with his conversion to beer\nin the company of loose travelling men; pursuing him through an\ninexplicable lapse into evening clothes and the society of some\nremarkably painful ladies, next, exhibiting the effects of alcohol on\nthe victim's domestic disposition, the unfortunate man was seen in the\nact of striking his wife and, subsequently, his pleading baby daughter\nwith an abnormally heavy walking-stick. Their flight--through the\nsnow--to seek the protection of a relative was shown, and finally, the\ndrunkard's picturesque behaviour at the portals of a madhouse.\n\nSo fascinated was Penrod that he postponed his departure until this film\ncame round again, by which time he had finished his unnatural repast\nand almost, but not quite, decided against following the profession of a\ndrunkard when he grew up.\n\nEmerging, satiated, from the theatre, a public timepiece before a\njeweller's shop confronted him with an unexpected dial and imminent\nperplexities. How was he to explain at home these hours of dalliance?\nThere was a steadfast rule that he return direct from Sunday-school; and\nSunday rules were important, because on that day there was his father,\nalways at home and at hand, perilously ready for action. One of the\nhardest conditions of boyhood is the almost continuous strain put upon\nthe powers of invention by the constant and harassing necessity for\nexplanations of every natural act.\n\nProceeding homeward through the deepening twilight as rapidly as\npossible, at a gait half skip and half canter, Penrod made up his mind\nin what manner he would account for his long delay, and, as he drew\nnearer, rehearsed in words the opening passage of his defence.\n\n\"Now see here,\" he determined to begin; \"I do not wished to be blamed\nfor things I couldn't help, nor any other boy. I was going along the\nstreet by a cottage and a lady put her head out of the window and said\nher husband was drunk and whipping her and her little girl, and she\nasked me wouldn't I come in and help hold him. So I went in and tried to\nget hold of this drunken lady's husband where he was whipping their baby\ndaughter, but he wouldn't pay any attention, and I TOLD her I ought to\nbe getting home, but she kep' on askin' me to stay----\"\n\nAt this point he reached the corner of his own yard, where a coincidence\nnot only checked the rehearsal of his eloquence but happily obviated all\noccasion for it. A cab from the station drew up in front of the gate,\nand there descended a troubled lady in black and a fragile little girl\nabout three. Mrs. Schofield rushed from the house and enfolded both in\nhospitable arms.\n\nThey were Penrod's Aunt Clara and cousin, also Clara, from Dayton,\nIllinois, and in the flurry of their arrival everybody forgot to put\nPenrod to the question. It is doubtful, however, if he felt any relief;\nthere may have been even a slight, unconscious disappointment not\naltogether dissimilar to that of an actor deprived of a good part.\n\nIn the course of some really necessary preparations for dinner he\nstepped from the bathroom into the pink-and-white bedchamber of his\nsister, and addressed her rather thickly through a towel.\n\n\"When'd mamma find out Aunt Clara and Cousin Clara were coming?\"\n\n\"Not till she saw them from the window. She just happened to look out\nas they drove up. Aunt Clara telegraphed this morning, but it wasn't\ndelivered.\"\n\n\"How long they goin' to stay?\"\n\n\"I don't know.\"\n\nPenrod ceased to rub his shining face, and thoughtfully tossed the towel\nthrough the bathroom door. \"Uncle John won't try to make 'em come\nback home, I guess, will he?\" (Uncle John was Aunt Clara's husband, a\nsuccessful manufacturer of stoves, and his lifelong regret was that he\nhad not entered the Baptist ministry.) \"He'll let 'em stay here quietly,\nwon't he?\"\n\n\"What ARE you talking about?\" demanded Margaret, turning from her\nmirror. \"Uncle John sent them here. Why shouldn't he let them stay?\"\n\nPenrod looked crestfallen. \"Then he hasn't taken to drink?\"\n\n\"Certainly not!\" She emphasized the denial with a pretty peal of soprano\nlaughter.\n\n\"Then why,\" asked her brother gloomily, \"why did Aunt Clara look so\nworried when she got here?\"\n\n\"Good gracious! Don't people worry about anything except somebody's\ndrinking? Where did you get such an idea?\"\n\n\"Well,\" he persisted, \"you don't KNOW it ain't that.\"\n\nShe laughed again, wholeheartedly. \"Poor Uncle John! He won't even allow\ngrape juice or ginger ale in his house. They came because they were\nafraid little Clara might catch the measles. She's very delicate, and\nthere's such an epidemic of measles among the children over in Dayton\nthe schools had to be closed. Uncle John got so worried that last night\nhe dreamed about it; and this morning he couldn't stand it any longer\nand packed them off over here, though he thinks its wicked to travel\non Sunday. And Aunt Clara was worried when she got here because they'd\nforgotten to check her trunk and it will have to be sent by express. Now\nwhat in the name of the common sense put it into your head that Uncle\nJohn had taken to----\"\n\n\"Oh, nothing.\" He turned lifelessly away and went downstairs, a new-born\nhope dying in his bosom. Life seems so needlessly dull sometimes.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VIII SCHOOL\n\nNext morning, when he had once more resumed the dreadful burden of\neducation, it seemed infinitely duller. And yet what pleasanter sight\nis there than a schoolroom well filled with children of those sprouting\nyears just before the 'teens? The casual visitor, gazing from the\nteacher's platform upon these busy little heads, needs only a blunted\nmemory to experience the most agreeable and exhilarating sensations.\nStill, for the greater part, the children are unconscious of the\nhappiness of their condition; for nothing is more pathetically true than\nthat we \"never know when we are well off.\" The boys in a public school\nare less aware of their happy state than are the girls; and of all the\nboys in his room, probably Penrod himself had the least appreciation of\nhis felicity.\n\nHe sat staring at an open page of a textbook, but not studying; not even\nreading; not even thinking. Nor was he lost in a reverie: his mind's eye\nwas shut, as his physical eye might well have been, for the optic nerve,\nflaccid with ennui, conveyed nothing whatever of the printed page\nupon which the orb of vision was partially focused. Penrod was doing\nsomething very unusual and rare, something almost never accomplished\nexcept by coloured people or by a boy in school on a spring day: he was\ndoing really nothing at all. He was merely a state of being.\n\nFrom the street a sound stole in through the open window, and abhorring\nNature began to fill the vacuum called Penrod Schofield; for the sound\nwas the spring song of a mouth-organ, coming down the sidewalk. The\nwindows were intentionally above the level of the eyes of the seated\npupils; but the picture of the musician was plain to Penrod, painted for\nhim by a quality in the runs and trills, partaking of the oboe, of the\ncalliope, and of cats in anguish; an excruciating sweetness obtained\nonly by the wallowing, walloping yellow-pink palm of a hand whose back\nwas Congo black and shiny. The music came down the street and passed\nbeneath the window, accompanied by the care-free shuffling of a pair of\nold shoes scuffing syncopations on the cement sidewalk. It passed into\nthe distance; became faint and blurred; was gone. Emotion stirred in\nPenrod a great and poignant desire, but (perhaps fortunately) no fairy\ngodmother made her appearance.\n\nOtherwise Penrod would have gone down the street in a black skin,\nplaying the mouth-organ, and an unprepared coloured youth would have\nfound himself enjoying educational advantages for which he had no\nambition whatever.\n\nRoused from perfect apathy, the boy cast about the schoolroom an eye\nwearied to nausea by the perpetual vision of the neat teacher upon the\nplatform, the backs of the heads of the pupils in front of him, and the\nmonotonous stretches of blackboard threateningly defaced by arithmetical\nformulae and other insignia of torture. Above the blackboard, the\nwalls of the high room were of white plaster--white with the qualified\nwhiteness of old snow in a soft coal town. This dismal expanse was\nbroken by four lithographic portraits, votive offerings of a thoughtful\npublisher. The portraits were of good and great men, kind men; men\nwho loved children. Their faces were noble and benevolent. But the\nlithographs offered the only rest for the eyes of children fatigued by\nthe everlasting sameness of the schoolroom. Long day after long day,\ninterminable week in and interminable week out, vast month on vast\nmonth, the pupils sat with those four portraits beaming kindness down\nupon them. The faces became permanent in the consciousness of the\nchildren; they became an obsession--in and out of school the children\nwere never free of them. The four faces haunted the minds of children\nfalling asleep; they hung upon the minds of children waking at night;\nthey rose forebodingly in the minds of children waking in the morning;\nthey became monstrously alive in the minds of children lying sick of\nfever. Never, while the children of that schoolroom lived, would they\nbe able to forget one detail of the four lithographs: the hand of\nLongfellow was fixed, for them, forever, in his beard. And by a simple\nand unconscious association of ideas, Penrod Schofield was accumulating\nan antipathy for the gentle Longfellow and for James Russell Lowell and\nfor Oliver Wendell Holmes and for John Greenleaf Whittier, which would\nnever permit him to peruse a work of one of those great New Englanders\nwithout a feeling of personal resentment.\n\nHis eyes fell slowly and inimically from the brow of Whittier to\nthe braid of reddish hair belonging to Victorine Riordan, the little\noctoroon girl who sat directly in front of him. Victorine's back was as\nfamiliar to Penrod as the necktie of Oliver Wendell Holmes. So was her\ngayly coloured plaid waist. He hated the waist as he hated Victorine\nherself, without knowing why. Enforced companionship in large quantities\nand on an equal basis between the sexes appears to sterilize the\naffections, and schoolroom romances are few.\n\nVictorine's hair was thick, and the brickish glints in it were\nbeautiful, but Penrod was very tired of it. A tiny knot of green ribbon\nfinished off the braid and kept it from unravelling; and beneath the\nribbon there was a final wisp of hair which was just long enough to\nrepose upon Penrod's desk when Victorine leaned back in her seat. It was\nthere now. Thoughtfully, he took the braid between thumb and forefinger,\nand, without disturbing Victorine, dipped the end of it and the green\nribbon into the inkwell of his desk. He brought hair and ribbon forth\ndripping purple ink, and partially dried them on a blotter, though, a\nmoment later when Victorine leaned forward, they were still able to add\na few picturesque touches to the plaid waist.\n\nRudolph Krauss, across the aisle from Penrod, watched the operation with\nprotuberant eyes, fascinated. Inspired to imitation, he took a piece of\nchalk from his pocket and wrote \"RATS\" across the shoulder-blades of the\nboy in front of him, then looked across appealingly to Penrod for tokens\nof congratulation. Penrod yawned. It may not be denied that at times he\nappeared to be a very self-centred boy.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IX SOARING\n\nHalf the members of the class passed out to a recitation-room, the\nempurpled Victorine among them, and Miss Spence started the remaining\nhalf through the ordeal of trial by mathematics. Several boys and girls\nwere sent to the blackboard, and Penrod, spared for the moment, followed\ntheir operations a little while with his eyes, but not with his mind;\nthen, sinking deeper in his seat, limply abandoned the effort. His eyes\nremained open, but saw nothing; the routine of the arithmetic lesson\nreached his ears in familiar, meaningless sounds, but he heard nothing;\nand yet, this time, he was profoundly occupied. He had drifted away from\nthe painful land of facts, and floated now in a new sea of fancy which\nhe had just discovered.\n\nMaturity forgets the marvellous realness of a boy's day-dreams, how\ncolourful they glow, rosy and living, and how opaque the curtain closing\ndown between the dreamer and the actual world. That curtain is almost\nsound-proof, too, and causes more throat-trouble among parents than is\nsuspected.\n\nThe nervous monotony of the schoolroom inspires a sometimes unbearable\nlonging for something astonishing to happen, and as every boy's\nfundamental desire is to do something astonishing himself, so as to be\nthe centre of all human interest and awe, it was natural that Penrod\nshould discover in fancy the delightful secret of self-levitation.\nHe found, in this curious series of imaginings, during the lesson in\narithmetic, that the atmosphere may be navigated as by a swimmer under\nwater, but with infinitely greater ease and with perfect comfort in\nbreathing. In his mind he extended his arms gracefully, at a level with\nhis shoulders, and delicately paddled the air with his hands, which at\nonce caused him to be drawn up out of his seat and elevated gently to a\nposition about midway between the floor and the ceiling, where he\ncame to an equilibrium and floated; a sensation not the less exquisite\nbecause of the screams of his fellow pupils, appalled by the miracle.\nMiss Spence herself was amazed and frightened, but he only smiled down\ncarelessly upon her when she commanded him to return to earth; and\nthen, when she climbed upon a desk to pull him down, he quietly paddled\nhimself a little higher, leaving his toes just out of her reach. Next,\nhe swam through a few slow somersaults to show his mastery of the new\nart, and, with the shouting of the dumfounded scholars ringing in\nhis ears, turned on his side and floated swiftly out of the window,\nimmediately rising above the housetops, while people in the street below\nhim shrieked, and a trolley car stopped dead in wonder.\n\nWith almost no exertion he paddled himself, many yards at a stroke, to\nthe girls' private school where Marjorie Jones was a pupil--Marjorie\nJones of the amber curls and the golden voice! Long before the \"Pageant\nof the Table Round,\" she had offered Penrod a hundred proofs that\nshe considered him wholly undesirable and ineligible. At the Friday\nAfternoon Dancing Class she consistently incited and led the laughter at\nhim whenever Professor Bartet singled him out for admonition in matters\nof feet and decorum. And but yesterday she had chid him for his\nslavish lack of memory in daring to offer her a greeting on the way to\nSunday-school. \"Well! I expect you must forgot I told you never to speak\nto me again! If I was a boy, I'd be too proud to come hanging around\npeople that don't speak to me, even if I WAS the Worst Boy in Town!\"\nSo she flouted him. But now, as he floated in through the window of her\nclassroom and swam gently along the ceiling like an escaped toy balloon,\nshe fell upon her knees beside her little desk, and, lifting up her arms\ntoward him, cried with love and admiration:\n\n\"Oh, PENrod!\"\n\nHe negligently kicked a globe from the high chandelier, and, smiling\ncoldly, floated out through the hall to the front steps of the school,\nwhile Marjorie followed, imploring him to grant her one kind look.\n\nIn the street an enormous crowd had gathered, headed by Miss Spence and\na brass band; and a cheer from a hundred thousand throats shook the\nvery ground as Penrod swam overhead. Marjorie knelt upon the steps\nand watched adoringly while Penrod took the drum-major's baton and,\nperforming sinuous evolutions above the crowd, led the band. Then he\nthrew the baton so high that it disappeared from sight; but he went\nswiftly after it, a double delight, for he had not only the delicious\nsensation of rocketing safely up and up into the blue sky, but also\nthat of standing in the crowd below, watching and admiring himself as he\ndwindled to a speck, disappeared and then, emerging from a cloud, came\nspeeding down, with the baton in his hand, to the level of the treetops,\nwhere he beat time for the band and the vast throng and Marjorie Jones,\nwho all united in the \"Star-spangled Banner\" in honour of his aerial\nachievements. It was a great moment.\n\nIt was a great moment, but something seemed to threaten it. The face\nof Miss Spence looking up from the crowd grew too vivid--unpleasantly\nvivid. She was beckoning him and shouting, \"Come down, Penrod Schofield!\nPenrod Schofield, come down here!\"\n\nHe could hear her above the band and the singing of the multitude; she\nseemed intent on spoiling everything. Marjorie Jones was weeping to\nshow how sorry she was that she had formerly slighted him, and throwing\nkisses to prove that she loved him; but Miss Spence kept jumping between\nhim and Marjorie, incessantly calling his name.\n\nHe grew more and more irritated with her; he was the most important\nperson in the world and was engaged in proving it to Marjorie Jones and\nthe whole city, and yet Miss Spence seemed to feel she still had the\nright to order him about as she did in the old days when he was an\nordinary schoolboy. He was furious; he was sure she wanted him to do\nsomething disagreeable. It seemed to him that she had screamed \"Penrod\nSchofield!\" thousands of times.\n\nFrom the beginning of his aerial experiments in his own schoolroom, he\nhad not opened his lips, knowing somehow that one of the requirements\nfor air floating is perfect silence on the part of the floater; but,\nfinally, irritated beyond measure by Miss Spence's clamorous insistence,\nhe was unable to restrain an indignant rebuke and immediately came to\nearth with a frightful bump.\n\nMiss Spence--in the flesh--had directed toward the physical body of the\nabsent Penrod an inquiry as to the fractional consequences of dividing\nseventeen apples, fairly, among three boys, and she was surprised and\ndispleased to receive no answer although to the best of her knowledge\nand belief, he was looking fixedly at her. She repeated her question\ncrisply, without visible effect; then summoned him by name with\nincreasing asperity. Twice she called him, while all his fellow\npupils turned to stare at the gazing boy. She advanced a step from the\nplatform.\n\n\"Penrod Schofield!\"\n\n\"Oh, my goodness!\" he shouted suddenly. \"Can't you keep still a MINUTE?\"\n\n\n\nCHAPTER X UNCLE JOHN\n\nMiss Spence gasped. So did the pupils.\n\nThe whole room filled with a swelling conglomerate \"O-O-O-O-H!\"\n\nAs for Penrod himself, the walls reeled with the shock. He sat with his\nmouth open, a mere lump of stupefaction. For the appalling words that\nhe had hurled at the teacher were as inexplicable to him as to any other\nwho heard them.\n\nNothing is more treacherous than the human mind; nothing else so loves\nto play the Iscariot. Even when patiently bullied into a semblance of\norder and training, it may prove but a base and shifty servant. And\nPenrod's mind was not his servant; it was a master, with the April\nwind's whims; and it had just played him a diabolical trick. The very\njolt with which he came back to the schoolroom in the midst of his\nfancied flight jarred his day-dream utterly out of him; and he sat,\nopen-mouthed in horror at what he had said.\n\nThe unanimous gasp of awe was protracted. Miss Spence, however, finally\nrecovered her breath, and, returning deliberately to the platform, faced\nthe school. \"And then for a little while,\" as pathetic stories sometimes\nrecount, \"everything was very still.\" It was so still, in fact, that\nPenrod's newborn notoriety could almost be heard growing. This grisly\nsilence was at last broken by the teacher.\n\n\"Penrod Schofield, stand up!\"\n\nThe miserable child obeyed.\n\n\"What did you mean by speaking to me in that way?\"\n\nHe hung his head, raked the floor with the side of his shoe, swayed,\nswallowed, looked suddenly at his hands with the air of never having\nseen them before, then clasped them behind him. The school shivered in\necstatic horror, every fascinated eye upon him; yet there was not a\nsoul in the room but was profoundly grateful to him for the\nsensation--including the offended teacher herself. Unhappily, all this\ngratitude was unconscious and altogether different from the kind which,\nresults in testimonials and loving-cups. On the contrary!\n\n\"Penrod Schofield!\"\n\nHe gulped.\n\n\"Answer me at once! Why did you speak to me like that?\"\n\n\"I was----\" He choked, unable to continue.\n\n\"Speak out!\"\n\n\"I was just--thinking,\" he managed to stammer.\n\n\"That will not do,\" she returned sharply. \"I wish to know immediately\nwhy you spoke as you did.\"\n\nThe stricken Penrod answered helplessly:\n\n\"Because I was just thinking.\"\n\nUpon the very rack he could have offered no ampler truthful explanation.\nIt was all he knew about it.\n\n\"Thinking what?\"\n\n\"Just thinking.\"\n\nMiss Spence's expression gave evidence that her power of self-restraint\nwas undergoing a remarkable test. However, after taking counsel with\nherself, she commanded:\n\n\"Come here!\"\n\nHe shuffled forward, and she placed a chair upon the platform near her\nown.\n\n\"Sit there!\"\n\nThen (but not at all as if nothing had happened), she continued the\nlesson in arithmetic. Spiritually the children may have learned a lesson\nin very small fractions indeed as they gazed at the fragment of\nsin before them on the stool of penitence. They all stared at him\nattentively with hard and passionately interested eyes, in which there\nwas never one trace of pity. It cannot be said with precision that he\nwrithed; his movement was more a slow, continuous squirm, effected with\na ghastly assumption of languid indifference; while his gaze, in the\neffort to escape the marble-hearted glare of his schoolmates, affixed\nitself with apparent permanence to the waistcoat button of James Russell\nLowell just above the \"U\" in \"Russell.\"\n\nClasses came and classes went, grilling him with eyes. Newcomers\nreceived the story of the crime in darkling whispers; and the outcast\nsat and sat and sat, and squirmed and squirmed and squirmed. (He did one\nor two things with his spine which a professional contortionist would\nhave observed with real interest.) And all this while of freezing\nsuspense was but the criminal's detention awaiting trial. A known\npunishment may be anticipated with some measure of equanimity; at least,\nthe prisoner may prepare himself to undergo it; but the unknown looms\nmore monstrous for every attempt to guess it. Penrod's crime was unique;\nthere were no rules to aid him in estimating the vengeance to fall upon\nhim for it. What seemed most probable was that he would be expelled from\nthe schools in the presence of his family, the mayor, and council, and\nafterward whipped by his father upon the State House steps, with the\nentire city as audience by invitation of the authorities.\n\nNoon came. The rows of children filed out, every head turning for a last\nunpleasingly speculative look at the outlaw. Then Miss Spence closed the\ndoor into the cloakroom and that into the big hall, and came and sat at\nher desk, near Penrod. The tramping of feet outside, the shrill calls\nand shouting and the changing voices of the older boys ceased to be\nheard--and there was silence. Penrod, still affecting to be occupied\nwith Lowell, was conscious that Miss Spence looked at him intently.\n\n\"Penrod,\" she said gravely, \"what excuse have you to offer before I\nreport your case to the principal?\"\n\nThe word \"principal\" struck him to the vitals. Grand Inquisitor, Grand\nKhan, Sultan, Emperor, Tsar, Caesar Augustus--these are comparable. He\nstopped squirming instantly, and sat rigid.\n\n\"I want an answer. Why did you shout those words at me?\"\n\n\"Well,\" he murmured, \"I was just--thinking.\"\n\n\"Thinking what?\" she asked sharply.\n\n\"I don't know.\"\n\n\"That won't do!\"\n\nHe took his left ankle in his right hand and regarded it helplessly.\n\n\"That won't do, Penrod Schofield,\" she repeated severely. \"If that is\nall the excuse you have to offer I shall report your case this instant!\"\n\nAnd she rose with fatal intent.\n\nBut Penrod was one of those whom the precipice inspires. \"Well, I HAVE\ngot an excuse.\"\n\n\"Well\"--she paused impatiently--\"what is it?\"\n\nHe had not an idea, but he felt one coming, and replied automatically,\nin a plaintive tone:\n\n\"I guess anybody that had been through what I had to go through, last\nnight, would think they had an excuse.\"\n\nMiss Spence resumed her seat, though with the air of being ready to leap\nfrom it instantly.\n\n\"What has last night to do with your insolence to me this morning?\"\n\n\"Well, I guess you'd see,\" he returned, emphasizing the plaintive note,\n\"if you knew what I know.\"\n\n\"Now, Penrod,\" she said, in a kinder voice, \"I have a high regard for\nyour mother and father, and it would hurt me to distress them, but you\nmust either tell me what was the matter with you or I'll have to take\nyou to Mrs. Houston.\"\n\n\"Well, ain't I going to?\" he cried, spurred by the dread name. \"It's\nbecause I didn't sleep last night.\"\n\n\"Were you ill?\" The question was put with some dryness.\n\nHe felt the dryness. \"No'm; _I_ wasn't.\"\n\n\"Then if someone in your family was so ill that even you were kept up\nall night, how does it happen they let you come to school this morning?\"\n\n\"It wasn't illness,\" he returned, shaking his head mournfully. \"It was\nlots worse'n anybody's being sick. It was--it was--well, it was jest\nawful.\"\n\n\"WHAT was?\" He remarked with anxiety the incredulity in her tone.\n\n\"It was about Aunt Clara,\" he said.\n\n\"Your Aunt Clara!\" she repeated. \"Do you mean your mother's sister who\nmarried Mr. Farry of Dayton, Illinois?\"\n\n\"Yes--Uncle John,\" returned Penrod sorrowfully. \"The trouble was about\nhim.\"\n\nMiss Spence frowned a frown which he rightly interpreted as one of\ncontinued suspicion. \"She and I were in school together,\" she said. \"I\nused to know her very well, and I've always heard her married life was\nentirely happy. I don't----\"\n\n\"Yes, it was,\" he interrupted, \"until last year when Uncle John took to\nrunning with travelling men----\"\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"Yes'm.\" He nodded solemnly. \"That was what started it. At first he was\na good, kind husband, but these travelling men would coax him into a\nsaloon on his way home from work, and they got him to drinking beer and\nthen ales, wines, liquors, and cigars----\"\n\n\"Penrod!\"\n\n\"Ma'am?\"\n\n\"I'm not inquiring into your Aunt Clara's private affairs; I'm asking\nyou if you have anything to say which would palliate----\"\n\n\"That's what I'm tryin' to TELL you about, Miss Spence,\" he\npleaded,--\"if you'd jest only let me. When Aunt Clara and her little\nbaby daughter got to our house last night----\"\n\n\"You say Mrs. Farry is visiting your mother?\"\n\n\"Yes'm--not just visiting--you see, she HAD to come. Well of course,\nlittle baby Clara, she was so bruised up and mauled, where he'd been\nhittin' her with his cane----\"\n\n\"You mean that your uncle had done such a thing as THAT!\" exclaimed Miss\nSpence, suddenly disarmed by this scandal.\n\n\"Yes'm, and mamma and Margaret had to sit up all night nursin' little\nClara--and AUNT Clara was in such a state SOMEBODY had to keep talkin'\nto HER, and there wasn't anybody but me to do it, so I----\"\n\n\"But where was your father?\" she cried.\n\n\"Ma'am?\"\n\n\"Where was your father while----\"\n\n\"Oh--papa?\" Penrod paused, reflected; then brightened. \"Why, he was down\nat the train, waitin' to see if Uncle John would try to follow 'em and\nmake 'em come home so's he could persecute 'em some more. I wanted to do\nthat, but they said if he did come I mightn't be strong enough to\nhold him and----\" The brave lad paused again, modestly. Miss Spence's\nexpression was encouraging. Her eyes were wide with astonishment, and\nthere may have been in them, also, the mingled beginnings of admiration\nand self-reproach. Penrod, warming to his work, felt safer every moment.\n\n\"And so,\" he continued, \"I had to sit up with Aunt Clara. She had some\npretty big bruises, too, and I had to----\"\n\n\"But why didn't they send for a doctor?\" However, this question was only\na flicker of dying incredulity.\n\n\"Oh, they didn't want any DOCTOR,\" exclaimed the inspired realist\npromptly. \"They don't want anybody to HEAR about it because Uncle John\nmight reform--and then where'd he be if everybody knew he'd been a\ndrunkard and whipped his wife and baby daughter?\"\n\n\"Oh!\" said Miss Spence.\n\n\"You see, he used to be upright as anybody,\" he went on explanatively.\n\"It all begun----\"\n\n\"Began, Penrod.\"\n\n\"Yes'm. It all commenced from the first day he let those travelling men\ncoax him into the saloon.\" Penrod narrated the downfall of his Uncle\nJohn at length. In detail he was nothing short of plethoric; and\nincident followed incident, sketched with such vividness, such abundance\nof colour, and such verisimilitude to a drunkard's life as a drunkard's\nlife should be, that had Miss Spence possessed the rather chilling\nattributes of William J. Burns himself, the last trace of skepticism\nmust have vanished from her mind. Besides, there are two things that\nwill be believed of any man whatsoever, and one of them is that he has\ntaken to drink. And in every sense it was a moving picture which, with\nsimple but eloquent words, the virtuous Penrod set before his teacher.\n\nHis eloquence increased with what it fed on; and as with the eloquence\nso with self-reproach in the gentle bosom of the teacher. She cleared\nher throat with difficulty once or twice, during his description of his\nministering night with Aunt Clara. \"And I said to her, 'Why, Aunt Clara,\nwhat's the use of takin' on so about it?' And I said, 'Now, Aunt Clara,\nall the crying in the world can't make things any better.' And then\nshe'd just keep catchin' hold of me, and sob and kind of holler, and I'd\nsay, 'DON'T cry, Aunt Clara--PLEASE don't cry.\"'\n\nThen, under the influence of some fragmentary survivals of the\nrespectable portion of his Sunday adventures, his theme became more\nexalted; and, only partially misquoting a phrase from a psalm, he\nrelated how he had made it of comfort to Aunt Clara, and how he had\nbesought her to seek Higher guidance in her trouble.\n\nThe surprising thing about a structure such as Penrod was erecting is\nthat the taller it becomes the more ornamentation it will stand. Gifted\nboys have this faculty of building magnificence upon cobwebs--and Penrod\nwas gifted. Under the spell of his really great performance, Miss Spence\ngazed more and more sweetly upon the prodigy of spiritual beauty and\ngoodness before her, until at last, when Penrod came to the explanation\nof his \"just thinking,\" she was forced to turn her head away.\n\n\"You mean, dear,\" she said gently, \"that you were all worn out and\nhardly knew what you were saying?\"\n\n\"Yes'm.\"\n\n\"And you were thinking about all those dreadful things so hard that you\nforgot where you were?\"\n\n\"I was thinking,\" he said simply, \"how to save Uncle John.\"\n\nAnd the end of it for this mighty boy was that the teacher kissed him!\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XI FIDELITY OF A LITTLE DOG\n\nThe returning students, that afternoon, observed that Penrod's desk was\nvacant--and nothing could have been more impressive than that sinister\nmere emptiness. The accepted theory was that Penrod had been arrested.\nHow breathtaking, then, the sensation when, at the beginning of the\nsecond hour, he strolled--in with inimitable carelessness and, rubbing\nhis eyes, somewhat noticeably in the manner of one who has snatched an\nhour of much needed sleep, took his place as if nothing in particular\nhad happened. This, at first supposed to be a superhuman exhibition\nof sheer audacity, became but the more dumfounding when Miss\nSpence--looking up from her desk--greeted him with a pleasant little\nnod. Even after school, Penrod gave numerous maddened investigators no\nrelief. All he would consent to say was:\n\n\"Oh, I just TALKED to her.\"\n\nA mystification not entirely unconnected with the one thus produced was\nmanifested at his own family dinner-table the following evening. Aunt\nClara had been out rather late, and came to the table after the rest\nwere seated. She wore a puzzled expression.\n\n\"Do you ever see Mary Spence nowadays?\" she inquired, as she unfolded\nher napkin, addressing Mrs. Schofield. Penrod abruptly set down his\nsoup-spoon and gazed at his aunt with flattering attention.\n\n\"Yes; sometimes,\" said Mrs. Schofield. \"She's Penrod's teacher.\"\n\n\"Is she?\" said Mrs. Farry. \"Do you--\" She paused. \"Do people think her a\nlittle--queer, these days?\"\n\n\"Why, no,\" returned her sister. \"What makes you say that?\"\n\n\"She has acquired a very odd manner,\" said Mrs. Farry decidedly. \"At\nleast, she seemed odd to ME. I met her at the corner just before I got\nto the house, a few minutes ago, and after we'd said howdy-do to each\nother, she kept hold of my hand and looked as though she was going to\ncry. She seemed to be trying to say something, and choking----\"\n\n\"But I don't think that's so very queer, Clara. She knew you in school,\ndidn't she?\"\n\n\"Yes, but----\"\n\n\"And she hadn't seen you for so many years, I think it's perfectly\nnatural she----\"\n\n\"Wait! She stood there squeezing my hand, and struggling to get her\nvoice--and I got really embarrassed--and then finally she said, in a\nkind of tearful whisper, 'Be of good cheer--this trial will pass!'\"\n\n\"How queer!\" exclaimed Margaret.\n\nPenrod sighed, and returned somewhat absently to his soup.\n\n\"Well, I don't know,\" said Mrs. Schofield thoughtfully. \"Of course she's\nheard about the outbreak of measles in Dayton, since they had to close\nthe schools, and she knows you live there----\"\n\n\"But doesn't it seem a VERY exaggerated way,\" suggested Margaret, \"to\ntalk about measles?\"\n\n\"Wait!\" begged Aunt Clara. \"After she said that, she said something even\nqueerer, and then put her handkerchief to her eyes and hurried away.\"\n\nPenrod laid down his spoon again and moved his chair slightly back from\nthe table. A spirit of prophecy was upon him: he knew that someone was\ngoing to ask a question which he felt might better remain unspoken.\n\n\"What WAS the other thing she said?\" Mr. Schofield inquired, thus\nimmediately fulfilling his son's premonition.\n\n\"She said,\" returned Mrs. Farry slowly, looking about the table, \"she\nsaid, 'I know that Penrod is a great, great comfort to you!'\"\n\nThere was a general exclamation of surprise. It was a singular thing,\nand in no manner may it be considered complimentary to Penrod, that this\nspeech of Miss Spence's should have immediately confirmed Mrs. Farry's\ndoubts about her in the minds of all his family.\n\nMr. Schofield shook his head pityingly.\n\n\"I'm afraid she's a goner,\" he went so far as to say.\n\n\"Of all the weird ideas!\" cried Margaret.\n\n\"I never heard anything like it in my life!\" Mrs. Schofield exclaimed.\n\"Was that ALL she said?\"\n\n\"Every word!\"\n\nPenrod again resumed attention to his soup. His mother looked at him\ncuriously, and then, struck by a sudden thought, gathered the glances of\nthe adults of the table by a significant movement of the head, and, by\nanother, conveyed an admonition to drop the subject until later. Miss\nSpence was Penrod's teacher: it was better, for many reasons, not\nto discuss the subject of her queerness before him. This was Mrs.\nSchofield's thought at the time. Later she had another, and it kept her\nawake.\n\nThe next afternoon, Mr. Schofield, returning at five o'clock from the\ncares of the day, found the house deserted, and sat down to read his\nevening paper in what appeared to be an uninhabited apartment known to\nits own world as the \"drawing-room.\" A sneeze, unexpected both to him\nand the owner, informed him of the presence of another person.\n\n\"Where are you, Penrod?\" the parent asked, looking about.\n\n\"Here,\" said Penrod meekly.\n\nStooping, Mr. Schofield discovered his son squatting under the piano,\nnear an open window--his wistful Duke lying beside him.\n\n\"What are you doing there?\"\n\n\"Me?\"\n\n\"Why under the piano?\"\n\n\"Well,\" the boy returned, with grave sweetness, \"I was just kind of\nsitting here--thinking.\"\n\n\"All right.\" Mr. Schofield, rather touched, returned to the digestion of\na murder, his back once more to the piano; and Penrod silently drew\nfrom beneath his jacket (where he had slipped it simultaneously with\nthe sneeze) a paper-backed volume entitled: \"Slimsy, the Sioux City\nSquealer, or, 'Not Guilty, Your Honor.'\"\n\nIn this manner the reading-club continued in peace, absorbed, contented,\nthe world well forgot--until a sudden, violently irritated slam-bang of\nthe front door startled the members; and Mrs. Schofield burst into the\nroom and threw herself into a chair, moaning.\n\n\"What's the matter, mamma?\" asked her husband laying aside his paper.\n\n\"Henry Passloe Schofield,\" returned the lady, \"I don't know what IS to\nbe done with that boy; I do NOT!\"\n\n\"You mean Penrod?\"\n\n\"Who else could I mean?\" She sat up, exasperated, to stare at him.\n\"Henry Passloe Schofield, you've got to take this matter in your\nhands--it's beyond me!\"\n\n\"Well, what has he----\"\n\n\"Last night I got to thinking,\" she began rapidly, \"about what Clara\ntold us--thank Heaven she and Margaret and little Clara have gone to tea\nat Cousin Charlotte's!--but they'll be home soon--about what she said\nabout Miss Spence----\"\n\n\"You mean about Penrod's being a comfort?\"\n\n\"Yes, and I kept thinking and thinking and thinking about it till I\ncouldn't stand it any----\"\n\n\"By GEORGE!\" shouted Mr. Schofield startlingly, stooping to look\nunder the piano. A statement that he had suddenly remembered his son's\npresence would be lacking in accuracy, for the highly sensitized Penrod\nwas, in fact, no longer present. No more was Duke, his faithful dog.\n\n\"What's the matter?\"\n\n\"Nothing,\" he returned, striding to the open window and looking out. \"Go\non.\"\n\n\"Oh,\" she moaned, \"it must be kept from Clara--and I'll never hold up my\nhead again if John Farry ever hears of it!\"\n\n\"Hears of WHAT?\"\n\n\"Well, I just couldn't stand it, I got so curious; and I thought of\ncourse if Miss Spence HAD become a little unbalanced it was my duty to\nknow it, as Penrod's mother and she his teacher; so I thought I would\njust call on her at her apartment after school and have a chat and see\nand I did and--oh----\"\n\n\"Well?\"\n\n\"I've just come from there, and she told me--she told me! Oh, I've NEVER\nknown anything like this!\"\n\n\"WHAT did she tell you?\"\n\nMrs. Schofield, making a great effort, managed to assume a temporary\nappearance of calm. \"Henry,\" she said solemnly, \"bear this in mind:\nwhatever you do to Penrod, it must be done in some place when Clara\nwon't hear it. But the first thing to do is to find him.\"\n\nWithin view of the window from which Mr. Schofield was gazing was the\nclosed door of the storeroom in the stable, and just outside this door\nDuke was performing a most engaging trick.\n\nHis young master had taught Duke to \"sit up and beg\" when he wanted\nanything, and if that didn't get it, to \"speak.\" Duke was facing the\nclosed door and sitting up and begging, and now he also spoke--in a\nloud, clear bark.\n\nThere was an open transom over the door, and from this descended--hurled\nby an unseen agency--a can half filled with old paint.\n\nIt caught the small besieger of the door on his thoroughly surprised\nright ear, encouraged him to some remarkable acrobatics, and turned\nlarge portions of him a dull blue. Allowing only a moment to perplexity,\nand deciding, after a single and evidently unappetizing experiment,\nnot to cleanse himself of paint, the loyal animal resumed his quaint,\nupright posture.\n\nMr. Schofield seated himself on the window-sill, whence he could keep in\nview that pathetic picture of unrequited love.\n\n\"Go on with your story, mamma,\" he said. \"I think I can find Penrod when\nwe want him.\"\n\nAnd a few minutes later he added, \"And I think I know the place to do it\nin.\"\n\nAgain the faithful voice of Duke was heard, pleading outside the bolted\ndoor.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XII MISS RENNSDALE ACCEPTS\n\n\"One-two-three; one-two-three--glide!\" said Professor Bartet,\nemphasizing his instructions by a brisk collision of his palms at\n\"glide.\" \"One-two-three; one-two-three--glide!\"\n\nThe school week was over, at last, but Penrod's troubles were not.\n\nRound and round the ballroom went the seventeen struggling little\ncouples of the Friday Afternoon Dancing Class. Round and round went\ntheir reflections with them, swimming rhythmically in the polished, dark\nfloor--white and blue and pink for the girls; black, with dabs of white,\nfor the white-collared, white-gloved boys; and sparks and slivers\nof high light everywhere as the glistening pumps flickered along the\nsurface like a school of flying fish. Every small pink face--with one\nexception--was painstaking and set for duty. It was a conscientious\nlittle merry-go-round.\n\n\"One-two-three; one-two-three--glide! One-two-three;\none-two-three--glide! One-two-th--Ha! Mister Penrod Schofield, you lose\nthe step. Your left foot! No, no! This is the left! See--like me! Now\nagain! One-two-three; one-two-three--glide! Better! Much better! Again!\nOne-two-three; one-two-three--gl--Stop! Mr. Penrod Schofield, this\ndancing class is provided by the kind parents of the pupilses as much\nto learn the mannerss of good societies as to dance. You think you shall\never see a gentleman in good societies to tickle his partner in the\ndance till she say Ouch? Never! I assure you it is not done. Again! Now\nthen! Piano, please! One-two-three; one-two-three--glide! Mr. Penrod\nSchofield, your right foot--your right foot! No, no! Stop!\"\n\nThe merry-go-round came to a standstill.\n\n\"Mr. Penrod Schofield and partner\"--Professor Bartet wiped his\nbrow--\"will you kindly observe me? One-two-three--glide! So! Now\nthen--no; you will please keep your places, ladies and gentlemen. Mr.\nPenrod Schofield, I would puttickly like your attention, this is for\nyou!\"\n\n\"Pickin' on me again!\" murmured the smouldering Penrod to his small,\nunsympathetic partner. \"Can't let me alone a minute!\"\n\n\"Mister Georgie Bassett, please step to the centre,\" said the professor.\n\nMr. Bassett complied with modest alacrity.\n\n\"Teacher's pet!\" whispered Penrod hoarsely. He had nothing but contempt\nfor Georgie Bassett. The parents, guardians, aunts, uncles, cousins,\ngovernesses, housemaids, cooks, chauffeurs and coachmen, appertaining to\nthe members of the dancing class, all dwelt in the same part of town and\nshared certain communal theories; and among the most firmly established\nwas that which maintained Georgie Bassett to be the Best Boy in Town.\nContrariwise, the unfortunate Penrod, largely because of his recent\ndazzling but disastrous attempts to control forces far beyond him,\nhad been given a clear title as the Worst Boy in Town. (Population,\n135,000.) To precisely what degree his reputation was the product of\nhis own energies cannot be calculated. It was Marjorie Jones who first\napplied the description, in its definite simplicity, the day after the\n\"pageant,\" and, possibly, her frequent and effusive repetitions of it,\neven upon wholly irrelevant occasions, had something to do with its\nprompt and quite perfect acceptance by the community.\n\n\"Miss Rennsdale will please do me the fafer to be Mr. Georgie Bassett's\npartner for one moment,\" said Professor Bartet. \"Mr. Penrod Schofield\nwill please give his attention. Miss Rennsdale and Mister Bassett,\nobliche me, if you please. Others please watch. Piano, please! Now\nthen!\"\n\nMiss Rennsdale, aged eight--the youngest lady in the class--and Mr.\nGeorgie Bassett one-two-three--glided with consummate technique for the\nbetter education of Penrod Schofield. It is possible that amber-curled,\nbeautiful Marjorie felt that she, rather than Miss Rennsdale, might have\nbeen selected as the example of perfection--or perhaps her remark was\nonly woman.\n\n\"Stopping everybody for that boy!\" said Marjorie.\n\nPenrod, across the circle from her, heard distinctly--nay, he was\nobviously intended to hear; but over a scorched heart he preserved a\nstoic front. Whereupon Marjorie whispered derisively in the ear of her\npartner, Maurice Levy, who wore a pearl pin in his tie.\n\n\"Again, please, everybody--ladies and gentlemen!\" cried Professor\nBartet. \"Mister Penrod Schofield, if you please, pay puttickly\nattention! Piano, please! Now then!\"\n\nThe lesson proceeded. At the close of the hour Professor Bartet stepped\nto the centre of the room and clapped his hands for attention.\n\n\"Ladies and gentlemen, if you please to seat yourselves quietly,\" he\nsaid; \"I speak to you now about to-morrow. As you all know--Mister\nPenrod Schofield, I am not sticking up in a tree outside that window! If\nyou do me the fafer to examine I am here, insides of the room. Now then!\nPiano, pl--no, I do not wish the piano! As you all know, this is the\nlast lesson of the season until next October. Tomorrow is our special\nafternoon; beginning three o'clock, we dance the cotillon. But this\nafternoon comes the test of mannerss. You must see if each know how to\nmake a little formal call like a grown-up people in good societies. You\nhave had good, perfect instruction; let us see if we know how to perform\nlike societies ladies and gentlemen twenty-six years of age.\n\n\"Now, when you're dismissed each lady will go to her home and prepare to\nreceive a call. The gentlemen will allow the ladies time to reach their\nhouses and to prepare to receive callers; then each gentleman will call\nupon a lady and beg the pleasure to engage her for a partner in the\ncotillon to-morrow. You all know the correct, proper form for these\ncalls, because didn't I work teaching you last lesson till I thought\nI would drop dead? Yes! Now each gentleman, if he reach a lady's house\nbehind some-other gentleman, then he must go somewhere else to a lady's\nhouse, and keep calling until he secures a partner; so, as there are the\nsame number of both, everybody shall have a partner.\n\n\"Now please all remember that if in case--Mister Penrod Schofield, when\nyou make your call on a lady I beg you to please remember that gentlemen\nin good societies do not scratch the back in societies as you appear to\nattempt; so please allow the hands to rest carelessly in the lap. Now\nplease all remember that if in case--Mister Penrod Schofield, if you\nplease! Gentlemen in societies do not scratch the back by causing\nfrictions between it and the back of your chair, either! Nobody else is\nitching here! _I_ do not itch! I cannot talk if you must itch! In the\nname of Heaven, why must you always itch? What was I saying? Where ah!\nthe cotillon--yes! For the cotillon it is important nobody shall fail\nto be here tomorrow; but if any one should be so very ill he cannot\npossible come he must write a very polite note of regrets in the form\nof good societies to his engaged partner to excuse himself--and he must\ngive the reason.\n\n\"I do not think anybody is going to be that sick to-morrow--no; and I\nwill find out and report to parents if anybody would try it and not be.\nBut it is important for the cotillon that we have an even number of so\nmany couples, and if it should happen that someone comes and her partner\nhas sent her a polite note that he has genuine reasons why he cannot\ncome, the note must be handed at once to me, so that I arrange some\nother partner. Is all understood? Yes. The gentlemen will remember now\nto allow the ladies plenty of time to reach their houses and prepare\nto receive calls. Ladies and gentlemen, I thank you for your polite\nattention.\"\n\nIt was nine blocks to the house of Marjorie Jones; but Penrod did it in\nless than seven minutes from a flying start--such was his haste to lay\nhimself and his hand for the cotillon at the feet of one who had so\nrecently spoken unamiably of him in public. He had not yet learned that\nthe only safe male rebuke to a scornful female is to stay away from\nher--especially if that is what she desires. However, he did not wish\nto rebuke her; simply and ardently he wished to dance the cotillon with\nher. Resentment was swallowed up in hope.\n\nThe fact that Miss Jones' feeling for him bore a striking resemblance to\nthat of Simon Legree for Uncle Tom, deterred him not at all. Naturally,\nhe was not wholly unconscious that when he should lay his hand for the\ncotillon at her feet it would be her inward desire to step on it; but\nhe believed that if he were first in the field Marjorie would have to\naccept. These things are governed by law.\n\nIt was his fond intention to reach her house even in advance of herself,\nand with grave misgiving he beheld a large automobile at rest before the\nsainted gate. Forthwith, a sinking feeling became a portent inside him\nas little Maurice Levy emerged from the front door of the house.\n\n\"'Lo, Penrod!\" said Maurice airily.\n\n\"What you doin' in there?\" inquired Penrod.\n\n\"In where?\"\n\n\"In Marjorie's.\"\n\n\"Well, what shouldn't I be doin' in Marjorie's?\" Mr. Levy returned\nindignantly. \"I was inviting her for my partner in the cotillon--what\nyou s'pose?\"\n\n\"You haven't got any right to!\" Penrod protested hotly. \"You can't do it\nyet.\"\n\n\"I did do it yet!\" said Maurice.\n\n\"You can't!\" insisted Penrod. \"You got to allow them time first. He said\nthe ladies had to be allowed time to prepare.\"\n\n\"Well, ain't she had time to prepare?\"\n\n\"When?\" Penrod demanded, stepping close to his rival threateningly. \"I'd\nlike to know when----\"\n\n\"When?\" echoed the other with shrill triumph. \"When? Why, in mamma's\nsixty-horse powder limousine automobile, what Marjorie came home with me\nin! I guess that's when!\"\n\nAn impulse in the direction of violence became visible upon the\ncountenance of Penrod.\n\n\"I expect you need some wiping down,\" he began dangerously. \"I'll give\nyou sumpthing to remem----\"\n\n\"Oh, you will!\" Maurice cried with astonishing truculence, contorting\nhimself into what he may have considered a posture of defense. \"Let's\nsee you try it, you--you itcher!\"\n\nFor the moment, defiance from such a source was dumfounding. Then,\nluckily, Penrod recollected something and glanced at the automobile.\n\nPerceiving therein not only the alert chauffeur but the magnificent\noutlines of Mrs. Levy, his enemy's mother, he manoeuvred his lifted hand\nso that it seemed he had but meant to scratch his ear.\n\n\"Well, I guess I better be goin',\" he said casually. \"See you tomorrow!\"\n\nMaurice mounted to the lap of luxury, and Penrod strolled away with an\nassumption of careless ease which was put to a severe strain when, from\nthe rear window of the car, a sudden protuberance in the nature of a\nsmall, dark, curly head shrieked scornfully:\n\n\"Go on--you big stiff!\"\n\nThe cotillon loomed dismally before Penrod now; but it was his duty\nto secure a partner and he set about it with a dreary heart. The delay\noccasioned by his fruitless attempt on Marjorie and the altercation with\nhis enemy at her gate had allowed other ladies ample time to prepare for\ncallers--and to receive them. Sadly he went from house to house, finding\nthat he had been preceded in one after the other. Altogether his\nhand for the cotillon was declined eleven times that afternoon on the\nlegitimate ground of previous engagement. This, with Marjorie, scored\noff all except five of the seventeen possible partners; and four of the\nfive were also sealed away from him, as he learned in chance encounters\nwith other boys upon the street.\n\nOne lady alone remained; he bowed to the inevitable and entered this\nlorn damsel's gate at twilight with an air of great discouragement. The\nlorn damsel was Miss Rennsdale, aged eight.\n\nWe are apt to forget that there are actually times of life when too much\nyouth is a handicap. Miss Rennsdale was beautiful; she danced like a\npremiere; she had every charm but age. On that account alone had she\nbeen allowed so much time to prepare to receive callers that it was only\nby the most manful efforts she could keep her lip from trembling.\n\nA decorous maid conducted the long-belated applicant to her where she\nsat upon a sofa beside a nursery governess. The decorous maid announced\nhim composedly as he made his entrance.\n\n\"Mr. Penrod Schofield!\"\n\nMiss Rennsdale suddenly burst into loud sobs.\n\n\"Oh!\" she wailed. \"I just knew it would be him!\"\n\nThe decorous maid's composure vanished at once--likewise her decorum.\nShe clapped her hand over her mouth and fled, uttering sounds. The\ngoverness, however, set herself to comfort her heartbroken charge, and\npresently succeeded in restoring Miss Rennsdale to a semblance of that\npoise with which a lady receives callers and accepts invitations to\ndance cotillons. But she continued to sob at intervals.\n\nFeeling himself at perhaps a disadvantage, Penrod made offer of his\nhand for the morrow with a little embarrassment. Following the form\nprescribed by Professor Bartet, he advanced several paces toward the\nstricken lady and bowed formally.\n\n\"I hope,\" he said by rote, \"you're well, and your parents also in good\nhealth. May I have the pleasure of dancing the cotillon as your partner\nt'-morrow afternoon?\"\n\nThe wet eyes of Miss Rennsdale searched his countenance without\npleasure, and a shudder wrung her small shoulders; but the governess\nwhispered to her instructively, and she made a great effort.\n\n\"I thu-thank you fu-for your polite invu-invu-invutation; and I ac----\"\nThus far she progressed when emotion overcame her again. She beat\nfrantically upon the sofa with fists and heels. \"Oh, I DID want it to be\nGeorgie Bassett!\"\n\n\"No, no, no!\" said the governess, and whispered urgently, whereupon Miss\nRennsdale was able to complete her acceptance.\n\n\"And I ac-accept wu-with pu-pleasure!\" she moaned, and immediately,\nuttering a loud yell, flung herself face downward upon the sofa,\nclutching her governess convulsively.\n\nSomewhat disconcerted, Penrod bowed again.\n\n\"I thank you for your polite acceptance,\" he murmured hurriedly; \"and\nI trust--I trust--I forget. Oh, yes--I trust we shall have a most\nenjoyable occasion. Pray present my compliments to your parents; and I\nmust now wish you a very good afternoon.\"\n\nConcluding these courtly demonstrations with another bow he withdrew in\nfair order, though thrown into partial confusion in the hall by a final\nwail from his crushed hostess:\n\n\"Oh! Why couldn't it be anybody but HIM!\"\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIII THE SMALLPOX MEDICINE\n\nNext morning Penrod woke in profound depression of spirit, the cotillon\nominous before him. He pictured Marjorie Jones and Maurice, graceful and\nlight-hearted, flitting by him fairylike, loosing silvery laughter upon\nhim as he engaged in the struggle to keep step with a partner about four\nyears and two feet his junior. It was hard enough for Penrod to keep\nstep with a girl of his size.\n\nThe foreboding vision remained with him, increasing in vividness,\nthroughout the forenoon. He found himself unable to fix his mind\nupon anything else, and, having bent his gloomy footsteps toward the\nsawdust-box, after breakfast, presently descended therefrom, abandoning\nHarold Ramorez where he had left him the preceding Saturday. Then, as he\nsat communing silently with wistful Duke, in the storeroom, coquettish\nfortune looked his way.\n\nIt was the habit of Penrod's mother not to throw away anything\nwhatsoever until years of storage conclusively proved there would never\nbe a use for it; but a recent house-cleaning had ejected upon the back\nporch a great quantity of bottles and other paraphernalia of medicine,\nleft over from illnesses in the family during a period of several years.\nThis debris Della, the cook, had collected in a large market basket,\nadding to it some bottles of flavouring extracts that had proved\nunpopular in the household; also, old catsup bottles; a jar or two of\npreserves gone bad; various rejected dental liquids--and other things.\nAnd she carried the basket out to the storeroom in the stable.\n\nPenrod was at first unaware of what lay before him. Chin on palms, he\nsat upon the iron rim of a former aquarium and stared morbidly through\nthe open door at the checkered departing back of Della. It was another\nwho saw treasure in the basket she had left.\n\nMr. Samuel Williams, aged eleven, and congenial to Penrod in years,\nsex, and disposition, appeared in the doorway, shaking into foam a black\nliquid within a pint bottle, stoppered by a thumb.\n\n\"Yay, Penrod!\" the visitor gave greeting.\n\n\"Yay,\" said Penrod with slight enthusiasm. \"What you got?\"\n\n\"Lickrish water.\"\n\n\"Drinkin's!\" demanded Penrod promptly. This is equivalent to the cry of\n\"Biters\" when an apple is shown, and establishes unquestionable title.\n\n\"Down to there!\" stipulated Sam, removing his thumb to affix it firmly\nas a mark upon the side of the bottle a check upon gormandizing that\nremained carefully in place while Penrod drank.\n\nThis rite concluded, the visitor's eye fell upon the basket deposited by\nDella. He emitted tokens of pleasure.\n\n\"Looky! Looky! Looky there! That ain't any good pile o' stuff--oh, no!\"\n\n\"What for?\"\n\n\"Drug store!\" shouted Sam. \"We'll be partners----\"\n\n\"Or else,\" Penrod suggested, \"I'll run the drug store and you be a\ncustomer----\"\n\n\"No! Partners!\" insisted Sam with such conviction that his host yielded;\nand within ten minutes the drug store was doing a heavy business with\nimaginary patrons. Improvising counters with boards and boxes, and\nsetting forth a very druggish-looking stock from the basket, each of the\npartners found occupation to his taste--Penrod as salesman and Sam as\nprescription clerk.\n\n\"Here you are, madam!\" said Penrod briskly, offering a vial of Sam's\nmixing to an invisible matron. \"This will cure your husband in a few\nminutes. Here's the camphor, mister. Call again! Fifty cents' worth of\npills? Yes, madam. There you are! Hurry up with that dose for the nigger\nlady, Bill!\"\n\n\"I'll 'tend to it soon's I get time, Jim,\" replied the prescription\nclerk. \"I'm busy fixin' the smallpox medicine for the sick policeman\ndowntown.\"\n\nPenrod stopped sales to watch this operation. Sam had found an empty\npint bottle and, with the pursed lips and measuring eye of a great\nchemist, was engaged in filling it from other bottles.\n\nFirst, he poured into it some of the syrup from the condemned preserves;\nand a quantity of extinct hair oil; next the remaining contents of a\ndozen small vials cryptically labelled with physicians' prescriptions;\nthen some remnants of catsup and essence of beef and what was left\nin several bottles of mouthwash; after that a quantity of rejected\nflavouring extract--topping off by shaking into the mouth of the\nbottle various powders from small pink papers, relics of Mr. Schofield's\ninfluenza of the preceding winter.\n\nSam examined the combination with concern, appearing unsatisfied. \"We\ngot to make that smallpox medicine good and strong!\" he remarked; and,\nhis artistic sense growing more powerful than his appetite, he poured\nabout a quarter of the licorice water into the smallpox medicine.\n\n\"What you doin'?\" protested Penrod. \"What you want to waste that\nlickrish water for? We ought to keep it to drink when we're tired.\"\n\n\"I guess I got a right to use my own lickrish water any way I want to,\"\nreplied the prescription clerk. \"I tell you, you can't get smallpox\nmedicine too strong. Look at her now!\" He held the bottle up admiringly.\n\"She's as black as lickrish. I bet you she's strong all right!\"\n\n\"I wonder how she tastes?\" said Penrod thoughtfully.\n\n\"Don't smell so awful much,\" observed Sam, sniffing the bottle--\"a good\ndeal, though!\"\n\n\"I wonder if it'd make us sick to drink it?\" said Penrod.\n\nSam looked at the bottle thoughtfully; then his eye, wandering, fell\nupon Duke, placidly curled up near the door, and lighted with the advent\nof an idea new to him, but old, old in the world--older than Egypt!\n\n\"Let's give Duke some!\" he cried.\n\nThat was the spark. They acted immediately; and a minute later Duke,\nreleased from custody with a competent potion of the smallpox medicine\ninside him, settled conclusively their doubts concerning its effect. The\npatient animal, accustomed to expect the worst at all times, walked out\nof the door, shaking his head with an air of considerable annoyance,\nopening and closing his mouth with singular energy--and so repeatedly\nthat they began to count the number of times he did it. Sam thought it\nwas thirty-nine times, but Penrod had counted forty-one before other and\nmore striking symptoms appeared.\n\nAll things come from Mother Earth and must return--Duke restored much\nat this time. Afterward, he ate heartily of grass; and then, over his\nshoulder, he bent upon his master one inscrutable look and departed\nfeebly to the front yard.\n\nThe two boys had watched the process with warm interest. \"I told you she\nwas strong!\" said Mr. Williams proudly.\n\n\"Yes, sir--she is!\" Penrod was generous enough to admit. \"I expect she's\nstrong enough----\" He paused in thought, and added:\n\n\"We haven't got a horse any more.\"\n\n\"I bet you she'd fix him if you had!\" said Sam. And it may be that this\nwas no idle boast.\n\nThe pharmaceutical game was not resumed; the experiment upon Duke had\nmade the drug store commonplace and stimulated the appetite for stronger\nmeat. Lounging in the doorway, the near-vivisectionists sipped licorice\nwater alternately and conversed.\n\n\"I bet some of our smallpox medicine would fix ole P'fessor Bartet all\nright!\" quoth Penrod. \"I wish he'd come along and ask us for some.\"\n\n\"We could tell him it was lickrish water,\" added Sam, liking the idea.\n\"The two bottles look almost the same.\"\n\n\"Then we wouldn't have to go to his ole cotillon this afternoon,\" Penrod\nsighed. \"There wouldn't be any!\"\n\n\"Who's your partner, Pen?\"\n\n\"Who's yours?\"\n\n\"Who's yours? I just ast you.\"\n\n\"Oh, she's all right!\" And Penrod smiled boastfully.\n\n\"I bet you wanted to dance with Marjorie!\" said his friend.\n\n\"Me? I wouldn't dance with that girl if she begged me to! I wouldn't\ndance with her to save her from drowning! I wouldn't da----\"\n\n\"Oh, no--you wouldn't!\" interrupted Mr. Williams skeptically.\n\nPenrod changed his tone and became persuasive.\n\n\"Looky here, Sam,\" he said confidentially. \"I've got 'a mighty nice\npartner, but my mother don't like her mother; and so I've been thinking\nI better not dance with her. I'll tell you what I'll do; I've got a\nmighty good sling in the house, and I'll give it to you if you'll change\npartners.\"\n\n\"You want to change and you don't even know who mine is!\" said Sam, and\nhe made the simple though precocious deduction: \"Yours must be a lala!\nWell, I invited Mabel Rorebeck, and she wouldn't let me change if\nI wanted to. Mabel Rorebeck'd rather dance with me,\" he continued\nserenely, \"than anybody; and she said she was awful afraid you'd ast\nher. But I ain't goin' to dance with Mabel after all, because this\nmorning she sent me a note about her uncle died last night--and P'fessor\nBartet'll have to find me a partner after I get there. Anyway I bet you\nhaven't got any sling--and I bet your partner's Baby Rennsdale!\"\n\n\"What if she is?\" said Penrod. \"She's good enough for ME!\" This speech\nheld not so much modesty in solution as intended praise of the lady.\nTaken literally, however, it was an understatement of the facts and\nwholly insincere.\n\n\"Yay!\" jeered Mr. Williams, upon whom his friend's hypocrisy was quite\nwasted. \"How can your mother not like her mother? Baby Rennsdale hasn't\ngot any mother! You and her'll be a sight!\"\n\nThat was Penrod's own conviction; and with this corroboration of it\nhe grew so spiritless that he could offer no retort. He slid to a\ndespondent sitting posture upon the door sill and gazed wretchedly upon\nthe ground, while his companion went to replenish the licorice water at\nthe hydrant--enfeebling the potency of the liquor no doubt, but making\nup for that in quantity.\n\n\"Your mother goin' with you to the cotillon?\" asked Sam when he\nreturned.\n\n\"No. She's goin' to meet me there. She's goin' somewhere first.\"\n\n\"So's mine,\" said Sam. \"I'll come by for you.\"\n\n\"All right.\"\n\n\"I better go before long. Noon whistles been blowin'.\"\n\n\"All right,\" Penrod repeated dully.\n\nSam turned to go, but paused. A new straw hat was peregrinating along\nthe fence near the two boys. This hat belonged to someone passing upon\nthe sidewalk of the cross-street; and the someone was Maurice Levy.\nEven as they stared, he halted and regarded them over the fence with two\nsmall, dark eyes.\n\nFate had brought about this moment and this confrontation.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIV MAURICE LEVY'S CONSTITUTION\n\n\"Lo, Sam!\" said Maurice cautiously. \"What you doin'?\"\n\nPenrod at that instant had a singular experience--an intellectual shock\nlike a flash of fire in the brain. Sitting in darkness, a great light\nflooded him with wild brilliance. He gasped!\n\n\"What you doin'?\" repeated Mr. Levy.\n\nPenrod sprang to his feet, seized the licorice bottle, shook it with\nstoppering thumb, and took a long drink with histrionic unction.\n\n\"What you doin'?\" asked Maurice for the third time, Sam Williams not\nhaving decided upon a reply.\n\nIt was Penrod who answered.\n\n\"Drinkin' lickrish water,\" he said simply, and wiped his mouth with such\ndelicious enjoyment that Sam's jaded thirst was instantly stimulated. He\ntook the bottle eagerly from Penrod.\n\n\"A-a-h!\" exclaimed Penrod, smacking his lips. \"That was a good un!\"\n\nThe eyes above the fence glistened.\n\n\"Ask him if he don't want some,\" Penrod whispered urgently. \"Quit\ndrinkin' it! It's no good any more. Ask him!\"\n\n\"What for?\" demanded the practical Sam.\n\n\"Go on and ask him!\" whispered Penrod fiercely.\n\n\"Say, M'rice!\" Sam called, waving the bottle. \"Want some?\"\n\n\"Bring it here!\" Mr. Levy requested.\n\n\"Come on over and get some,\" returned Sam, being prompted.\n\n\"I can't. Penrod Schofield's after me.\"\n\n\"No, I'm not,\" said Penrod reassuringly. \"I won't touch you, M'rice.\nI made up with you yesterday afternoon--don't you remember? You're all\nright with me, M'rice.\"\n\nMaurice looked undecided. But Penrod had the delectable bottle again,\nand tilting it above his lips, affected to let the cool liquid purl\nenrichingly into him, while with his right hand he stroked his middle\nfacade ineffably. Maurice's mouth watered.\n\n\"Here!\" cried Sam, stirred again by the superb manifestations of his\nfriend. \"Gimme that!\"\n\nPenrod brought the bottle down, surprisingly full after so much gusto,\nbut withheld it from Sam; and the two scuffled for its possession.\nNothing in the world could have so worked upon the desire of the\nyearning observer beyond the fence.\n\n\"Honest, Penrod--you ain't goin' to touch me if I come in your yard?\" he\ncalled. \"Honest?\"\n\n\"Cross my heart!\" answered Penrod, holding the bottle away from Sam.\n\"And we'll let you drink all you want.\"\n\nMaurice hastily climbed the fence, and while he was thus occupied Mr.\nSamuel Williams received a great enlightenment. With startling rapidity\nPenrod, standing just outside the storeroom door, extended his arm\nwithin the room, deposited the licorice water upon the counter of the\ndrug store, seized in its stead the bottle of smallpox medicine, and\nextended it cordially toward the advancing Maurice.\n\nGenius is like that--great, simple, broad strokes!\n\nDazzled, Mr. Samuel Williams leaned against the wall. He had\nthe sensations of one who comes suddenly into the presence of a\nchef-d'oeuvre. Perhaps his first coherent thought was that almost\nuniversal one on such huge occasions: \"Why couldn't _I_ have done that!\"\n\nSam might have been even more dazzled had he guessed that he figured not\naltogether as a spectator in the sweeping and magnificent conception of\nthe new Talleyrand. Sam had no partner for the cotillon. If Maurice\nwas to be absent from that festivity--as it began to seem he might\nbe--Penrod needed a male friend to take care of Miss Rennsdale and he\nbelieved he saw his way to compel Mr. Williams to be that male friend.\nFor this he relied largely upon the prospective conduct of Miss\nRennsdale when he should get the matter before her--he was inclined to\nbelieve she would favour the exchange. As for Talleyrand Penrod himself,\nhe was going to dance that cotillon with Marjorie Jones!\n\n\"You can have all you can drink at one pull, M'rice,\" said Penrod\nkindly.\n\n\"You said I could have all I want!\" protested Maurice, reaching for the\nbottle.\n\n\"No, I didn't,\" returned Penrod quickly, holding it away from the eager\nhand.\n\n\"He did, too! Didn't he, Sam?\"\n\nSam could not reply; his eyes, fixed upon the bottle, protruded\nstrangely.\n\n\"You heard him--didn't you, Sam?\"\n\n\"Well, if I did say it I didn't mean it!\" said Penrod hastily, quoting\nfrom one of the authorities. \"Looky here, M'rice,\" he continued,\nassuming a more placative and reasoning tone, \"that wouldn't be fair to\nus. I guess we want some of our own lickrish water, don't we? The bottle\nain't much over two-thirds full anyway. What I meant was, you can have\nall you can drink at one pull.\"\n\n\"How do you mean?\"\n\n\"Why, this way: you can gulp all you want, so long as you keep\nswallering; but you can't take the bottle out of your mouth and commence\nagain. Soon's you quit swallering it's Sam's turn.\"\n\n\"No; you can have next, Penrod,\" said Sam.\n\n\"Well, anyway, I mean M'rice has to give the bottle up the minute he\nstops swallering.\"\n\nCraft appeared upon the face of Maurice, like a poster pasted on a wall.\n\n\"I can drink so long I don't stop swallering?\"\n\n\"Yes; that's it.\"\n\n\"All right!\" he cried. \"Gimme the bottle!\"\n\nAnd Penrod placed it in his hand.\n\n\"You promise to let me drink until I quit swallering?\" Maurice insisted.\n\n\"Yes!\" said both boys together.\n\nWith that, Maurice placed the bottle to his lips and began to drink.\nPenrod and Sam leaned forward in breathless excitement. They had feared\nMaurice might smell the contents of the bottle; but that danger was\npast--this was the crucial moment. Their fondest hope was that he would\nmake his first swallow a voracious one--it was impossible to imagine a\nsecond. They expected one big, gulping swallow and then an explosion,\nwith fountain effects.\n\nLittle they knew the mettle of their man! Maurice swallowed once; he\nswallowed twice--and thrice--and he continued to swallow! No Adam's\napple was sculptured on that juvenile throat, but the internal progress\nof the liquid was not a whit the less visible. His eyes gleamed with\ncunning and malicious triumph, sidewise, at the stunned conspirators;\nhe was fulfilling the conditions of the draught, not once breaking the\nthread of that marvelous swallering.\n\nHis audience stood petrified. Already Maurice had swallowed more than\nthey had given Duke and still the liquor receded in the uplifted bottle!\nAnd now the clear glass gleamed above the dark contents full half the\nvessel's length--and Maurice went on drinking! Slowly the clear glass\nincreased in its dimensions--slowly the dark diminished.\n\nSam Williams made a horrified movement to check him--but Maurice\nprotested passionately with his disengaged arm, and made vehement vocal\nnoises remindful of the contract; whereupon Sam desisted and watched the\ncontinuing performance in a state of grisly fascination.\n\nMaurice drank it all! He drained the last drop and threw the bottle in\nthe air, uttering loud ejaculations of triumph and satisfaction.\n\n\"Hah!\" he cried, blowing out his cheeks, inflating his chest, squaring\nhis shoulders, patting his stomach, and wiping his mouth contentedly.\n\"Hah! Aha! Waha! Wafwah! But that was good!\"\n\nThe two boys stood looking at him in stupor.\n\n\"Well, I gotta say this,\" said Maurice graciously: \"You stuck to your\nbargain all right and treated me fair.\"\n\nStricken with a sudden horrible suspicion, Penrod entered the storeroom\nin one stride and lifted the bottle of licorice water to his nose--then\nto his lips. It was weak, but good; he had made no mistake. And Maurice\nhad really drained--to the dregs--the bottle of old hair tonics, dead\ncatsups, syrups of undesirable preserves, condemned extracts of\nvanilla and lemon, decayed chocolate, ex-essence of beef, mixed dental\npreparations, aromatic spirits of ammonia, spirits of nitre, alcohol,\narnica, quinine, ipecac, sal volatile, nux vomica and licorice water--\nwith traces of arsenic, belladonna and strychnine.\n\nPenrod put the licorice water out of sight and turned to face the\nothers. Maurice was seating himself on a box just outside the door and\nhad taken a package of cigarettes from his pocket.\n\n\"Nobody can see me from here, can they?\" he said, striking a match. \"You\nfellers smoke?\"\n\n\"No,\" said Sam, staring at him haggardly.\n\n\"No,\" said Penrod in a whisper.\n\nMaurice lit his cigarette and puffed showily.\n\n\"Well, sir,\" he remarked, \"you fellers are certainly square--I gotta\nsay that much. Honest, Penrod, I thought you was after me! I did\nthink so,\" he added sunnily; \"but now I guess you like me, or else\nyou wouldn't of stuck to it about lettin' me drink it all if I kept on\nswallering.\"\n\nHe chatted on with complete geniality, smoking his cigarette in content.\nAnd as he ran from one topic to another his hearers stared at him in a\nkind of torpor. Never once did they exchange a glance with each other;\ntheir eyes were frozen to Maurice. The cheerful conversationalist made\nit evident that he was not without gratitude.\n\n\"Well,\" he said as he finished his cigarette and rose to go, \"you\nfellers have treated me nice and some day you come over to my yard; I'd\nlike to run with you fellers. You're the kind of fellers I like.\"\n\nPenrod's jaw fell; Sam's mouth had been open all the time. Neither\nspoke.\n\n\"I gotta go,\" observed Maurice, consulting a handsome watch. \"Gotta get\ndressed for the cotillon right after lunch. Come on, Sam. Don't you have\nto go, too?\"\n\nSam nodded dazedly.\n\n\"Well, good-bye, Penrod,\" said Maurice cordially. \"I'm glad you like me\nall right. Come on, Sam.\"\n\nPenrod leaned against the doorpost and with fixed and glazing eyes\nwatched the departure of his two visitors. Maurice was talking volubly,\nwith much gesticulation, as they went; but Sam walked mechanically\nand in silence, staring at his brisk companion and keeping at a little\ndistance from him.\n\nThey passed from sight, Maurice still conversing gayly--and Penrod\nslowly betook himself into the house, his head bowed upon his chest.\n\n\nSome three hours later, Mr. Samuel Williams, waxen clean and in sweet\nraiment, made his reappearance in Penrod's yard, yodelling a code-signal\nto summon forth his friend. He yodelled loud, long, and frequently,\nfinally securing a faint response from the upper air.\n\n\"Where are you?\" shouted Mr. Williams, his roving glance searching\nambient heights. Another low-spirited yodel reaching his ear, he\nperceived the head and shoulders of his friend projecting above the\nroofridge of the stable. The rest of Penrod's body was concealed from\nview, reposing upon the opposite slant of the gable and precariously\nsecured by the crooking of his elbows over the ridge.\n\n\"Yay! What you doin' up there?\"\n\n\"Nothin'.\"\n\n\"You better be careful!\" Sam called. \"You'll slide off and fall down in\nthe alley if you don't look out. I come pert' near it last time we was\nup there. Come on down! Ain't you goin' to the cotillon?\"\n\nPenrod made no reply. Sam came nearer.\n\n\"Say,\" he called up in a guarded voice, \"I went to our telephone a while\nago and ast him how he was feelin', and he said he felt fine!\"\n\n\"So did I,\" said Penrod. \"He told me he felt bully!\"\n\nSam thrust his hands in his pockets and brooded. The opening of the\nkitchen door caused a diversion. It was Della.\n\n\"Mister Penrod,\" she bellowed forthwith, \"come ahn down fr'm up there!\nY'r mamma's at the dancin' class waitin' fer ye, an' she's telephoned\nme they're goin' to begin--an' what's the matter with ye? Come ahn down\nfr'm up there!\"\n\n\"Come on!\" urged Sam. \"We'll be late. There go Maurice and Marjorie\nnow.\"\n\nA glittering car spun by, disclosing briefly a genre picture of Marjorie\nJones in pink, supporting a monstrous sheaf of American Beauty roses.\nMaurice, sitting shining and joyous beside her, saw both boys and waved\nthem a hearty greeting as the car turned the corner.\n\nPenrod uttered some muffled words and then waved both arms--either in\nresponse or as an expression of his condition of mind; it may have\nbeen a gesture of despair. How much intention there was in this\nact--obviously so rash, considering the position he occupied--it\nis impossible to say. Undeniably there must remain a suspicion of\ndeliberate purpose.\n\nDella screamed and Sam shouted. Penrod had disappeared from view.\n\nThe delayed dance was about to begin a most uneven cotillon when Samuel\nWilliams arrived.\n\nMrs. Schofield hurriedly left the ballroom; while Miss Rennsdale,\nflushing with sudden happiness, curtsied profoundly to Professor Bartet\nand obtained his attention.\n\n\"I have telled you fifty times,\" he informed her passionately ere she\nspoke, \"I cannot make no such changes. If your partner comes you have to\ndance with him. You are going to drive me crazy, sure! What is it? What\nnow? What you want?\"\n\nThe damsel curtsied again and handed him the following communication,\naddressed to herself:\n\n\n\"Dear madam Please excuse me from dancing the cotilon with you\nthis afternoon as I have fell off the barn\n\n\"Sincerly yours\n\n\"PENROD SCHOFIELD.\"\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XV THE TWO FAMILIES\n\nPenrod entered the schoolroom, Monday picturesquely leaning upon a man's\ncane shortened to support a cripple approaching the age of twelve. He\narrived about twenty minutes late, limping deeply, his brave young mouth\ndrawn with pain, and the sensation he created must have been a solace to\nhim; the only possible criticism of this entrance being that it was just\na shade too heroic. Perhaps for that reason it failed to stagger Miss\nSpence, a woman so saturated with suspicion that she penalized Penrod\nfor tardiness as promptly and as coldly as if he had been a mere,\nordinary, unmutilated boy. Nor would she entertain any discussion of the\njustice of her ruling. It seemed, almost, that she feared to argue with\nhim.\n\nHowever, the distinction of cane and limp remained to him, consolations\nwhich he protracted far into the week--until Thursday evening, in fact,\nwhen Mr. Schofield, observing from a window his son's pursuit of Duke\nround and round the backyard, confiscated the cane, with the promise\nthat it should not remain idle if he saw Penrod limping again. Thus,\nsucceeding a depressing Friday, another Saturday brought the necessity\nfor new inventions.\n\nIt was a scented morning in apple-blossom time. At about ten of the\nclock Penrod emerged hastily from the kitchen door. His pockets bulged\nabnormally; so did his checks, and he swallowed with difficulty. A\nthreatening mop, wielded by a cooklike arm in a checkered sleeve,\nfollowed him through the doorway, and he was preceded by a small,\nhurried, wistful dog with a warm doughnut in his mouth. The kitchen door\nslammed petulantly, enclosing the sore voice of Della, whereupon Penrod\nand Duke seated themselves upon the pleasant sward and immediately\nconsumed the spoils of their raid.\n\nFrom the cross-street which formed the side boundary of the Schofields'\nample yard came a jingle of harness and the cadenced clatter of a pair\nof trotting horses, and Penrod, looking up, beheld the passing of a\nfat acquaintance, torpid amid the conservative splendours of a rather\nold-fashioned victoria. This was Roderick Magsworth Bitts, Junior, a\nfellow sufferer at the Friday Afternoon Dancing Class, but otherwise not\noften a companion: a home-sheltered lad, tutored privately and preserved\nagainst the coarsening influences of rude comradeship and miscellaneous\ninformation. Heavily overgrown in all physical dimensions, virtuous,\nand placid, this cloistered mutton was wholly uninteresting to Penrod\nSchofield. Nevertheless, Roderick Magsworth Bitts, Junior, was a\npersonage on account of the importance of the Magsworth Bitts family;\nand it was Penrod's destiny to increase Roderick's celebrity far, far\nbeyond its present aristocratic limitations.\n\nThe Magsworth Bittses were important because they were impressive; there\nwas no other reason. And they were impressive because they believed\nthemselves important. The adults of the family were impregnably formal;\nthey dressed with reticent elegance, and wore the same nose and the\nsame expression--an expression which indicated that they knew something\nexquisite and sacred which other people could never know. Other people,\nin their presence, were apt to feel mysteriously ignoble and to\nbecome secretly uneasy about ancestors, gloves, and pronunciation. The\nMagsworth Bitts manner was withholding and reserved, though sometimes\ngracious, granting small smiles as great favours and giving off a\nchilling kind of preciousness. Naturally, when any citizen of the\ncommunity did anything unconventional or improper, or made a mistake, or\nhad a relative who went wrong, that citizen's first and worst fear\nwas that the Magsworth Bittses would hear of it. In fact, this painful\nfamily had for years terrorized the community, though the community\nhad never realized that it was terrorized, and invariably spoke of the\nfamily as the \"most charming circle in town.\" By common consent, Mrs.\nRoderick Magsworth Bitts officiated as the supreme model as well as\ncritic-in-chief of morals and deportment for all the unlucky people\nprosperous enough to be elevated to her acquaintance.\n\nMagsworth was the important part of the name. Mrs. Roderick Magsworth\nBitts was a Magsworth born, herself, and the Magsworth crest decorated\nnot only Mrs. Magsworth Bitts' note-paper but was on the china, on the\ntable linen, on the chimney-pieces, on the opaque glass of the front\ndoor, on the victoria, and on the harness, though omitted from the\ngarden-hose and the lawn-mower.\n\nNaturally, no sensible person dreamed of connecting that illustrious\ncrest with the unfortunate and notorious Rena Magsworth whose name had\ngrown week by week into larger and larger type upon the front pages of\nnewspapers, owing to the gradually increasing public and official belief\nthat she had poisoned a family of eight. However, the statement that no\nsensible person could have connected the Magsworth Bitts family with the\narsenical Rena takes no account of Penrod Schofield.\n\nPenrod never missed a murder, a hanging or an electrocution in the\nnewspapers; he knew almost as much about Rena Magsworth as her jurymen\ndid, though they sat in a court-room two hundred miles away, and he had\nit in mind--so frank he was--to ask Roderick Magsworth Bitts, Junior, if\nthe murderess happened to be a relative.\n\nThe present encounter, being merely one of apathetic greeting, did not\nafford the opportunity. Penrod took off his cap, and Roderick, seated\nbetween his mother and one of his grown-up sisters, nodded sluggishly,\nbut neither Mrs. Magsworth Bitts nor her daughter acknowledged the\nsalutation of the boy in the yard. They disapproved of him as a\nperson of little consequence, and that little, bad. Snubbed, Penrod\nthoughtfully restored his cap to his head. A boy can be cut as\neffectually as a man, and this one was chilled to a low temperature. He\nwondered if they despised him because they had seen a last fragment of\ndoughnut in his hand; then he thought that perhaps it was Duke who had\ndisgraced him. Duke was certainly no fashionable looking dog.\n\nThe resilient spirits of youth, however, presently revived, and\ndiscovering a spider upon one knee and a beetle simultaneously upon the\nother, Penrod forgot Mrs. Roderick Magsworth Bitts in the course of\nsome experiments infringing upon the domain of Doctor Carrel. Penrod's\nefforts--with the aid of a pin--to effect a transference of living\norganism were unsuccessful; but he convinced himself forever that a\nspider cannot walk with a beetle's legs. Della then enhanced zoological\ninterest by depositing upon the back porch a large rat-trap from the\ncellar, the prison of four live rats awaiting execution.\n\nPenrod at once took possession, retiring to the empty stable, where\nhe installed the rats in a small wooden box with a sheet of broken\nwindow-glass--held down by a brickbat--over the top. Thus the symptoms\nof their agitation, when the box was shaken or hammered upon, could be\nstudied at leisure. Altogether this Saturday was starting splendidly.\n\nAfter a time, the student's attention was withdrawn from his specimens\nby a peculiar smell, which, being followed up by a system of selective\nsniffing, proved to be an emanation leaking into the stable from the\nalley. He opened the back door.\n\nAcross the alley was a cottage which a thrifty neighbour had built on\nthe rear line of his lot and rented to negroes; and the fact that a\nnegro family was now in process of \"moving in\" was manifested by the\npresence of a thin mule and a ramshackle wagon, the latter laden\nwith the semblance of a stove and a few other unpretentious household\narticles.\n\nA very small darky boy stood near the mule. In his hand was a rusty\nchain, and at the end of the chain the delighted Penrod perceived the\nsource of the special smell he was tracing--a large raccoon. Duke,\nwho had shown not the slightest interest in the rats, set up a frantic\nbarking and simulated a ravening assault upon the strange animal. It\nwas only a bit of acting, however, for Duke was an old dog, had suffered\nmuch, and desired no unnecessary sorrow, wherefore he confined his\ndemonstrations to alarums and excursions, and presently sat down at\na distance and expressed himself by intermittent threatenings in a\nquavering falsetto.\n\n\"What's that 'coon's name?\" asked Penrod, intending no discourtesy.\n\n\"Aim gommo mame,\" said the small darky.\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"Aim gommo mame.\"\n\n\"WHAT?\"\n\nThe small darky looked annoyed.\n\n\"Aim GOMMO mame, I hell you,\" he said impatiently.\n\nPenrod conceived that insult was intended.\n\n\"What's the matter of you?\" he demanded advancing. \"You get fresh with\nME, and I'll----\"\n\n\"Hyuh, white boy!\" A coloured youth of Penrod's own age appeared in\nthe doorway of the cottage. \"You let 'at brothuh mine alone. He ain' do\nnothin' to you.\"\n\n\"Well, why can't he answer?\"\n\n\"He can't. He can't talk no better'n what he WAS talkin'. He\ntongue-tie'.\"\n\n\"Oh,\" said Penrod, mollified. Then, obeying an impulse so universally\naroused in the human breast under like circumstances that it has become\na quip, he turned to the afflicted one.\n\n\"Talk some more,\" he begged eagerly.\n\n\"I hoe you ackoom aim gommo mame,\" was the prompt response, in which\na slight ostentation was manifest. Unmistakable tokens of vanity had\nappeared upon the small, swart countenance.\n\n\"What's he mean?\" asked Penrod, enchanted.\n\n\"He say he tole you 'at 'coon ain' got no name.\"\n\n\"What's YOUR name?\"\n\n\"I'm name Herman.\"\n\n\"What's his name?\" Penrod pointed to the tongue-tied boy.\n\n\"Verman.\"\n\n\"What!\"\n\n\"Verman. Was three us boys in ow fam'ly. Ol'est one name Sherman. 'N'en\ncome me; I'm Herman. 'N'en come him; he Verman. Sherman dead. Verman, he\nde littles' one.\"\n\n\"You goin' to live here?\"\n\n\"Umhuh. Done move in f'm way outen on a fahm.\"\n\nHe pointed to the north with his right hand, and Penrod's eyes opened\nwide as they followed the gesture. Herman had no forefinger on that\nhand.\n\n\"Look there!\" exclaimed Penrod. \"You haven't got any finger!\"\n\n\"_I_ mum map,\" said Verman, with egregious pride.\n\n\"HE done 'at,\" interpreted Herman, chuckling. \"Yessuh; done chop 'er\nspang off, long 'go. He's a playin' wif a ax an' I lay my finguh on de\ndo'-sill an' I say, 'Verman, chop 'er off!' So Verman he chop 'er right\nspang off up to de roots! Yessuh.\"\n\n\"What FOR?\"\n\n\"Jes' fo' nothin'.\"\n\n\"He hoe me hoo,\" remarked Verman.\n\n\"Yessuh, I tole him to,\" said Herman, \"an' he chop 'er off, an' ey ain't\nairy oth' one evuh grown on wheres de ole one use to grow. Nosuh!\"\n\n\"But what'd you tell him to do it for?\"\n\n\"Nothin'. I 'es' said it 'at way--an' he jes' chop er off!\"\n\nBoth brothers looked pleased and proud. Penrod's profound interest was\nflatteringly visible, a tribute to their unusualness.\n\n\"Hem bow goy,\" suggested Verman eagerly.\n\n\"Aw ri',\" said Herman. \"Ow sistuh Queenie, she a growed-up woman; she\ngot a goituh.\"\n\n\"Got a what?\"\n\n\"Goituh. Swellin' on her neck--grea' big swellin'. She heppin' mammy\nmove in now. You look in de front-room winduh wheres she sweepin'; you\nkin see it on her.\"\n\nPenrod looked in the window and was rewarded by a fine view of Queenie's\ngoitre. He had never before seen one, and only the lure of further\nconversation on the part of Verman brought him from the window.\n\n\"Verman say tell you 'bout pappy,\" explained Herman. \"Mammy an' Queenie\nmove in town an' go git de house all fix up befo' pappy git out.\"\n\n\"Out of where?\"\n\n\"Jail. Pappy cut a man, an' de police done kep' him in jail evuh sense\nChris'mus-time; but dey goin' tuhn him loose ag'in nex' week.\"\n\n\"What'd he cut the other man with?\"\n\n\"Wif a pitchfawk.\"\n\nPenrod began to feel that a lifetime spent with this fascinating family\nwere all too short. The brothers, glowing with amiability, were as\nenraptured as he. For the first time in their lives they moved in the\nrich glamour of sensationalism. Herman was prodigal of gesture with his\nright hand; and Verman, chuckling with delight, talked fluently,\nthough somewhat consciously. They cheerfully agreed to keep the\nraccoon--already beginning to be mentioned as \"our 'coon\" by Penrod--in\nMr. Schofield's empty stable, and, when the animal had been chained to\nthe wall near the box of rats and supplied with a pan of fair water,\nthey assented to their new friend's suggestion (inspired by a fine\nsense of the artistic harmonies) that the heretofore nameless pet be\nchristened Sherman, in honour of their deceased relative.\n\nAt this juncture was heard from the front yard the sound of that\nyodelling which is the peculiar accomplishment of those whose voices\nhave not \"changed.\" Penrod yodelled a response; and Mr. Samuel Williams\nappeared, a large bundle under his arm.\n\n\"Yay, Penrod!\" was his greeting, casual enough from without; but, having\nentered, he stopped short and emitted a prodigious whistle. \"YA-A-AY!\"\nhe then shouted. \"Look at the 'coon!\"\n\n\"I guess you better say, 'Look at the 'coon!'\" Penrod returned proudly.\n\"They's a good deal more'n him to look at, too. Talk some, Verman.\"\nVerman complied.\n\nSam was warmly interested. \"What'd you say his name was?\" he asked.\n\n\"Verman.\"\n\n\"How d'you spell it?\"\n\n\"V-e-r-m-a-n,\" replied Penrod, having previously received this\ninformation from Herman.\n\n\"Oh!\" said Sam.\n\n\"Point to sumpthing, Herman,\" Penrod commanded, and Sam's excitement,\nwhen Herman pointed was sufficient to the occasion.\n\nPenrod, the discoverer, continued his exploitation of the manifold\nwonders of the Sherman, Herman, and Verman collection. With the air of\na proprietor he escorted Sam into the alley for a good look at Queenie\n(who seemed not to care for her increasing celebrity) and proceeded to\na dramatic climax--the recital of the episode of the pitchfork and its\nconsequences.\n\nThe cumulative effect was enormous, and could have but one possible\nresult. The normal boy is always at least one half Barnum.\n\n\"Let's get up a SHOW!\"\n\nPenrod and Sam both claimed to have said it first, a question left\nunsettled in the ecstasies of hurried preparation. The bundle under\nSam's arm, brought with no definite purpose, proved to have been\nan inspiration. It consisted of broad sheets of light yellow\nwrapping-paper, discarded by Sam's mother in her spring house-cleaning.\nThere were half-filled cans and buckets of paint in the storeroom\nadjoining the carriage-house, and presently the side wall of the stable\nflamed information upon the passer-by from a great and spreading poster.\n\n\"Publicity,\" primal requisite of all theatrical and amphitheatrical\nenterprise thus provided, subsequent arrangements proceeded with a fury\nof energy which transformed the empty hayloft. True, it is impossible to\nsay just what the hay-loft was transformed into, but history warrantably\nclings to the statement that it was transformed. Duke and Sherman were\nsecured to the rear wall at a considerable distance from each other,\nafter an exhibition of reluctance on the part of Duke, during which he\ndisplayed a nervous energy and agility almost miraculous in so small and\nmiddle-aged a dog. Benches were improvised for spectators; the rats\nwere brought up; finally the rafters, corn-crib, and hay-chute were\nornamented with flags and strips of bunting from Sam Williams'\nattic, Sam returning from the excursion wearing an old silk hat, and\naccompanied (on account of a rope) by a fine dachshund encountered on\nthe highway. In the matter of personal decoration paint was generously\nused: an interpretation of the spiral, inclining to whites and greens,\nbecoming brilliantly effective upon the dark facial backgrounds of\nHerman and Verman; while the countenances of Sam and Penrod were each\nsupplied with the black moustache and imperial, lacking which, no\nprofessional showman can be esteemed conscientious.\n\nIt was regretfully decided, in council, that no attempt be made to add\nQueenie to the list of exhibits, her brothers warmly declining to act as\nambassadors in that cause. They were certain Queenie would not like\nthe idea, they said, and Herman picturesquely described her activity\non occasions when she had been annoyed by too much attention to her\nappearance. However, Penrod's disappointment was alleviated by an\ninspiration which came to him in a moment of pondering upon the\ndachshund, and the entire party went forth to add an enriching line to\nthe poster.\n\nThey found a group of seven, including two adults, already gathered in\nthe street to read and admire this work.\n\n SCHoFiELD & WiLLiAMS\n BiG SHOW\n ADMiSSioN 1 CENT oR 20 PiNS\n MUSUEM oF CURioSiTES\n Now GoiNG oN\n SHERMAN HERMAN & VERMAN\n THiER FATHERS iN JAiL STABED A\n MAN WiTH A\n PiTCHFORK\n SHERMAN THE WiLD ANIMAL\n CAPTURED iN AFRiCA\n HERMAN THE ONE FiNGERED TATOOD\n WILD MAN VERMAN THE SAVAGE TATOOD\n WILD BoY TALKS ONLY iN HiS NAiTiVE\n LANGUAGS. Do NoT FAIL TO SEE DUKE\n THE INDiAN DOG ALSO THE MiCHiGAN\n TRAiNED RATS\n\nA heated argument took place between Sam and Penrod, the point at issue\nbeing settled, finally, by the drawing of straws; whereupon Penrod, with\npardonable self-importance--in the presence of an audience now increased\nto nine--slowly painted the words inspired by the dachshund:\n\n IMPoRTENT Do NoT MISS THE SoUTH\n AMERiCAN DoG PART ALLIGATOR.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XVI THE NEW STAR\n\nSam, Penrod, Herman, and Verman withdrew in considerable state from\nnon-paying view, and, repairing to the hay-loft, declared the exhibition\nopen to the public. Oral proclamation was made by Sam, and then the\nloitering multitude was enticed by the seductive strains of a band; the\ntwo partners performing upon combs and paper, Herman and Verman upon tin\npans with sticks.\n\nThe effect was immediate. Visitors appeared upon the stairway and sought\nadmission. Herman and Verman took position among the exhibits, near\nthe wall; Sam stood at the entrance, officiating as barker and\nticket-seller; while Penrod, with debonair suavity, acted as curator,\nmaster of ceremonies, and lecturer. He greeted the first to enter with a\ncourtly bow. They consisted of Miss Rennsdale and her nursery governess,\nand they paid spot cash for their admission.\n\n\"Walk in, lay-deeze, walk right in--pray do not obstruck the\npassageway,\" said Penrod, in a remarkable voice. \"Pray be seated; there\nis room for each and all.\"\n\nMiss Rennsdale and governess were followed by Mr. Georgie Bassett and\nbaby sister (which proves the perfection of Georgie's character) and\nsix or seven other neighbourhood children--a most satisfactory audience,\nalthough, subsequent to Miss Rennsdale and governess, admission was\nwholly by pin.\n\n\"GEN-til-mun and LAY-deeze,\" shouted Penrod, \"I will first call your\nat-tain-shon to our genuine South American dog, part alligator!\" He\npointed to the dachshund, and added, in his ordinary tone, \"That's him.\"\nStraightway reassuming the character of showman, he bellowed: \"NEXT,\nyou see Duke, the genuine, full-blooded Indian dog from the far Western\nPlains and Rocky Mountains. NEXT, the trained Michigan rats, captured\nway up there, and trained to jump and run all around the box at the--at\nthe--at the slightest PRE-text!\" He paused, partly to take breath and\npartly to enjoy his own surprised discovery that this phrase was in his\nvocabulary.\n\n\"At the slightest PRE-text!\" he repeated, and continued, suiting the\naction to the word: \"I will now hammer upon the box and each and all may\nsee these genuine full-blooded Michigan rats perform at the slightest\nPRE-text! There! (That's all they do now, but I and Sam are goin' to\ntrain 'em lots more before this afternoon.) GEN-til-mun and LAY-deeze I\nwill kindly now call your at-tain-shon to Sherman, the wild animal\nfrom Africa, costing the lives of the wild trapper and many of his\ncompanions. NEXT, let me kindly interodoos Herman and Verman. Their\nfather got mad and stuck his pitchfork right inside of another man,\nexactly as promised upon the advertisements outside the big tent, and\ngot put in jail. Look at them well, gen-til-mun and lay-deeze, there is\nno extra charge, and RE-MEM-BUR you are each and all now looking at two\nwild, tattooed men which the father of is in jail. Point, Herman. Each\nand all will have a chance to see. Point to sumpthing else, Herman.\nThis is the only genuine one-fingered tattooed wild man. Last on\nthe programme, gen-til-mun and lay-deeze, we have Verman, the savage\ntattooed wild boy, that can't speak only his native foreign languages.\nTalk some, Verman.\"\n\nVerman obliged and made an instantaneous hit. He was encored\nrapturously, again and again; and, thrilling with the unique pleasure of\nbeing appreciated and misunderstood at the same time, would have talked\nall day but too gladly. Sam Williams, however, with a true showman's\nforesight, whispered to Penrod, who rang down on the monologue.\n\n\"GEN-til-mun and LAY-deeze, this closes our pufformance. Pray pass out\nquietly and with as little jostling as possible. As soon as you are all\nout there's goin' to be a new pufformance, and each and all are welcome\nat the same and simple price of admission. Pray pass out quietly and\nwith as little jostling as possible. RE-MEM-BUR the price is only one\ncent, the tenth part of a dime, or twenty pins, no bent ones taken. Pray\npass out quietly and with as little jostling as possible. The Schofield\nand Williams Military Band will play before each pufformance, and each\nand all are welcome for the same and simple price of admission. Pray\npass out quietly and with as little jostling as possible.\"\n\nForthwith, the Schofield and Williams Military Band began a second\noverture, in which something vaguely like a tune was at times\ndistinguishable; and all of the first audience returned, most of them\nhaving occupied the interval in hasty excursions for more pins; Miss\nRennsdale and governess, however, again paying coin of the Republic and\nreceiving deference and the best seats accordingly. And when a third\nperformance found all of the same inveterate patrons once more crowding\nthe auditorium, and seven recruits added, the pleasurable excitement of\nthe partners in their venture will be understood by any one who has seen\na metropolitan manager strolling about the foyer of his theatre some\nevening during the earlier stages of an assured \"phenomenal run.\"\n\nFrom the first, there was no question which feature of the entertainment\nwas the attraction extraordinary: Verman--Verman, the savage tattooed\nwild boy, speaking only his native foreign languages--Verman was a\ntriumph! Beaming, wreathed in smiles, melodious, incredibly fluent,\nhe had but to open his lips and a dead hush fell upon the audience.\nBreathless, they leaned forward, hanging upon his every semi-syllable,\nand, when Penrod checked the flow, burst into thunders of applause,\nwhich Verman received with happy laughter.\n\nAlas! he delayed not o'er long to display all the egregiousness of a\nnew star; but for a time there was no caprice of his too eccentric to\nbe forgiven. During Penrod's lecture upon the other curios, the tattooed\nwild boy continually stamped his foot, grinned, and gesticulated,\ntapping his tiny chest, and pointing to himself as it were to say: \"Wait\nfor Me! I am the Big Show.\" So soon they learn; so soon they learn! And\n(again alas!) this spoiled darling of public favour, like many another,\nwas fated to know, in good time, the fickleness of that favour.\n\nBut during all the morning performances he was the idol of his audience\nand looked it! The climax of his popularity came during the fifth\noverture of the Schofield and Williams Military Band, when the music\nwas quite drowned in the agitated clamours of Miss Rennsdale, who was\nendeavouring to ascend the stairs in spite of the physical dissuasion of\nher governess.\n\n\"I WON'T go home to lunch!\" screamed Miss Rennsdale, her voice\naccompanied by a sound of ripping. \"I WILL hear the tattooed wild boy\ntalk some more! It's lovely--I WILL hear him talk! I WILL! I WILL! I\nwant to listen to Verman--I WANT to--I WANT to----\"\n\nWailing, she was borne away--of her sex not the first to be fascinated\nby obscurity, nor the last to champion its eloquence.\n\nVerman was almost unendurable after this, but, like many, many other\nmanagers, Schofield and Williams restrained their choler, and even\nlaughed fulsomely when their principal attraction essayed the role of a\ncomedian in private, and capered and squawked in sheer, fatuous vanity.\n\nThe first performance of the afternoon rivalled the successes of the\nmorning, and although Miss Rennsdale was detained at home, thus drying\nup the single source of cash income developed before lunch, Maurice Levy\nappeared, escorting Marjorie Jones, and paid coin for two admissions,\ndropping the money into Sam's hand with a careless--nay, a\ncontemptuous--gesture. At sight of Marjorie, Penrod Schofield flushed\nunder his new moustache (repainted since noon) and lectured as he had\nnever lectured before. A new grace invested his every gesture; a new\nsonorousness rang in his voice; a simple and manly pomposity marked\nhis very walk as he passed from curio to curio. And when he fearlessly\nhandled the box of rats and hammered upon it with cool insouciance, he\nbeheld--for the first time in his life--a purl of admiration eddying in\nMarjorie's lovely eye, a certain softening of that eye. And then Verman\nspake and Penrod was forgotten. Marjorie's eye rested upon him no more.\n\nA heavily equipped chauffeur ascended the stairway, bearing the message\nthat Mrs. Levy awaited her son and his lady. Thereupon, having devoured\nthe last sound permitted (by the managers) to issue from Verman, Mr.\nLevy and Miss Jones departed to a real matinee at a real theatre, the\nlimpid eyes of Marjorie looking back softly over her shoulder--but only\nat the tattooed wild boy. Nearly always it is woman who puts the irony\ninto life.\n\nAfter this, perhaps because of sated curiosity, perhaps on account of a\npin famine, the attendance began to languish. Only four responded to\nthe next call of the band; the four dwindled to three; finally the\nentertainment was given for one blase auditor, and Schofield and\nWilliams looked depressed. Then followed an interval when the band\nplayed in vain.\n\nAbout three o'clock Schofield and Williams were gloomily discussing\nvarious unpromising devices for startling the public into a renewal of\ninterest, when another patron unexpectedly appeared and paid a cent for\nhis admission. News of the Big Show and Museum of Curiosities had at\nlast penetrated the far, cold spaces of interstellar niceness, for this\nnew patron consisted of no less than Roderick Magsworth Bitts, Junior,\nescaped in a white \"sailor suit\" from the Manor during a period of\nsevere maternal and tutorial preoccupation.\n\nHe seated himself without parley, and the pufformance was offered for\nhis entertainment with admirable conscientiousness. True to the Lady\nClara caste and training, Roderick's pale, fat face expressed nothing\nexcept an impervious superiority and, as he sat, cold and unimpressed\nupon the front bench, like a large, white lump, it must be said that\nhe made a discouraging audience \"to play to.\" He was not, however,\nunresponsive--far from it. He offered comment very chilling to the warm\ngrandiloquence of the orator.\n\n\"That's my uncle Ethelbert's dachshund,\" he remarked, at the beginning\nof the lecture. \"You better take him back if you don't want to get\narrested.\" And when Penrod, rather uneasily ignoring the interruption,\nproceeded to the exploitation of the genuine, full-blooded Indian dog,\nDuke, \"Why don't you try to give that old dog away?\" asked Roderick.\n\"You couldn't sell him.\"\n\n\"My papa would buy me a lots better 'coon than that,\" was the\ninformation volunteered a little later, \"only I wouldn't want the nasty\nold thing.\"\n\nHerman of the missing finger obtained no greater indulgence. \"Pooh!\"\nsaid Roderick. \"We have two fox-terriers in our stables that took prizes\nat the kennel show, and their tails were BIT off. There's a man that\nalways bites fox-terriers' tails off.\"\n\n\"Oh, my gosh, what a lie!\" exclaimed Sam Williams ignorantly.\n\n\"Go on with the show whether he likes it or not, Penrod. He's paid his\nmoney.\"\n\nVerman, confident in his own singular powers, chuckled openly at the\nfailure of the other attractions to charm the frosty visitor, and,\nwhen his turn came, poured forth a torrent of conversation which was\nstraightway damned.\n\n\"Rotten,\" said Mr. Bitts languidly. \"Anybody could talk like that. _I_\ncould do it if I wanted to.\"\n\nVerman paused suddenly.\n\n\"YES, you could!\" exclaimed Penrod, stung. \"Let's hear you do it, then.\"\n\n\"Yessir!\" the other partner shouted. \"Let's just hear you DO it!\"\n\n\"I said I could if I wanted to,\" responded Roderick. \"I didn't say I\nWOULD.\"\n\n\"Yay! Knows he can't!\" sneered Sam.\n\n\"I can, too, if I try.\"\n\n\"Well, let's hear you try!\"\n\nSo challenged, the visitor did try, but, in the absence of an impartial\njury, his effort was considered so pronounced a failure that he was\nhowled down, derided, and mocked with great clamours.\n\n\"Anyway,\" said Roderick, when things had quieted down, \"if I couldn't\nget up a better show than this I'd sell out and leave town.\"\n\nNot having enough presence of mind to inquire what he would sell out,\nhis adversaries replied with mere formless yells of scorn.\n\n\"I could get up a better show than this with my left hand,\" Roderick\nasserted.\n\n\"Well, what would you have in your ole show?\" asked Penrod,\ncondescending to language.\n\n\"That's all right, what I'd HAVE. I'd have enough!\"\n\n\"You couldn't get Herman and Verman in your ole show.\"\n\n\"No, and I wouldn't want 'em, either!\"\n\n\"Well, what WOULD you have?\" insisted Penrod derisively. \"You'd have to\nhave SUMPTHING--you couldn't be a show yourself!\"\n\n\"How do YOU know?\" This was but meandering while waiting for ideas, and\nevoked another yell.\n\n\"You think you could be a show all by yourself?\" demanded Penrod.\n\n\"How do YOU know I couldn't?\"\n\nTwo white boys and two black boys shrieked their scorn of the boaster.\n\n\"I could, too!\" Roderick raised his voice to a sudden howl, obtaining a\nhearing.\n\n\"Well, why don't you tell us how?\"\n\n\"Well, _I_ know HOW, all right,\" said Roderick. \"If anybody asks you,\nyou can just tell him I know HOW, all right.\"\n\n\"Why, you can't DO anything,\" Sam began argumentatively. \"You talk\nabout being a show all by yourself; what could you try to do? Show us\nsumpthing you can do.\"\n\n\"I didn't say I was going to DO anything,\" returned the badgered one,\nstill evading.\n\n\"Well, then, how'd you BE a show?\" Penrod demanded. \"WE got a show here,\neven if Herman didn't point or Verman didn't talk. Their father stabbed\na man with a pitchfork, I guess, didn't he?\"\n\n\"How do _I_ know?\"\n\n\"Well, I guess he's in jail, ain't he?\"\n\n\"Well, what if their father is in jail? I didn't say he wasn't, did I?\"\n\n\"Well, YOUR father ain't in jail, is he?\"\n\n\"Well, I never said he was, did I?\"\n\n\"Well, then,\" continued Penrod, \"how could you be a----\" He stopped\nabruptly, staring at Roderick, the birth of an idea plainly visible in\nhis altered expression. He had suddenly remembered his intention to\nask Roderick Magsworth Bitts, Junior, about Rena Magsworth, and this\nrecollection collided in his mind with the irritation produced by\nRoderick's claiming some mysterious attainment which would warrant his\nsetting up as a show in his single person. Penrod's whole manner changed\ninstantly.\n\n\"Roddy,\" he asked, almost overwhelmed by a prescience of something vast\nand magnificent, \"Roddy, are you any relation of Rena Magsworth?\"\n\nRoderick had never heard of Rena Magsworth, although a concentration\nof the sentence yesterday pronounced upon her had burned, black and\nhorrific, upon the face of every newspaper in the country. He was not\nallowed to read the journals of the day and his family's indignation\nover the sacrilegious coincidence of the name had not been expressed in\nhis presence. But he saw that it was an awesome name to Penrod Schofield\nand Samuel Williams. Even Herman and Verman, though lacking many\neducational advantages on account of a long residence in the country,\nwere informed on the subject of Rena Magsworth through hearsay, and they\njoined in the portentous silence.\n\n\"Roddy,\" repeated Penrod, \"honest, is Rena Magsworth some relation of\nyours?\"\n\nThere is no obsession more dangerous to its victims than a conviction\nespecially an inherited one--of superiority: this world is so full\nof Missourians. And from his earliest years Roderick Magsworth Bitts,\nJunior, had been trained to believe in the importance of the Magsworth\nfamily. At every meal he absorbed a sense of Magsworth greatness, and\nyet, in his infrequent meetings with persons of his own age and sex,\nhe was treated as negligible. Now, dimly, he perceived that there was\na Magsworth claim of some sort which was impressive, even to boys.\nMagsworth blood was the essential of all true distinction in the world,\nhe knew. Consequently, having been driven into a cul-de-sac, as a result\nof flagrant and unfounded boasting, he was ready to take advantage of\nwhat appeared to be a triumphal way out.\n\n\"Roddy,\" said Penrod again, with solemnity, \"is Rena Magsworth some\nrelation of yours?\"\n\n\"IS she, Roddy?\" asked Sam, almost hoarsely.\n\n\"She's my aunt!\" shouted Roddy.\n\nSilence followed. Sam and Penrod, spellbound, gazed upon Roderick\nMagsworth Bitts, Junior. So did Herman and Verman. Roddy's staggering\nlie had changed the face of things utterly. No one questioned it; no one\nrealized that it was much too good to be true.\n\n\"Roddy,\" said Penrod, in a voice tremulous with hope, \"Roddy, will you\njoin our show?\"\n\nRoddy joined.\n\nEven he could see that the offer implied his being starred as the\nparamount attraction of a new order of things. It was obvious that he\nhad swelled out suddenly, in the estimation of the other boys, to that\nimportance which he had been taught to believe his native gift and\nnatural right. The sensation was pleasant. He had often been treated\nwith effusion by grown-up callers and by acquaintances of his mothers\nand sisters; he had heard ladies speak of him as \"charming\" and \"that\ndelightful child,\" and little girls had sometimes shown him deference,\nbut until this moment no boy had ever allowed him, for one moment, to\npresume even to equality. Now, in a trice, he was not only admitted\nto comradeship, but patently valued as something rare and sacred to be\nacclaimed and pedestalled. In fact, the very first thing that Schofield\nand Williams did was to find a box for him to stand upon.\n\nThe misgivings roused in Roderick's bosom by the subsequent activities\nof the firm were not bothersome enough to make him forego his prominence\nas Exhibit A. He was not a \"quick-minded\" boy, and it was long (and\nmuch happened) before he thoroughly comprehended the causes of his new\ncelebrity. He had a shadowy feeling that if the affair came to be heard\nof at home it might not be liked, but, intoxicated by the glamour and\nbustle which surround a public character, he made no protest. On the\ncontrary, he entered whole-heartedly into the preparations for the\nnew show. Assuming, with Sam's assistance, a blue moustache and\n\"side-burns,\" he helped in the painting of a new poster, which,\nsupplanting the old one on the wall of the stable facing the\ncross-street, screamed bloody murder at the passers in that rather\npopulous thoroughfare.\n\n SCHoFiELD & WiLLiAMS\n NEW BIG SHoW\n RoDERiCK MAGSWoRTH BiTTS JR\n ONLY LiViNG NEPHEW\n oF\n RENA MAGSWORTH\n THE FAMOS\n MUDERESS GoiNG To BE HUNG\n NEXT JULY KiLED EiGHT PEOPLE\n PUT ARSiNECK iN THiER MiLK ALSO\n SHERMAN HERMAN AND VERMAN\n THE MiCHiGAN RATS DOG PART\n ALLiGATOR DUKE THE GENUiNE\n InDiAN DoG ADMISSioN 1 CENT oR\n 20 PINS SAME AS BEFORE Do NoT\n MISS THIS CHANSE TO SEE RoDERICK\n ONLY LiViNG NEPHEW oF RENA\n MAGSWORTH THE GREAT FAMOS\n MUDERESS\n GoiNG To BE\n HUNG\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XVII RETIRING FROM THE SHOW-BUSINESS\n\nMegaphones were constructed out of heavy wrapping-paper, and Penrod,\nSam, and Herman set out in different directions, delivering vocally\nthe inflammatory proclamation of the poster to a large section of the\nresidential quarter, and leaving Roderick Magsworth Bitts, Junior, with\nVerman in the loft, shielded from all deadhead eyes. Upon the return\nof the heralds, the Schofield and Williams Military Band played\ndeafeningly, and an awakened public once more thronged to fill the\ncoffers of the firm.\n\nProsperity smiled again. The very first audience after the acquisition\nof Roderick was larger than the largest of the morning. Master\nBitts--the only exhibit placed upon a box--was a supercurio. All eyes\nfastened upon him and remained, hungrily feasting, throughout Penrod's\nluminous oration.\n\nBut the glory of one light must ever be the dimming of another. We dwell\nin a vale of seesaws--and cobwebs spin fastest upon laurel. Verman, the\ntattooed wild boy, speaking only in his native foreign languages, Verman\nthe gay, Verman the caperer, capered no more; he chuckled no more, he\nbeckoned no more, nor tapped his chest, nor wreathed his idolatrous face\nin smiles. Gone, all gone, were his little artifices for attracting the\ngeneral attention to himself; gone was every engaging mannerism which\nhad endeared him to the mercurial public. He squatted against the wall\nand glowered at the new sensation. It was the old story--the old,\nold story of too much temperament: Verman was suffering from artistic\njealousy.\n\nThe second audience contained a cash-paying adult, a spectacled young\nman whose poignant attention was very flattering. He remained after the\nlecture, and put a few questions to Roddy, which were answered rather\nconfusedly upon promptings from Penrod. The young man went away without\nhaving stated the object of his interrogations, but it became quite\nplain, later in the day. This same object caused the spectacled young\nman to make several brief but stimulating calls directly after leaving\nthe Schofield and Williams Big Show, and the consequences thereof\nloitered not by the wayside.\n\nThe Big Show was at high tide. Not only was the auditorium filled\nand throbbing; there was an indubitable line--by no means wholly\njuvenile--waiting for admission to the next pufformance. A group stood\nin the street examining the poster earnestly as it glowed in the long,\nslanting rays of the westward sun, and people in automobiles and other\nvehicles had halted wheel in the street to read the message so piquantly\ngiven to the world. These were the conditions when a crested victoria\narrived at a gallop, and a large, chastely magnificent and highly\nflushed woman descended, and progressed across the yard with an air of\nviolence.\n\nAt sight of her, the adults of the waiting line hastily disappeared,\nand most of the pausing vehicles moved instantly on their way. She was\nfollowed by a stricken man in livery.\n\nThe stairs to the auditorium were narrow and steep; Mrs. Roderick\nMagsworth Bitts was of a stout favour; and the voice of Penrod was\naudible during the ascent.\n\n\"RE-MEM-BUR, gentilmun and lay-deeze, each and all are now gazing upon\nRoderick Magsworth Bitts, Junior, the only living nephew of the great\nRena Magsworth. She stuck ars'nic in the milk of eight separate and\ndistinck people to put in their coffee and each and all of 'em died. The\ngreat ars'nic murderess, Rena Magsworth, gentilmun and lay-deeze,\nand Roddy's her only living nephew. She's a relation of all the Bitts\nfamily, but he's her one and only living nephew. RE-MEM-BUR! Next July\nshe's goin' to be hung, and, each and all, you now see before you----\"\n\nPenrod paused abruptly, seeing something before himself--the august and\nawful presence which filled the entryway. And his words (it should be\nrelated) froze upon his lips.\n\nBefore HERSELF, Mrs. Roderick Magsworth Bitts saw her son--her\nscion--wearing a moustache and sideburns of blue, and perched upon a box\nflanked by Sherman and Verman, the Michigan rats, the Indian dog Duke,\nHerman, and the dog part alligator.\n\nRoddy, also, saw something before himself. It needed no prophet to\nread the countenance of the dread apparition in the entryway. His mouth\nopened--remained open--then filled to capacity with a calamitous sound\nof grief not unmingled with apprehension.\n\nPenrod's reason staggered under the crisis. For a horrible moment he saw\nMrs. Roderick Magsworth Bitts approaching like some fatal mountain in\navalanche. She seemed to grow larger and redder; lightnings played about\nher head; he had a vague consciousness of the audience spraying out\nin flight, of the squealings, tramplings and dispersals of a stricken\nfield. The mountain was close upon him----\n\nHe stood by the open mouth of the hay-chute which went through the floor\nto the manger below. Penrod also went through the floor. He propelled\nhimself into the chute and shot down, but not quite to the manger, for\nMr. Samuel Williams had thoughtfully stepped into the chute a moment in\nadvance of his partner. Penrod lit upon Sam.\n\nCatastrophic noises resounded in the loft; volcanoes seemed to romp upon\nthe stairway.\n\nThere ensued a period when only a shrill keening marked the passing of\nRoderick as he was borne to the tumbril. Then all was silence.\n\n\n. . . Sunset, striking through a western window, rouged the walls of\nthe Schofields' library, where gathered a joint family council and\ncourt martial of four--Mrs. Schofield, Mr. Schofield, and Mr. and Mrs.\nWilliams, parents of Samuel of that ilk. Mr. Williams read aloud a\nconspicuous passage from the last edition of the evening paper:\n\n\"Prominent people here believed close relations of woman sentenced to\nhang. Angry denial by Mrs. R. Magsworth Bitts. Relationship admitted by\nyounger member of family. His statement confirmed by boy-friends----\"\n\n\"Don't!\" said Mrs. Williams, addressing her husband vehemently. \"We've\nall read it a dozen times. We've got plenty of trouble on our hands\nwithout hearing THAT again!\"\n\nSingularly enough, Mrs. Williams did not look troubled; she looked as\nif she were trying to look troubled. Mrs. Schofield wore a similar\nexpression. So did Mr. Schofield. So did Mr. Williams.\n\n\"What did she say when she called YOU up?\" Mrs. Schofield inquired\nbreathlessly of Mrs. Williams.\n\n\"She could hardly speak at first, and then when she did talk, she talked\nso fast I couldn't understand most of it, and----\"\n\n\"It was just the same when she tried to talk to me,\" said Mrs.\nSchofield, nodding.\n\n\"I never did hear any one in such a state before,\" continued Mrs.\nWilliams. \"So furious----\"\n\n\"Quite justly, of course,\" said Mrs. Schofield.\n\n\"Of course. And she said Penrod and Sam had enticed Roderick away from\nhome--usually he's not allowed to go outside the yard except with his\ntutor or a servant--and had told him to say that horrible creature was\nhis aunt----\"\n\n\"How in the world do you suppose Sam and Penrod ever thought of such\na thing as THAT!\" exclaimed Mrs. Schofield. \"It must have been made up\njust for their 'show.' Della says there were just STREAMS going in and\nout all day. Of course it wouldn't have happened, but this was the day\nMargaret and I spend every month in the country with Aunt Sarah, and I\ndidn't DREAM----\"\n\n\"She said one thing I thought rather tactless,\" interrupted Mrs.\nWilliams. \"Of course we must allow for her being dreadfully excited and\nwrought up, but I do think it wasn't quite delicate in her, and she's\nusually the very soul of delicacy. She said that Roderick had NEVER been\nallowed to associate with--common boys----\"\n\n\"Meaning Sam and Penrod,\" said Mrs. Schofield. \"Yes, she said that to\nme, too.\"\n\n\"She said that the most awful thing about it,\" Mrs. Williams went on,\n\"was that, though she's going to prosecute the newspapers, many people\nwould always believe the story, and----\"\n\n\"Yes, I imagine they will,\" said Mrs. Schofield musingly. \"Of course you\nand I and everybody who really knows the Bitts and Magsworth families\nunderstand the perfect absurdity of it; but I suppose there are ever so\nmany who'll believe it, no matter what the Bittses and Magsworths say.\"\n\n\"Hundreds and hundreds!\" said Mrs. Williams. \"I'm afraid it will be a\ngreat come-down for them.\"\n\n\"I'm afraid so,\" said Mrs. Schofield gently. \"A very great one--yes, a\nvery, very great one.\"\n\n\"Well,\" observed Mrs. Williams, after a thoughtful pause, \"there's only\none thing to be done, and I suppose it had better be done right away.\"\n\nShe glanced toward the two gentlemen.\n\n\"Certainly,\" Mr. Schofield agreed. \"But where ARE they?\"\n\n\"Have you looked in the stable?\" asked his wife.\n\n\"I searched it. They've probably started for the far West.\"\n\n\"Did you look in the sawdust-box?\"\n\n\"No, I didn't.\"\n\n\"Then that's where they are.\"\n\nThus, in the early twilight, the now historic stable was approached by\ntwo fathers charged to do the only thing to be done. They entered the\nstoreroom.\n\n\"Penrod!\" said Mr. Schofield.\n\n\"Sam!\" said Mr. Williams.\n\nNothing disturbed the twilight hush.\n\nBut by means of a ladder, brought from the carriage-house, Mr. Schofield\nmounted to the top of the sawdust-box. He looked within, and discerned\nthe dim outlines of three quiet figures, the third being that of a small\ndog.\n\nThe two boys rose, upon command, descended the ladder after Mr.\nSchofield, bringing Duke with them, and stood before the authors of\ntheir being, who bent upon them sinister and threatening brows. With\nhanging heads and despondent countenances, each still ornamented with a\nmoustache and an imperial, Penrod and Sam awaited sentence.\n\nThis is a boy's lot: anything he does, anything whatever, may afterward\nturn out to have been a crime--he never knows.\n\nAnd punishment and clemency are alike inexplicable.\n\nMr. Williams took his son by the ear.\n\n\"You march home!\" he commanded.\n\nSam marched, not looking back, and his father followed the small figure\nimplacably.\n\n\"You goin' to whip me?\" quavered Penrod, alone with Justice.\n\n\"Wash your face at that hydrant,\" said his father sternly.\n\nAbout fifteen minutes later, Penrod, hurriedly entering the corner drug\nstore, two blocks distant, was astonished to perceive a familiar form at\nthe soda counter.\n\n\"Yay, Penrod,\" said Sam Williams. \"Want some sody? Come on. He didn't\nlick me. He didn't do anything to me at all. He gave me a quarter.\"\n\n\"So'd mine,\" said Penrod.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XVIII MUSIC\n\nBoyhood is the longest time in life for a boy. The last term of the\nschool-year is made of decades, not of weeks, and living through them is\nlike waiting for the millennium. But they do pass, somehow, and at last\nthere came a day when Penrod was one of a group that capered out\nfrom the gravelled yard of \"Ward School, Nomber Seventh,\" carolling a\nleave-taking of the institution, of their instructress, and not even\nforgetting Mr. Capps, the janitor.\n\n\"Good-bye, teacher! Good-bye, school! Good-bye, Cappsie, dern ole fool!\"\n\nPenrod sang the loudest. For every boy, there is an age when he \"finds\nhis voice.\" Penrod's had not \"changed,\" but he had found it. Inevitably\nthat thing had come upon his family and the neighbours; and his father,\na somewhat dyspeptic man, quoted frequently the expressive words of\nthe \"Lady of Shalott,\" but there were others whose sufferings were as\npoignant.\n\nVacation-time warmed the young of the world to pleasant languor; and\na morning came that was like a brightly coloured picture in a child's\nfairy story. Miss Margaret Schofield, reclining in a hammock upon the\nfront porch, was beautiful in the eyes of a newly made senior, well\nfavoured and in fair raiment, beside her. A guitar rested lightly upon\nhis knee, and he was trying to play--a matter of some difficulty, as\nthe floor of the porch also seemed inclined to be musical. From directly\nunder his feet came a voice of song, shrill, loud, incredibly piercing\nand incredibly flat, dwelling upon each syllable with incomprehensible\nreluctance to leave it.\n\n \"I have lands and earthly pow-wur.\n I'd give all for a now-wur,\n Whi-ilst setting at MY-Y-Y dear old mother's knee-ee,\n So-o-o rem-mem-bur whilst you're young----\"\n\nMiss Schofield stamped heartily upon the musical floor.\n\n\"It's Penrod,\" she explained. \"The lattice at the end of the porch is\nloose, and he crawls under and comes out all bugs. He's been having\na dreadful singing fit lately--running away to picture shows and\nvaudeville, I suppose.\"\n\nMr. Robert Williams looked upon her yearningly. He touched a thrilling\nchord on his guitar and leaned nearer. \"But you said you have missed\nme,\" he began. \"I----\"\n\nThe voice of Penrod drowned all other sounds.\n\n \"So-o-o rem-mem-bur, whi-i-ilst you're young,\n That the day-a-ys to you will come,\n When you're o-o-old and only in the way,\n Do not scoff at them BEE-cause----\"\n\n\"PENROD!\" Miss Schofield stamped again.\n\n\"You DID say you'd missed me,\" said Mr. Robert Williams, seizing\nhurriedly upon the silence. \"Didn't you say----\"\n\nA livelier tune rose upward.\n\n \"Oh, you talk about your fascinating beauties,\n Of your dem-O-zells, your belles,\n But the littil dame I met, while in the city,\n She's par excellaws the queen of all the swells.\n She's sweeter far----\"\n\nMargaret rose and jumped up and down repeatedly in a well-calculated\narea, whereupon the voice of Penrod cried chokedly, \"QUIT that!\" and\nthere were subterranean coughings and sneezings.\n\n\"You want to choke a person to death?\" he inquired severely, appearing\nat the end of the porch, a cobweb upon his brow. And, continuing, he\nput into practice a newly acquired phrase, \"You better learn to be more\nconsiderick of other people's comfort.\"\n\nSlowly and grievedly he withdrew, passed to the sunny side of the house,\nreclined in the warm grass beside his wistful Duke, and presently sang\nagain.\n\n \"She's sweeter far than the flower I named her after,\n And the memery of her smile it haunts me YET!\n When in after years the moon is soffly beamun'\n And at eve I smell the smell of mignonette\n I will re-CALL that----\"\n\n\"Pen-ROD!\"\n\nMr. Schofield appeared at an open window upstairs, a book in his hand.\n\n\"Stop it!\" he commanded. \"Can't I stay home with a headache ONE morning\nfrom the office without having to listen to--I never DID hear such\nsquawking!\" He retired from the window, having too impulsively called\nupon his Maker. Penrod, shocked and injured, entered the house, but\npresently his voice was again audible as far as the front porch. He was\nholding converse with his mother, somewhere in the interior.\n\n\"Well, what of it? Sam Williams told me his mother said if Bob ever did\nthink of getting married to Margaret, his mother said she'd like to know\nwhat in the name o' goodness they expect to----\"\n\nBang! Margaret thought it better to close the front door.\n\nThe next minute Penrod opened it. \"I suppose you want the whole family\nto get a sunstroke,\" he said reprovingly. \"Keepin' every breath of air\nout o' the house on a day like this!\"\n\nAnd he sat down implacably in the doorway.\n\nThe serious poetry of all languages has omitted the little brother;\nand yet he is one of the great trials of love--the immemorial burden of\ncourtship. Tragedy should have found place for him, but he has been left\nto the haphazard vignettist of Grub Street. He is the grave and\nreal menace of lovers; his head is sacred and terrible, his power\nillimitable. There is one way--only one--to deal with him; but Robert\nWilliams, having a brother of Penrod's age, understood that way.\n\nRobert had one dollar in the world. He gave it to Penrod immediately.\n\nEnslaved forever, the new Rockefeller rose and went forth upon the\nhighway, an overflowing heart bursting the floodgates of song.\n\n \"In her eyes the light of love was soffly gleamun',\n So sweetlay,\n So neatlay.\n On the banks the moon's soff light was brightly streamun',\n Words of love I then spoke TO her.\n She was purest of the PEW-er:\n 'Littil sweetheart, do not sigh,\n Do not weep and do not cry.\n I will build a littil cottige just for yew-EW-EW and I.'\"\n\nIn fairness, it must be called to mind that boys older than Penrod have\nthese wellings of pent melody; a wife can never tell when she is to\nundergo a musical morning, and even the golden wedding brings her no\nsecurity, a man of ninety is liable to bust-loose in song, any time.\n\nInvalids murmured pitifully as Penrod came within hearing; and people\ntrying to think cursed the day that they were born, when he went\nshrilling by. His hands in his pockets, his shining face uplifted to the\nsky of June, he passed down the street, singing his way into the heart's\ndeepest hatred of all who heard him.\n\n \"One evuning I was sturow-ling\n Midst the city of the DEAD,\n I viewed where all a-round me\n Their PEACE-full graves was SPREAD.\n But that which touched me mostlay----\"\n\nHe had reached his journey's end, a junk-dealer's shop wherein lay\nthe long-desired treasure of his soul--an accordion which might\nhave possessed a high quality of interest for an antiquarian, being\nunquestionably a ruin, beautiful in decay, and quite beyond the\nsacrilegious reach of the restorer. But it was still able to disgorge\nsounds--loud, strange, compelling sounds, which could be heard for a\nremarkable distance in all directions; and it had one rich calf-like\ntone that had gone to Penrod's heart. He obtained the instrument for\ntwenty-two cents, a price long since agreed upon with the junk-dealer,\nwho falsely claimed a loss of profit, Shylock that he was! He had found\nthe wreck in an alley.\n\nWith this purchase suspended from his shoulder by a faded green cord,\nPenrod set out in a somewhat homeward direction, but not by the route\nhe had just travelled, though his motive for the change was not\nhumanitarian. It was his desire to display himself thus troubadouring\nto the gaze of Marjorie Jones. Heralding his advance by continuous\nexperiments in the music of the future, he pranced upon his blithesome\nway, the faithful Duke at his heels. (It was easier for Duke than it\nwould have been for a younger dog, because, with advancing age, he had\nbegun to grow a little deaf.)\n\nTurning the corner nearest to the glamoured mansion of the Joneses,\nthe boy jongleur came suddenly face to face with Marjorie, and, in\nthe delicious surprise of the encounter, ceased to play, his hands, in\nagitation, falling from the instrument.\n\nBareheaded, the sunshine glorious upon her amber curls, Marjorie was\nstrolling hand-in-hand with her baby brother, Mitchell, four years\nold. She wore pink that day--unforgettable pink, with a broad, black\npatent-leather belt, shimmering reflections dancing upon its surface.\nHow beautiful she was! How sacred the sweet little baby brother, whose\nprivilege it was to cling to that small hand, delicately powdered with\nfreckles.\n\n\"Hello, Marjorie,\" said Penrod, affecting carelessness.\n\n\"Hello!\" said Marjorie, with unexpected cordiality. She bent over her\nbaby brother with motherly affectations. \"Say 'howdy' to the gentymuns,\nMitchy-Mitch,\" she urged sweetly, turning him to face Penrod.\n\n\"WON'T!\" said Mitchy-Mitch, and, to emphasize his refusal, kicked the\ngentymuns upon the shin.\n\nPenrod's feelings underwent instant change, and in the sole occupation\nof disliking Mitchy-Mitch, he wasted precious seconds which might have\nbeen better employed in philosophic consideration of the startling\nexample, just afforded, of how a given law operates throughout the\nuniverse in precisely the same manner perpetually. Mr. Robert Williams\nwould have understood this, easily.\n\n\"Oh, oh!\" Marjorie cried, and put Mitchy-Mitch behind her with too much\nsweetness. \"Maurice Levy's gone to Atlantic City with his mamma,\" she\nremarked conversationally, as if the kicking incident were quite closed.\n\n\"That's nothin',\" returned Penrod, keeping his eye uneasily\nupon Mitchy-Mitch. \"I know plenty people been better places than\nthat--Chicago and everywhere.\"\n\nThere was unconscious ingratitude in his low rating of Atlantic City,\nfor it was largely to the attractions of that resort he owed Miss Jones'\npresent attitude of friendliness.\n\nOf course, too, she was curious about the accordion. It would be\ndastardly to hint that she had noticed a paper bag which bulged\nthe pocket of Penrod's coat, and yet this bag was undeniably\nconspicuous--\"and children are very like grown people sometimes!\"\n\nPenrod brought forth the bag, purchased on the way at a drug store, and\ntill this moment UNOPENED, which expresses in a word the depth of his\nsentiment for Marjorie. It contained an abundant fifteen-cents' worth of\nlemon drops, jaw-breakers, licorice sticks, cinnamon drops, and shopworn\nchoclate creams.\n\n\"Take all you want,\" he said, with off-hand generosity.\n\n\"Why, Penrod Schofield,\" exclaimed the wholly thawed damsel, \"you nice\nboy!\"\n\n\"Oh, that's nothin',\" he returned airily. \"I got a good deal of money,\nnowadays.\"\n\n\"Where from?\"\n\n\"Oh--just around.\" With a cautious gesture he offered a jaw-breaker to\nMitchy-Mitch, who snatched it indignantly and set about its absorption\nwithout delay.\n\n\"Can you play on that?\" asked Marjorie, with some difficulty, her cheeks\nbeing rather too hilly for conversation.\n\n\"Want to hear me?\"\n\nShe nodded, her eyes sweet with anticipation.\n\nThis was what he had come for. He threw back his head, lifted his eyes\ndreamily, as he had seen real musicians lift theirs, and distended the\naccordion preparing to produce the wonderful calf-like noise which was\nthe instrument's great charm.\n\nBut the distention evoked a long wail which was at once drowned in\nanother one.\n\n\"Ow! Owowaoh! Wowohah! WaowWOW!\" shrieked Mitchy-Mitch and the accordion\ntogether.\n\nMitchy-Mitch, to emphasize his disapproval of the accordion, opening his\nmouth still wider, lost therefrom the jaw-breaker, which rolled in the\ndust. Weeping, he stooped to retrieve it, and Marjorie, to prevent him,\nhastily set her foot upon it. Penrod offered another jaw-breaker; but\nMitchy-Mitch struck it from his hand, desiring the former, which had\nconvinced him of its sweetness.\n\nMarjorie moved inadvertently; whereupon Mitchy-Mitch pounced upon the\nremains of his jaw-breaker and restored them, with accretions, to his\nmouth. His sister, uttering a cry of horror, sprang to the rescue,\nassisted by Penrod, whom she prevailed upon to hold Mitchy-Mitch's mouth\nopen while she excavated. This operation being completed, and Penrod's\nright thumb severely bitten, Mitchy-Mitch closed his eyes tightly,\nstamped, squealed, bellowed, wrung his hands, and then, unexpectedly,\nkicked Penrod again.\n\nPenrod put a hand in his pocket and drew forth a copper two-cent piece,\nlarge, round, and fairly bright.\n\nHe gave it to Mitchy-Mitch.\n\nMitchy-Mitch immediately stopped crying and gazed upon his benefactor\nwith the eyes of a dog.\n\nThis world!\n\nThereafter did Penrod--with complete approval from Mitchy-Mitch--play\nthe accordion for his lady to his heart's content, and hers. Never had\nhe so won upon her; never had she let him feel so close to her before.\nThey strolled up and down upon the sidewalk, eating, one thought between\nthem, and soon she had learned to play the accordion almost as well as\nhe. So passed a happy hour, which the Good King Rene of Anjou would have\nenvied them, while Mitchy-Mitch made friends with Duke, romped about his\nsister and her swain, and clung to the hand of the latter, at intervals,\nwith fondest affection and trust.\n\nThe noon whistles failed to disturb this little Arcady; only the\nsound of Mrs. Jones' voice for the third time summoning Marjorie and\nMitchy-Mitch to lunch--sent Penrod on his way.\n\n\"I could come back this afternoon, I guess,\" he said, in parting.\n\n\"I'm not goin' to be here. I'm goin' to Baby Rennsdale's party.\"\n\nPenrod looked blank, as she intended he should. Having thus satisfied\nherself, she added:\n\n\"There aren't goin' to be any boys there.\"\n\nHe was instantly radiant again.\n\n\"Marjorie----\"\n\n\"Hum?\"\n\n\"Do you wish I was goin' to be there?\"\n\nShe looked shy, and turned away her head.\n\n\"MARJORIE JONES!\" (This was a voice from home.) \"HOW MANY MORE TIMES\nSHALL I HAVE TO CALL YOU?\"\n\nMarjorie moved away, her face still hidden from Penrod.\n\n\"Do you?\" he urged.\n\nAt the gate, she turned quickly toward him, and said over her shoulder,\nall in a breath: \"Yes! Come again to-morrow morning and I'll be on the\ncorner. Bring your 'cordion!\"\n\nAnd she ran into the house, Mitchy-Mitch waving a loving hand to the boy\non the sidewalk until the front door closed.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIX THE INNER BOY\n\nPenrod went home in splendour, pretending that he and Duke were a long\nprocession; and he made enough noise to render the auricular part of the\nillusion perfect. His own family were already at the lunch-table when he\narrived, and the parade halted only at the door of the dining-room.\n\n\"Oh SOMETHING!\" shouted Mr. Schofield, clasping his bilious brow with\nboth hands. \"Stop that noise! Isn't it awful enough for you to SING? Sit\nDOWN! Not with that thing on! Take that green rope off your shoulder!\nNow take that thing out of the dining-room and throw it in the ash-can!\nWhere did you get it?\"\n\n\"Where did I get what, papa?\" asked Penrod meekly, depositing the\naccordion in the hall just outside the dining-room door.\n\n\"That da--that third-hand concertina.\"\n\n\"It's a 'cordian,\" said Penrod, taking his place at the table, and\nnoticing that both Margaret and Mr. Robert Williams (who happened to be\na guest) were growing red.\n\n\"I don't care what you call it,\" said Mr. Schofield irritably. \"I want\nto know where you got it.\"\n\nPenrod's eyes met Margaret's: hers had a strained expression.\n\nShe very slightly shook her head. Penrod sent Mr. Williams a grateful\nlook, and might have been startled if he could have seen himself in a\nmirror at that moment; for he regarded Mitchy-Mitch with concealed but\nvigorous aversion and the resemblance would have horrified him.\n\n\"A man gave it to me,\" he answered gently, and was rewarded by the\nvisibly regained ease of his patron's manner, while Margaret leaned back\nin her chair and looked at her brother with real devotion.\n\n\"I should think he'd have been glad to,\" said Mr. Schofield. \"Who was\nhe?\"\n\n\"Sir?\" In spite of the candy which he had consumed in company with\nMarjorie and Mitchy-Mitch, Penrod had begun to eat lobster croquettes\nearnestly.\n\n\"Who WAS he?\"\n\n\"Who do you mean, papa?\"\n\n\"The man that gave you that ghastly Thing!\"\n\n\"Yessir. A man gave it to me.\"\n\n\"I say, Who WAS he?\" shouted Mr. Schofield.\n\n\"Well, I was just walking along, and the man came up to me--it was right\ndown in front of Colgate's, where most of the paint's rubbed off the\nfence----\"\n\n\"Penrod!\" The father used his most dangerous tone.\n\n\"Sir?\"\n\n\"Who was the man that gave you the concertina?\"\n\n\"I don't know. I was walking along----\"\n\n\"You never saw him before?\"\n\n\"No, sir. I was just walk----\"\n\n\"That will do,\" said Mr. Schofield, rising. \"I suppose every family has\nits secret enemies and this was one of ours. I must ask to be excused!\"\n\nWith that, he went out crossly, stopping in the hall a moment before\npassing beyond hearing. And, after lunch, Penrod sought in vain for his\naccordion; he even searched the library where his father sat reading,\nthough, upon inquiry, Penrod explained that he was looking for a\nmisplaced schoolbook. He thought he ought to study a little every day,\nhe said, even during vacation-time. Much pleased, Mr. Schofield rose and\njoined the search, finding the missing work on mathematics with singular\nease--which cost him precisely the price of the book the following\nSeptember.\n\nPenrod departed to study in the backyard. There, after a cautious survey\nof the neighbourhood, he managed to dislodge the iron cover of the\ncistern, and dropped the arithmetic within. A fine splash rewarded his\nlistening ear. Thus assured that when he looked for that book again no\none would find it for him, he replaced the cover, and betook himself\npensively to the highway, discouraging Duke from following by repeated\nvolleys of stones, some imaginary and others all too real.\n\nDistant strains of brazen horns and the throbbing of drums were borne to\nhim upon the kind breeze, reminding him that the world was made for joy,\nand that the Barzee and Potter Dog and Pony Show was exhibiting in a\nbanlieue not far away. So, thither he bent his steps--the plentiful\nfunds in his pocket burning hot holes all the way. He had paid\ntwenty-two cents for the accordion, and fifteen for candy; he had bought\nthe mercenary heart of Mitchy-Mitch for two: it certainly follows that\nthere remained to him of his dollar, sixty-one cents--a fair fortune,\nand most unusual.\n\nArrived upon the populous and festive scene of the Dog and Pony Show,\nhe first turned his attention to the brightly decorated booths which\nsurrounded the tent. The cries of the peanut vendors, of the popcorn\nmen, of the toy-balloon sellers, the stirring music of the band, playing\nbefore the performance to attract a crowd, the shouting of excited\nchildren and the barking of the dogs within the tent, all sounded\nexhilaratingly in Penrod's ears and set his blood a-tingle.\nNevertheless, he did not squander his money or fling it to the winds in\none grand splurge. Instead, he began cautiously with the purchase of an\nextraordinarily large pickle, which he obtained from an aged negress for\nhis odd cent, too obvious a bargain to be missed. At an adjacent stand\nhe bought a glass of raspberry lemonade (so alleged) and sipped it as he\nate the pickle. He left nothing of either.\n\nNext, he entered a small restaurant-tent and for a modest nickel was\nsupplied with a fork and a box of sardines, previously opened, it is\ntrue, but more than half full. He consumed the sardines utterly, but\nleft the tin box and the fork, after which he indulged in an inexpensive\nhalf-pint of lukewarm cider, at one of the open booths. Mug in hand,\na gentle glow radiating toward his surface from various centres of\nactivity deep inside him, he paused for breath--and the cool, sweet\ncadences of the watermelon man fell delectably upon his ear:\n\n\"Ice-cole WATER-melon; ice-cole water-MELON; the biggest slice of\nICE-cole, ripe, red, ICE-cole, rich an' rare; the biggest slice of\nice-cole watermelon ever cut by the hand of man! BUY our ICE-cole\nwater-melon?\"\n\nPenrod, having drained the last drop of cider, complied with the\nwatermelon man's luscious entreaty, and received a round slice of\nthe fruit, magnificent in circumference and something over an inch in\nthickness. Leaving only the really dangerous part of the rind behind\nhim, he wandered away from the vicinity of the watermelon man and\nsupplied himself with a bag of peanuts, which, with the expenditure of a\ndime for admission, left a quarter still warm in his pocket. However, he\nmanaged to \"break\" the coin at a stand inside the tent, where a large,\noblong paper box of popcorn was handed him, with twenty cents change.\nThe box was too large to go into his pocket, but, having seated himself\namong some wistful Polack children, he placed it in his lap and devoured\nthe contents at leisure during the performance. The popcorn was heavily\nlarded with partially boiled molasses, and Penrod sandwiched mouthfuls\nof peanuts with gobs of this mass until the peanuts were all gone. After\nthat, he ate with less avidity; a sense almost of satiety beginning\nto manifest itself to him, and it was not until the close of the\nperformance that he disposed of the last morsel.\n\nHe descended a little heavily to the outflowing crowd in the arena, and\nbought a caterwauling toy balloon, but showed no great enthusiasm in\nmanipulating it. Near the exit, as he came out, was a hot-waffle stand\nwhich he had overlooked, and a sense of duty obliged him to consume the\nthree waffles, thickly powdered with sugar, which the waffle man cooked\nfor him upon command.\n\nThey left a hottish taste in his mouth; they had not been quite up to\nhis anticipation, indeed, and it was with a sense of relief that he\nturned to the \"hokey-pokey\" cart which stood close at hand, laden with\nsquare slabs of \"Neapolitan ice-cream\" wrapped in paper. He thought the\nice-cream would be cooling, but somehow it fell short of the desired\neffect, and left a peculiar savour in his throat.\n\nHe walked away, too languid to blow his balloon, and passed a\nfresh-taffy booth with strange indifference. A bare-armed man was\nmanipulating the taffy over a hook, pulling a great white mass to the\ndesired stage of \"candying,\" but Penrod did not pause to watch the\noperation; in fact, he averted his eyes (which were slightly glazed) in\npassing. He did not analyze his motives: simply, he was conscious that\nhe preferred not to look at the mass of taffy.\n\nFor some reason, he put a considerable distance between himself and the\ntaffy-stand, but before long halted in the presence of a red-faced man\nwho flourished a long fork over a small cooking apparatus and shouted\njovially: \"Winnies! HERE'S your hot winnies! Hot winny-WURST! Food for\nthe over-worked brain, nourishing for the weak stummick, entertaining\nfor the tired business man! HERE'S your hot winnies, three for a nickel,\na half-a-dime, the twentieth-pot-of-a-dollah!\"\n\nThis, above all nectar and ambrosia, was the favourite dish of Penrod\nSchofield. Nothing inside him now craved it--on the contrary! But\nmemory is the great hypnotist; his mind argued against his inwards that\nopportunity knocked at his door: \"winny-wurst\" was rigidly forbidden by\nthe home authorities. Besides, there was a last nickel in his pocket;\nand nature protested against its survival. Also, the redfaced man had\nhimself proclaimed his wares nourishing for the weak stummick.\n\nPenrod placed the nickel in the red hand of the red-faced man.\n\nHe ate two of the three greasy, cigarlike shapes cordially pressed upon\nhim in return. The first bite convinced him that he had made a mistake;\nthese winnies seemed of a very inferior flavour, almost unpleasant, in\nfact. But he felt obliged to conceal his poor opinion of them, for fear\nof offending the red-faced man. He ate without haste or eagerness--so\nslowly, indeed, that he began to think the redfaced man might dislike\nhim, as a deterrent of trade. Perhaps Penrod's mind was not working\nwell, for he failed to remember that no law compelled him to remain\nunder the eye of the red-faced man, but the virulent repulsion excited\nby his attempt to take a bite of the third sausage inspired him with at\nleast an excuse for postponement.\n\n\"Mighty good,\" he murmured feebly, placing the sausage in the pocket\nof his jacket with a shaking hand. \"Guess I'll save this one to eat at\nhome, after--after dinner.\"\n\nHe moved sluggishly away, wishing he had not thought of dinner. A\nside-show, undiscovered until now, failed to arouse his interest, not\neven exciting a wish that he had known of its existence when he had\nmoney. For a time he stared without attraction; the weather-worn colours\nconveying no meaning to comprehension at a huge canvas poster depicting\nthe chief his torpid eye. Then, little by little, the poster became more\nvivid to his consciousness. There was a greenish-tinted person in the\ntent, it seemed, who thrived upon a reptilian diet.\n\nSuddenly, Penrod decided that it was time to go home.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XX BROTHERS OF ANGELS\n\n\"Indeed, doctor,\" said Mrs. Schofield, with agitation and profound\nconviction, just after eight o'clock that evening, \"I shall ALWAYS\nbelieve in mustard plasters--mustard plasters and hot--water bags. If\nit hadn't been for them I don't believed he'd have LIVED till you got\nhere--I do NOT!\"\n\n\"Margaret,\" called Mr. Schofield from the open door of a bedroom,\n\"Margaret, where did you put that aromatic ammonia? Where's Margaret?\"\n\nBut he had to find the aromatic spirits of ammonia himself, for Margaret\nwas not in the house. She stood in the shadow beneath a maple tree\nnear the street corner, a guitar-case in her hand; and she scanned with\nanxiety a briskly approaching figure. The arc light, swinging above,\nrevealed this figure as that of him she awaited. He was passing toward\nthe gate without seeing her, when she arrested him with a fateful\nwhisper.\n\n\"BOB!\"\n\nMr. Robert Williams swung about hastily. \"Why, Margaret!\"\n\n\"Here, take your guitar,\" she whispered hurriedly. \"I was afraid if\nfather happened to find it he'd break it all to pieces!\"\n\n\"What for?\" asked the startled Robert.\n\n\"Because I'm sure he knows it's yours.\" \"But what----\"\n\n\"Oh, Bob,\" she moaned, \"I was waiting here to tell you. I was so afraid\nyou'd try to come in----\"\n\n\"TRY!\" exclaimed the unfortunate young man, quite dumfounded. \"TRY to\ncome----\"\n\n\"Yes, before I warned you. I've been waiting here to tell you, Bob, you\nmustn't come near the house if I were you I'd stay away from even this\nneighbourhood--far away! For a while I don't think it would be actually\nSAFE for----\"\n\n\"Margaret, will you please----\"\n\n\"It's all on account of that dollar you gave Penrod this morning,\" she\nwalled. \"First, he bought that horrible concertina that made papa so\nfurious--\"\n\n\"But Penrod didn't tell that I----\"\n\n\"Oh, wait!\" she cried lamentably. \"Listen! He didn't tell at lunch, but\nhe got home about dinner-time in the most--well! I've seen pale people\nbefore, but nothing like Penrod. Nobody could IMAGINE it--not unless\nthey'd seen him! And he looked, so STRANGE, and kept making such\nunnatural faces, and at first all he would say was that he'd eaten a\nlittle piece of apple and thought it must have some microbes on it. But\nhe got sicker and sicker, and we put him to bed--and then we all thought\nhe was going to die--and, of COURSE, no little piece of apple would\nhave--well, and he kept getting worse and then he said he'd had a\ndollar. He said he'd spent it for the concertina, and watermelon, and\nchocolate-creams, and licorice sticks, and lemon-drops, and peanuts,\nand jaw-breakers, and sardines, and raspberry lemonade, and pickles, and\npopcorn, and ice-cream, and cider, and sausage--there was sausage in\nhis pocket, and mamma says his jacket is ruined--and cinnamon drops--and\nwaffles--and he ate four or five lobster croquettes at lunch--and papa\nsaid, 'Who gave you that dollar?' Only he didn't say 'WHO'--he said\nsomething horrible, Bob! And Penrod thought he was going to die, and he\nsaid you gave it to him, and oh! it was just pitiful to hear the poor\nchild, Bob, because he thought he was dying, you see, and he blamed you\nfor the whole thing. He said if you'd only let him alone and not given\nit to him, he'd have grown up to be a good man--and now he couldn't! I\nnever heard anything so heart-rending--he was so weak he could hardly\nwhisper, but he kept trying to talk, telling us over and over it was all\nyour fault.\"\n\nIn the darkness Mr. Williams' facial expression could not be seen, but\nhis voice sounded hopeful.\n\n\"Is he--is he still in a great deal of pain?\"\n\n\"They say the crisis is past,\" said Margaret, \"but the doctor's still\nup there. He said it was the acutest case of indigestion he had ever\ntreated in the whole course of his professional practice.\"\n\n\"Of course _I_ didn't know what he'd do with the dollar,\" said Robert.\n\nShe did not reply.\n\nHe began plaintively, \"Margaret, you don't----\"\n\n\"I've never seen papa and mamma so upset about anything,\" she said,\nrather primly.\n\n\"You mean they're upset about ME?\"\n\n\"We ARE all very much upset,\" returned Margaret, more starch in her tone\nas she remembered not only Penrod's sufferings but a duty she had vowed\nherself to perform.\n\n\"Margaret! YOU don't----\"\n\n\"Robert,\" she said firmly and, also, with a rhetorical complexity which\nbreeds a suspicion of pre-rehearsal--\"Robert, for the present I can only\nlook at it in one way: when you gave that money to Penrod you put into\nthe hands of an unthinking little child a weapon which might be, and,\nindeed was, the means of his undoing. Boys are not respon----\"\n\n\"But you saw me give him the dollar, and you didn't----\"\n\n\"Robert!\" she checked him with increasing severity. \"I am only a woman\nand not accustomed to thinking everything out on the spur of the moment;\nbut I cannot change my mind. Not now, at least.\"\n\n\"And you think I'd better not come in to-night?\"\n\n\"To-night!\" she gasped. \"Not for WEEKS! Papa would----\"\n\n\"But Margaret,\" he urged plaintively, \"how can you blame me for----\"\n\n\"I have not used the word 'blame,'\" she interrupted. \"But I must insist\nthat for your carelessness to--to wreak such havoc--cannot fail to--to\nlessen my confidence in your powers of judgment. I cannot change my\nconvictions in this matter--not to-night--and I cannot remain here\nanother instant. The poor child may need me. Robert, good-night.\"\n\nWith chill dignity she withdrew, entered the house, and returned to the\nsick-room, leaving the young man in outer darkness to brood upon his\ncrime--and upon Penrod.\n\n\nThat sincere invalid became convalescent upon the third day; and a\nweek elapsed, then, before he found an opportunity to leave the house\nunaccompanied--save by Duke. But at last he set forth and approached the\nJones neighbourhood in high spirits, pleasantly conscious of his pallor,\nhollow cheeks, and other perquisites of illness provocative of interest.\n\nOne thought troubled him a little because it gave him a sense of\ninferiority to a rival. He believed, against his will, that Maurice\nLevy could have successfully eaten chocolate-creams, licorice sticks,\nlemon-drops, jaw-breakers, peanuts, waffles, lobster croquettes,\nsardines, cinnamon-drops, watermelon, pickles, popcorn, ice-cream\nand sausage with raspberry lemonade and cider. Penrod had admitted to\nhimself that Maurice could do it and afterward attend to business, or\npleasure, without the slightest discomfort; and this was probably no\nmore than a fair estimate of one of the great constitutions of all time.\nAs a digester, Maurice Levy would have disappointed a Borgia.\n\nFortunately, Maurice was still at Atlantic City--and now the\nconvalescent's heart leaped. In the distance he saw Marjorie coming--in\npink again, with a ravishing little parasol over her head. And alone! No\nMitchy-Mitch was to mar this meeting.\n\nPenrod increased the feebleness of his steps, now and then leaning upon\nthe fence as if for support.\n\n\"How do you do, Marjorie?\" he said, in his best sick-room voice, as she\ncame near.\n\nTo his pained amazement, she proceeded on her way, her nose at a\ncelebrated elevation--an icy nose.\n\nShe cut him dead.\n\nHe threw his invalid's airs to the winds, and hastened after her.\n\n\"Marjorie,\" he pleaded, \"what's the matter? Are you mad? Honest, that\nday you said to come back next morning, and you'd be on the corner,\nI was sick. Honest, I was AWFUL sick, Marjorie! I had to have the\ndoctor----\"\n\n\"DOCTOR!\" She whirled upon him, her lovely eyes blazing.\n\n\"I guess WE'VE had to have the doctor enough at OUR house, thanks to\nyou, Mister Penrod Schofield. Papa says you haven't got NEAR sense\nenough to come in out of the rain, after what you did to poor little\nMitchy-Mitch----\"\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"Yes, and he's sick in bed YET!\" Marjorie went on, with unabated fury.\n\"And papa says if he ever catches you in this part of town----\"\n\n\"WHAT'D I do to Mitchy-Mitch?\" gasped Penrod.\n\n\"You know well enough what you did to Mitchy-Mitch!\" she cried. \"You\ngave him that great, big, nasty two-cent piece!\"\n\n\"Well, what of it?\"\n\n\"Mitchy-Mitch swallowed it!\"\n\n\"What!\"\n\n\"And papa says if he ever just lays eyes on you, once, in this\nneighbourhood----\"\n\nBut Penrod had started for home.\n\nIn his embittered heart there was increasing a critical disapproval of\nthe Creator's methods. When He made pretty girls, thought Penrod, why\ncouldn't He have left out their little brothers!\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXI RUPE COLLINS\n\nFor several days after this, Penrod thought of growing up to be a\nmonk, and engaged in good works so far as to carry some kittens (that\notherwise would have been drowned) and a pair of Margaret's outworn\ndancing-slippers to a poor, ungrateful old man sojourning in a shed\nup the alley. And although Mr. Robert Williams, after a very short\ninterval, began to leave his guitar on the front porch again, exactly as\nif he thought nothing had happened, Penrod, with his younger vision of\na father's mood, remained coldly distant from the Jones neighbourhood.\nWith his own family his manner was gentle, proud and sad, but not for\nlong enough to frighten them. The change came with mystifying abruptness\nat the end of the week.\n\nIt was Duke who brought it about.\n\nDuke could chase a much bigger dog out of the Schofields' yard and far\ndown the street. This might be thought to indicate unusual valour on\nthe part of Duke and cowardice on that of the bigger dogs whom he\nundoubtedly put to rout. On the contrary, all such flights were founded\nin mere superstition, for dogs are even more superstitious than boys\nand coloured people; and the most firmly established of all dog\nsuperstitions is that any dog--be he the smallest and feeblest in the\nworld--can whip any trespasser whatsoever.\n\nA rat-terrier believes that on his home grounds he can whip an elephant.\nIt follows, of course, that a big dog, away from his own home, will run\nfrom a little dog in the little dog's neighbourhood. Otherwise, the big\ndog must face a charge of inconsistency, and dogs are as consistent as\nthey are superstitious. A dog believes in war, but he is convinced\nthat there are times when it is moral to run; and the thoughtful\nphysiognomist, seeing a big dog fleeing out of a little dog's yard, must\nobserve that the expression of the big dog's face is more conscientious\nthan alarmed: it is the expression of a person performing a duty to\nhimself.\n\nPenrod understood these matters perfectly; he knew that the gaunt brown\nhound Duke chased up the alley had fled only out of deference to a\ncustom, yet Penrod could not refrain from bragging of Duke to the\nhound's owner, a fat-faced stranger of twelve or thirteen, who had\nwandered into the neighbourhood.\n\n\"You better keep that ole yellow dog o' yours back,\" said Penrod\nominously, as he climbed the fence. \"You better catch him and hold him\ntill I get mine inside the yard again. Duke's chewed up some pretty bad\nbulldogs around here.\"\n\nThe fat-faced boy gave Penrod a fishy stare. \"You'd oughta learn him not\nto do that,\" he said. \"It'll make him sick.\"\n\n\"What will?\"\n\nThe stranger laughed raspingly and gazed up the alley, where the hound,\nhaving come to a halt, now coolly sat down, and, with an expression of\nroguish benevolence, patronizingly watched the tempered fury of Duke,\nwhose assaults and barkings were becoming perfunctory.\n\n\"What'll make Duke sick?\" Penrod demanded.\n\n\"Eatin' dead bulldogs people leave around here.\"\n\nThis was not improvisation but formula, adapted from other occasions to\nthe present encounter; nevertheless, it was new to Penrod, and he was\nso taken with it that resentment lost itself in admiration. Hastily\ncommitting the gem to memory for use upon a dog-owning friend, he\ninquired in a sociable tone:\n\n\"What's your dog's name?\"\n\n\"Dan. You better call your ole pup, 'cause Dan eats LIVE dogs.\"\n\nDan's actions poorly supported his master's assertion, for, upon Duke's\nceasing to bark, Dan rose and showed the most courteous interest in\nmaking the little, old dog's acquaintance. Dan had a great deal of\nmanner, and it became plain that Duke was impressed favourably in spite\nof former prejudice, so that presently the two trotted amicably back to\ntheir masters and sat down with the harmonious but indifferent air of\nhaving known each other intimately for years.\n\nThey were received without comment, though both boys looked at them\nreflectively for a time. It was Penrod who spoke first.\n\n\"What number you go to?\" (In an \"oral lesson in English,\" Penrod had\nbeen instructed to put this question in another form: \"May I ask which\nof our public schools you attend?\")\n\n\"Me? What number do I go to?\" said the stranger, contemptuously. \"I\ndon't go to NO number in vacation!\"\n\n\"I mean when it ain't.\"\n\n\"Third,\" returned the fat-faced boy. \"I got 'em ALL scared in THAT\nschool.\"\n\n\"What of?\" innocently asked Penrod, to whom \"the Third\"--in a distant\npart of town--was undiscovered country.\n\n\"What of? I guess you'd soon see what of, if you ever was in that school\nabout one day. You'd be lucky if you got out alive!\"\n\n\"Are the teachers mean?\"\n\nThe other boy frowned with bitter scorn. \"Teachers! Teachers don't order\nME around, I can tell you! They're mighty careful how they try to run\nover Rupe Collins.\"\n\n\"Who's Rupe Collins?\"\n\n\"Who is he?\" echoed the fat-faced boy incredulously. \"Say, ain't you got\nANY sense?\"\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"Say, wouldn't you be just as happy if you had SOME sense?\"\n\n\"Ye-es.\" Penrod's answer, like the look he lifted to the impressive\nstranger, was meek and placative. \"Rupe Collins is the principal at your\nschool, guess.\"\n\nThe other yelled with jeering laughter, and mocked Penrod's manner and\nvoice. \"'Rupe Collins is the principal at your school, I guess!'\" He\nlaughed harshly again, then suddenly showed truculence. \"Say, 'bo,\nwhyn't you learn enough to go in the house when it rains? What's the\nmatter of you, anyhow?\"\n\n\"Well,\" urged Penrod timidly, \"nobody ever TOLD me who Rupe Collins is:\nI got a RIGHT to think he's the principal, haven't I?\"\n\nThe fat-faced boy shook his head disgustedly. \"Honest, you make me\nsick!\"\n\nPenrod's expression became one of despair. \"Well, who IS he?\" he cried.\n\n\"'Who IS he?'\" mocked the other, with a scorn that withered. \"'Who IS\nhe?' ME!\"\n\n\"Oh!\" Penrod was humiliated but relieved: he felt that he had proved\nhimself criminally ignorant, yet a peril seemed to have passed. \"Rupe\nCollins is your name, then, I guess. I kind of thought it was, all the\ntime.\"\n\nThe fat-faced boy still appeared embittered, burlesquing this speech in\na hateful falsetto. \"'Rupe Collins is YOUR name, then, I guess!' Oh, you\n'kind of thought it was, all the time,' did you?\" Suddenly concentrating\nhis brow into a histrionic scowl he thrust his face within an inch of\nPenrod's. \"Yes, sonny, Rupe Collins is my name, and you better look\nout what you say when he's around or you'll get in big trouble! YOU\nUNDERSTAND THAT, 'BO?\"\n\nPenrod was cowed but fascinated: he felt that there was something\ndangerous and dashing about this newcomer.\n\n\"Yes,\" he said, feebly, drawing back. \"My name's Penrod Schofield.\"\n\n\"Then I reckon your father and mother ain't got good sense,\" said Mr.\nCollins promptly, this also being formula.\n\n\"Why?\"\n\n\"'Cause if they had they'd of give you a good name!\" And the agreeable\nyouth instantly rewarded himself for the wit with another yell of\nrasping laughter, after which he pointed suddenly at Penrod's right\nhand.\n\n\"Where'd you get that wart on your finger?\" he demanded severely.\n\n\"Which finger?\" asked the mystified Penrod, extending his hand.\n\n\"The middle one.\"\n\n\"Where?\"\n\n\"There!\" exclaimed Rupe Collins, seizing and vigorously twisting the\nwartless finger naively offered for his inspection.\n\n\"Quit!\" shouted Penrod in agony. \"QUEE-yut!\"\n\n\"Say your prayers!\" commanded Rupe, and continued to twist the luckless\nfinger until Penrod writhed to his knees.\n\n\"OW!\" The victim, released, looked grievously upon the still painful\nfinger.\n\nAt this Rupe's scornful expression altered to one of contrition. \"Well,\nI declare!\" he exclaimed remorsefully. \"I didn't s'pose it would hurt.\nTurn about's fair play; so now you do that to me.\"\n\nHe extended the middle finger of his left hand and Penrod promptly\nseized it, but did not twist it, for he was instantly swung round with\nhis back to his amiable new acquaintance: Rupe's right hand operated\nupon the back of Penrod's slender neck; Rupe's knee tortured the small\nof Penrod's back.\n\n\"OW!\" Penrod bent far forward involuntarily and went to his knees again.\n\n\"Lick dirt,\" commanded Rupe, forcing the captive's face to the sidewalk;\nand the suffering Penrod completed this ceremony.\n\nMr. Collins evinced satisfaction by means of his horse laugh.\n\n\"You'd last jest about one day up at the Third!\" he said. \"You'd come\nrunnin' home, yellin' 'MOM-MUH, MOM-muh,' before recess was over!\"\n\n\"No, I wouldn't,\" Penrod protested rather weakly, dusting his knees.\n\n\"You would, too!\"\n\n\"No, I w----\n\n\"Looky here,\" said the fat-faced boy, darkly, \"what you mean,\ncounterdicking me?\"\n\nHe advanced a step and Penrod hastily qualified his contradiction.\n\n\"I mean, I don't THINK I would. I----\"\n\n\"You better look out!\" Rupe moved closer, and unexpectedly grasped the\nback of Penrod's neck again. \"Say, 'I WOULD run home yellin' \"MOM-muh!\"'\"\n\n\"Ow! I WOULD run home yellin' 'Mom-muh.'\"\n\n\"There!\" said Rupe, giving the helpless nape a final squeeze. \"That's\nthe way we do up at the Third.\"\n\nPenrod rubbed his neck and asked meekly:\n\n\"Can you do that to any boy up at the Third?\"\n\n\"See here now,\" said Rupe, in the tone of one goaded beyond all\nendurance, \"YOU say if I can! You better say it quick, or----\"\n\n\"I knew you could,\" Penrod interposed hastily, with the pathetic\nsemblance of a laugh. \"I only said that in fun.\"\n\n\"In 'fun'!\" repeated Rupe stormily. \"You better look out how you----\"\n\n\"Well, I SAID I wasn't in earnest!\" Penrod retreated a few steps. \"_I_\nknew you could, all the time. I expect _I_ could do it to some of the\nboys up at the Third, myself. Couldn't I?\"\n\n\"No, you couldn't.\"\n\n\"Well, there must be SOME boy up there that I could----\"\n\n\"No, they ain't! You better----\"\n\n\"I expect not, then,\" said Penrod, quickly.\n\n\"You BETTER 'expect not.' Didn't I tell you once you'd never get back\nalive if you ever tried to come up around the Third? You want me to SHOW\nyou how we do up there, 'bo?\"\n\nHe began a slow and deadly advance, whereupon Penrod timidly offered a\ndiversion:\n\n\"Say, Rupe, I got a box of rats in our stable under a glass cover, so\nyou can watch 'em jump around when you hammer on the box. Come on and\nlook at 'em.\"\n\n\"All right,\" said the fat-faced boy, slightly mollified. \"We'll let Dan\nkill 'em.\"\n\n\"No, SIR! I'm goin' to keep 'em. They're kind of pets; I've had 'em all\nsummer--I got names for em, and----\"\n\n\"Looky here, 'bo. Did you hear me say we'll let 'Dan kill 'em?\"\n\n\"Yes, but I won't----\"\n\n\"WHAT won't you?\" Rupe became sinister immediately. \"It seems to me\nyou're gettin' pretty fresh around here.\"\n\n\"Well, I don't want----\"\n\nMr. Collins once more brought into play the dreadful eye-to-eye scowl as\npractised \"up at the Third,\" and, sometimes, also by young leading\nmen upon the stage. Frowning appallingly, and thrusting forward his\nunderlip, he placed his nose almost in contact with the nose of Penrod,\nwhose eyes naturally became crossed.\n\n\"Dan kills the rats. See?\" hissed the fat-faced boy, maintaining the\nhorrible juxtaposition.\n\n\"Well, all right,\" said Penrod, swallowing. \"I don't want 'em much.\"\nAnd when the pose had been relaxed, he stared at his new friend for a\nmoment, almost with reverence. Then he brightened.\n\n\"Come on, Rupe!\" he cried enthusiastically, as he climbed the fence.\n\"We'll give our dogs a little live meat--'bo!\"\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXII THE IMITATOR\n\nAt the dinner-table, that evening, Penrod Surprised his family by\nremarking, in a voice they had never heard him attempt--a law-giving\nvoice of intentional gruffness:\n\n\"Any man that's makin' a hunderd dollars a month is makin' good money.\"\n\n\"What?\" asked Mr. Schofield, staring, for the previous conversation had\nconcerned the illness of an infant relative in Council Bluffs.\n\n\"Any man that's makin' a hunderd dollars a month is makin' good money.\"\n\n\"What IS he talking about!\" Margaret appealed to the invisible.\n\n\"Well,\" said Penrod, frowning, \"that's what foremen at the ladder works\nget.\"\n\n\"How in the world do you know?\" asked his mother.\n\n\"Well, I KNOW it! A hunderd dollars a month is good money, I tell you!\"\n\n\"Well, what of it?\" said the father, impatiently.\n\n\"Nothin'. I only said it was good money.\"\n\nMr. Schofield shook his head, dismissing the subject; and here he made\na mistake: he should have followed up his son's singular contribution\nto the conversation. That would have revealed the fact that there was a\ncertain Rupe Collins whose father was a foreman at the ladder works. All\nclues are important when a boy makes his first remark in a new key.\n\n\"'Good money'?\" repeated Margaret, curiously. \"What is 'good' money?\"\n\nPenrod turned upon her a stern glance. \"Say, wouldn't you be just as\nhappy if you had SOME sense?\"\n\n\"Penrod!\" shouted his father. But Penrod's mother gazed with dismay at\nher son: he had never before spoken like that to his sister.\n\nMrs. Schofield might have been more dismayed than she was, if she had\nrealized that it was the beginning of an epoch. After dinner, Penrod was\nslightly scalded in the back as the result of telling Della, the cook,\nthat there was a wart on the middle finger of her right hand. Della thus\nproving poor material for his new manner to work upon, he approached\nDuke, in the backyard, and, bending double, seized the lowly animal by\nthe forepaws.\n\n\"I let you know my name's Penrod Schofield,\" hissed the boy. He\nprotruded his underlip ferociously, scowled, and thrust forward his head\nuntil his nose touched the dog's. \"And you better look out when Penrod\nSchofield's around, or you'll get in big trouble! YOU UNDERSTAN' THAT,\n'BO?\"\n\nThe next day, and the next, the increasing change in Penrod puzzled and\ndistressed his family, who had no idea of its source.\n\nHow might they guess that hero-worship takes such forms? They were\nvaguely conscious that a rather shabby boy, not of the neighbourhood,\ncame to \"play\" with Penrod several times; but they failed to connect\nthis circumstance with the peculiar behaviour of the son of the house,\nwhose ideals (his father remarked) seemed to have suddenly become\nidentical with those of Gyp the Blood.\n\nMeanwhile, for Penrod himself, \"life had taken on new meaning, new\nrichness.\" He had become a fighting man--in conversation at least. \"Do\nyou want to know how I do when they try to slip up on me from behind?\"\nhe asked Della. And he enacted for her unappreciative eye a scene of\nfistic manoeuvres wherein he held an imaginary antagonist helpless in a\nnet of stratagems.\n\nFrequently, when he was alone, he would outwit, and pummel this same\nenemy, and, after a cunning feint, land a dolorous stroke full upon a\nface of air. \"There! I guess you'll know better next time. That's the\nway we do up at the Third!\"\n\nSometimes, in solitary pantomime, he encountered more than one opponent\nat a time, for numbers were apt to come upon him treacherously,\nespecially at a little after his rising hour, when he might be caught at\na disadvantage--perhaps standing on one leg to encase the other in his\nknickerbockers. Like lightning, he would hurl the trapping garment from\nhim, and, ducking and pivoting, deal great sweeping blows among the\ncircle of sneaking devils. (That was how he broke the clock in his\nbedroom.) And while these battles were occupying his attention, it was\na waste of voice to call him to breakfast, though if his mother, losing\npatience, came to his room, she would find him seated on the bed pulling\nat a stocking. \"Well, ain't I coming fast as I CAN?\"\n\nAt the table and about the house generally he was bumptious, loud with\nfatuous misinformation, and assumed a domineering tone, which neither\nsatire nor reproof seemed able to reduce: but it was among his own\nintimates that his new superiority was most outrageous. He twisted the\nfingers and squeezed the necks of all the boys of the neighbourhood,\nmeeting their indignation with a hoarse and rasping laugh he had\nacquired after short practice in the stable, where he jeered and taunted\nthe lawn-mower, the garden-scythe and the wheelbarrow quite out of\ncountenance.\n\nLikewise he bragged to the other boys by the hour, Rupe Collins being\nthe chief subject of encomium--next to Penrod himself. \"That's the\nway we do up at the Third,\" became staple explanation of violence, for\nPenrod, like Tartarin, was plastic in the hands of his own imagination,\nand at times convinced himself that he really was one of those dark\nand murderous spirits exclusively of whom \"the Third\" was\ncomposed--according to Rupe Collins.\n\nThen, when Penrod had exhausted himself repeating to nausea accounts of\nthe prowess of himself and his great friend, he would turn to two other\nsubjects for vainglory. These were his father and Duke.\n\nMothers must accept the fact that between babyhood and manhood their\nsons do not boast of them. The boy, with boys, is a Choctaw; and either\nthe influence or the protection of women is shameful. \"Your mother won't\nlet you,\" is an insult. But, \"My father won't let me,\" is a dignified\nexplanation and cannot be hooted. A boy is ruined among his fellows if\nhe talks much of his mother or sisters; and he must recognize it as\nhis duty to offer at least the appearance of persecution to all things\nranked as female, such as cats and every species of fowl. But he must\nchampion his father and his dog, and, ever, ready to pit either against\nany challenger, must picture both as ravening for battle and absolutely\nunconquerable.\n\nPenrod, of course, had always talked by the code, but, under the new\nstimulus, Duke was represented virtually as a cross between Bob, Son of\nBattle, and a South American vampire; and this in spite of the fact that\nDuke himself often sat close by, a living lie, with the hope of peace\nin his heart. As for Penrod's father, that gladiator was painted as of\nsentiments and dimensions suitable to a super-demon composed of equal\nparts of Goliath, Jack Johnson and the Emperor Nero.\n\nEven Penrod's walk was affected; he adopted a gait which was a kind of\ntaunting swagger; and, when he passed other children on the street, he\npractised the habit of feinting a blow; then, as the victim dodged,\nhe rasped the triumphant horse laugh which he gradually mastered to\nhorrible perfection. He did this to Marjorie Jones--ay! this was\ntheir next meeting, and such is Eros, young! What was even worse, in\nMarjorie's opinion, he went on his way without explanation, and left\nher standing on the corner talking about it, long after he was out of\nhearing.\n\nWithin five days from his first encounter with Rupe Collins, Penrod had\nbecome unbearable. He even almost alienated Sam Williams, who for a time\nsubmitted to finger twisting and neck squeezing and the new style of\nconversation, but finally declared that Penrod made him \"sick.\" He made\nthe statement with fervour, one sultry afternoon, in Mr. Schofield's\nstable, in the presence of Herman and Verman.\n\n\"You better look out, 'bo,\" said Penrod, threateningly. \"I'll show you a\nlittle how we do up at the Third.\"\n\n\"Up at the Third!\" Sam repeated with scorn. \"You haven't ever been up\nthere.\"\n\n\"I haven't?\" cried Penrod. \"I HAVEN'T?\"\n\n\"No, you haven't!\"\n\n\"Looky here!\" Penrod, darkly argumentative, prepared to perform the\neye-to-eye business. \"When haven't I been up there?\"\n\n\"You haven't NEVER been up there!\" In spite of Penrod's closely\napproaching nose Sam maintained his ground, and appealed for\nconfirmation. \"Has he, Herman?\"\n\n\"I don' reckon so,\" said Herman, laughing.\n\n\"WHAT!\" Penrod transferred his nose to the immediate vicinity of\nHerman's nose. \"You don't reckon so, 'bo, don't you? You better look out\nhow you reckon around here! YOU UNDERSTAN' THAT, 'BO?\"\n\nHerman bore the eye-to-eye very well; indeed, it seemed to please\nhim, for he continued to laugh while Verman chuckled delightedly. The\nbrothers had been in the country picking berries for a week, and it\nhappened that this was their first experience of the new manifestation\nof Penrod.\n\n\"HAVEN'T I been up at the Third?\" the sinister Penrod demanded.\n\n\"I don' reckon so. How come you ast ME?\"\n\n\"Didn't you just hear me SAY I been up there?\"\n\n\"Well,\" said Herman mischievously, \"hearin' ain't believin'!\"\n\nPenrod clutched him by the back of the neck, but Herman, laughing\nloudly, ducked and released himself at once, retreating to the wall.\n\n\"You take that back!\" Penrod shouted, striking out wildly.\n\n\"Don' git mad,\" begged the small darky, while a number of blows falling\nupon his warding arms failed to abate his amusement, and a sound one\nupon the cheek only made him laugh the more unrestrainedly. He behaved\nexactly as if Penrod were tickling him, and his brother, Verman, rolled\nwith joy in a wheelbarrow. Penrod pummelled till he was tired, and\nproduced no greater effect.\n\n\"There!\" he panted, desisting finally. \"NOW I reckon you know whether I\nbeen up there or not!\"\n\nHerman rubbed his smitten cheek. \"Pow!\" he exclaimed. \"Pow-ee! You\ncert'ny did lan' me good one NAT time! Oo-ee! she HURT!\"\n\n\"You'll get hurt worse'n that,\" Penrod assured him, \"if you stay around\nhere much. Rupe Collins is comin' this afternoon, he said. We're goin'\nto make some policemen's billies out of the rake handle.\"\n\n\"You go' spoil new rake you' pa bought?\"\n\n\"What do WE care? I and Rupe got to have billies, haven't we?\"\n\n\"How you make 'em?\"\n\n\"Melt lead and pour in a hole we're goin' to make in the end of 'em.\nThen we're goin' to carry 'em in our pockets, and if anybody says\nanything to us--OH, oh! look out! They won't get a crack on the\nhead--OH, no!\"\n\n\"When's Rupe Collins coming?\" Sam Williams inquired rather uneasily.\nHe had heard a great deal too much of this personage, but as yet the\npleasure of actual acquaintance had been denied him.\n\n\"He's liable to be here any time,\" answered Penrod. \"You better look\nout. You'll be lucky if you get home alive, if you stay till HE comes.\"\n\n\"I ain't afraid of him,\" Sam returned, conventionally.\n\n\"You are, too!\" (There was some truth in the retort.) \"There ain't any\nboy in this part of town but me that wouldn't be afraid of him. You'd be\nafraid to talk to him. You wouldn't get a word out of your mouth before\nold Rupie'd have you where you'd wished you never come around HIM,\nlettin' on like you was so much! YOU wouldn't run home yellin' 'Mom-muh'\nor nothin'! OH, no!\"\n\n\"Who Rupe Collins?\" asked Herman.\n\n\"'Who Rupe Collins?'\" Penrod mocked, and used his rasping laugh, but,\ninstead of showing fright, Herman appeared to think he was meant to\nlaugh, too; and so he did, echoed by Verman. \"You just hang around here\na little while longer,\" Penrod added, grimly, \"and you'll find out who\nRupe Collins is, and I pity YOU when you do!\"\n\n\"What he go' do?\"\n\n\"You'll see; that's all! You just wait and----\"\n\nAt this moment a brown hound ran into the stable through the alley door,\nwagged a greeting to Penrod, and fraternized with Duke. The fat-faced\nboy appeared upon the threshold and gazed coldly about the little\ncompany in the carriage-house, whereupon the coloured brethren, ceasing\nfrom merriment, were instantly impassive, and Sam Williams moved a\nlittle nearer the door leading into the yard.\n\nObviously, Sam regarded the newcomer as a redoubtable if not ominous\nfigure. He was a head taller than either Sam or Penrod; head and\nshoulders taller than Herman, who was short for his age; and Verman\ncould hardly be used for purposes of comparison at all, being a mere\nsquat brown spot, not yet quite nine years on this planet. And to\nSam's mind, the aspect of Mr. Collins realized Penrod's portentous\nforeshadowings. Upon the fat face there was an expression of truculent\nintolerance which had been cultivated by careful habit to such\nperfection that Sam's heart sank at sight of it. A somewhat enfeebled\ntwin to this expression had of late often decorated the visage of\nPenrod, and appeared upon that ingenuous surface now, as he advanced to\nwelcome the eminent visitor.\n\nThe host swaggered toward the door with a great deal of shoulder\nmovement, carelessly feinting a slap at Verman in passing, and creating\nby various means the atmosphere of a man who has contemptuously amused\nhimself with underlings while awaiting an equal.\n\n\"Hello, 'bo!\" Penrod said in the deepest voice possible to him.\n\n\"Who you callin' 'bo?\" was the ungracious response, accompanied by\nimmediate action of a similar nature. Rupe held Penrod's head in the\ncrook of an elbow and massaged his temples with a hard-pressing knuckle.\n\n\"I was only in fun, Rupie,\" pleaded the sufferer, and then, being set\nfree, \"Come here, Sam,\" he said.\n\n\"What for?\"\n\nPenrod laughed pityingly. \"Pshaw, I ain't goin' to hurt you. Come on.\"\nSam, maintaining his position near the other door, Penrod went to him\nand caught him round the neck.\n\n\"Watch me, Rupie!\" Penrod called, and performed upon Sam the knuckle\noperation which he had himself just undergone, Sam submitting\nmechanically, his eyes fixed with increasing uneasiness upon Rupe\nCollins. Sam had a premonition that something even more painful than\nPenrod's knuckle was going to be inflicted upon him.\n\n\"THAT don' hurt,\" said Penrod, pushing him away.\n\n\"Yes, it does, too!\" Sam rubbed his temple.\n\n\"Puh! It didn't hurt me, did it, Rupie? Come on in, Rupe: show this baby\nwhere he's got a wart on his finger.\"\n\n\"You showed me that trick,\" Sam objected. \"You already did that to\nme. You tried it twice this afternoon and I don't know how many times\nbefore, only you weren't strong enough after the first time. Anyway, I\nknow what it is, and I don't----\"\n\n\"Come on, Rupe,\" said Penrod. \"Make the baby lick dirt.\"\n\nAt this bidding, Rupe approached, while Sam, still protesting, moved to\nthe threshold of the outer door; but Penrod seized him by the shoulders\nand swung him indoors with a shout.\n\n\"Little baby wants to run home to its Mom-muh! Here he is, Rupie.\"\n\nThereupon was Penrod's treachery to an old comrade properly rewarded,\nfor as the two struggled, Rupe caught each by the back of the neck,\nsimultaneously, and, with creditable impartiality, forced both boys to\ntheir knees.\n\n\"Lick dirt!\" he commanded, forcing them still forward, until their faces\nwere close to the stable floor.\n\nAt this moment he received a real surprise. With a loud whack something\nstruck the back of his head, and, turning, he beheld Verman in the act\nof lifting a piece of lath to strike again.\n\n\"Em moys ome!\" said Verman, the Giant Killer.\n\n\"He tongue-tie',\" Herman explained. \"He say, let 'em boys alone.\"\n\nRupe addressed his host briefly:\n\n\"Chase them nigs out o' here!\"\n\n\"Don' call me nig,\" said Herman. \"I mine my own biznuss. You let 'em\nboys alone.\"\n\nRupe strode across the still prostrate Sam, stepped upon Penrod, and,\nequipping his countenance with the terrifying scowl and protruded jaw,\nlowered his head to the level of Herman's.\n\n\"Nig, you'll be lucky if you leave here alive!\" And he leaned forward\ntill his nose was within less than an inch of Herman's nose.\n\nIt could be felt that something awful was about to happen, and Penrod,\nas he rose from the floor, suffered an unexpected twinge of apprehension\nand remorse: he hoped that Rupe wouldn't REALLY hurt Herman. A sudden\ndislike of Rupe and Rupe's ways rose within him, as he looked at the big\nboy overwhelming the little darky with that ferocious scowl. Penrod,\nall at once, felt sorry about something indefinable; and, with equal\nvagueness, he felt foolish. \"Come on, Rupe,\" he suggested, feebly, \"let\nHerman go, and let's us make our billies out of the rake handle.\"\n\nThe rake handle, however, was not available, if Rupe had inclined to\nfavour the suggestion. Verman had discarded his lath for the rake, which\nhe was at this moment lifting in the air.\n\n\"You ole black nigger,\" the fat-faced boy said venomously to Herman,\n\"I'm agoin' to----\"\n\nBut he had allowed his nose to remain too long near Herman's.\n\nPenrod's familiar nose had been as close with only a ticklish spinal\neffect upon the not very remote descendant of Congo man-eaters. The\nresult produced by the glare of Rupe's unfamiliar eyes, and by\nthe dreadfully suggestive proximity of Rupe's unfamiliar nose, was\naltogether different. Herman's and Verman's Bangala great-grandfathers\nnever considered people of their own jungle neighbourhood proper\nmaterial for a meal, but they looked upon strangers especially truculent\nstrangers--as distinctly edible.\n\nPenrod and Sam heard Rupe suddenly squawk and bellow; saw him writhe and\ntwist and fling out his arms like flails, though without removing his\nface from its juxtaposition; indeed, for a moment, the two heads seemed\neven closer.\n\nThen they separated--and battle was on!\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXIII COLOURED TROOPS IN ACTION\n\nHow neat and pure is the task of the chronicler who has the tale to tell\nof a \"good rousing fight\" between boys or men who fight in the \"good old\nEnglish way,\" according to a model set for fights in books long before\nTom Brown went to Rugby. There are seconds and rounds and rules of\nfair-play, and always there is great good feeling in the end--though\nsometimes, to vary the model, \"the Butcher\" defeats the hero--and the\nchronicler who stencils this fine old pattern on his page is certain of\napplause as the stirrer of \"red blood.\" There is no surer recipe.\n\nBut when Herman and Verman set to 't the record must be no more than a\nfew fragments left by the expurgator. It has been perhaps sufficiently\nsuggested that the altercation in Mr. Schofield's stable opened with\nmayhem in respect to the aggressor's nose. Expressing vocally his\nindignation and the extremity of his pained surprise, Mr. Collins\nstepped backward, holding his left hand over his nose, and striking at\nHerman with his right. Then Verman hit him with the rake.\n\nVerman struck from behind. He struck as hard as he could. And he struck\nwith the tines down--For, in his simple, direct African way he wished to\nkill his enemy, and he wished to kill him as soon as possible. That was\nhis single, earnest purpose.\n\nOn this account, Rupe Collins was peculiarly unfortunate. He was plucky\nand he enjoyed conflict, but neither his ambitions nor his anticipations\nhad ever included murder. He had not learned that an habitually\naggressive person runs the danger of colliding with beings in one of\nthose lower stages of evolution wherein theories about \"hitting below\nthe belt\" have not yet made their appearance.\n\nThe rake glanced from the back of Rupe's head to his shoulder, but it\nfelled him. Both darkies jumped full upon him instantly, and the three\nrolled and twisted upon the stable-floor, unloosing upon the air sincere\nmaledictions closely connected with complaints of cruel and unusual\ntreatment; while certain expressions of feeling presently emanating from\nHerman and Verman indicated that Rupe Collins, in this extremity, was\nproving himself not too slavishly addicted to fighting by rule. Dan and\nDuke, mistaking all for mirth, barked gayly.\n\nFrom the panting, pounding, yelling heap issued words and phrases\nhitherto quite unknown to Penrod and Sam; also, a hoarse repetition\nin the voice of Rupe concerning his ear left it not to be doubted\nthat additional mayhem was taking place. Appalled, the two spectators\nretreated to the doorway nearest the yard, where they stood dumbly\nwatching the cataclysm.\n\nThe struggle increased in primitive simplicity: time and again the\nhowling Rupe got to his knees only to go down again as the earnest\nbrothers, in their own way, assisted him to a more reclining position.\nPrimal forces operated here, and the two blanched, slightly higher\nproducts of evolution, Sam and Penrod, no more thought of interfering\nthan they would have thought of interfering with an earthquake.\n\nAt last, out of the ruck rose Verman, disfigured and maniacal. With a\nwild eye he looked about him for his trusty rake; but Penrod, in horror,\nhad long since thrown the rake out into the yard. Naturally, it had not\nseemed necessary to remove the lawn-mower.\n\nThe frantic eye of Verman fell upon the lawn-mower, and instantly\nhe leaped to its handle. Shrilling a wordless war-cry, he charged,\npropelling the whirling, deafening knives straight upon the prone\nlegs of Rupe Collins. The lawn-mower was sincerely intended to pass\nlongitudinally over the body of Mr. Collins from heel to head; and it\nwas the time for a death-song. Black Valkyrie hovered in the shrieking\nair.\n\n\"Cut his gizzud out!\" shrieked Herman, urging on the whirling knives.\n\nThey touched and lacerated the shin of Rupe, as, with the supreme agony\nof effort a creature in mortal peril puts forth before succumbing, he\ntore himself free of Herman and got upon his feet.\n\nHerman was up as quickly. He leaped to the wall and seized the\ngarden-scythe that hung there.\n\n\"I'm go to cut you' gizzud out,\" he announced definitely, \"an' eat it!\"\n\nRupe Collins had never run from anybody (except his father) in his life;\nhe was not a coward; but the present situation was very, very unusual.\nHe was already in a badly dismantled condition, and yet Herman and\nVerman seemed discontented with their work: Verman was swinging the\ngrass-cutter about for a new charge, apparently still wishing to mow\nhim, and Herman had made a quite plausible statement about what he\nintended to do with the scythe.\n\nRupe paused but for an extremely condensed survey of the horrible\nadvance of the brothers, and then, uttering a blood-curdled scream of\nfear, ran out of the stable and up the alley at a speed he had never\nbefore attained, so that even Dan had hard work to keep within barking\ndistance. And a 'cross-shoulder glance, at the corner, revealing Verman\nand Herman in pursuit, the latter waving his scythe overhead, Mr.\nCollins slackened not his gait, but, rather, out of great anguish,\nincreased it; the while a rapidly developing purpose became firm in his\nmind--and ever after so remained--not only to refrain from visiting that\nneighbourhood again, but never by any chance to come within a mile of\nit.\n\nFrom the alley door, Penrod and Sam watched the flight, and were without\nwords. When the pursuit rounded the corner, the two looked wanly at\neach other, but neither spoke until the return of the brothers from the\nchase.\n\nHerman and Verman came back, laughing and chuckling.\n\n\"Hiyi!\" cackled Herman to Verman, as they came, \"See 'at ole boy run!\"\n\n\"Who-ee!\" Verman shouted in ecstasy.\n\n\"Nev' did see boy run so fas'!\" Herman continued, tossing the scythe\ninto the wheelbarrow. \"I bet he home in bed by viss time!\"\n\nVerman roared with delight, appearing to be wholly unconscious that the\nlids of his right eye were swollen shut and that his attire, not too\nfinical before the struggle, now entitled him to unquestioned rank as a\nsansculotte. Herman was a similar ruin, and gave as little heed to his\ncondition.\n\nPenrod looked dazedly from Herman to Verman and back again. So did Sam\nWilliams.\n\n\"Herman,\" said Penrod, in a weak voice, \"you wouldn't HONEST of cut his\ngizzard out, would you?\"\n\n\"Who? Me? I don' know. He mighty mean ole boy!\" Herman shook his head\ngravely, and then, observing that Verman was again convulsed with\nunctuous merriment, joined laughter with his brother. \"Sho'! I guess I\nuz dess TALKIN' whens I said 'at! Reckon he thought I meant it, f'm de\nway he tuck an' run. Hiyi! Reckon he thought ole Herman bad man! No,\nsuh! I uz dess talkin', 'cause I nev' would cut NObody! I ain' tryin'\ngit in no jail--NO, suh!\"\n\nPenrod looked at the scythe: he looked at Herman. He looked at the\nlawn-mower, and he looked at Verman. Then he looked out in the yard at\nthe rake. So did Sam Williams.\n\n\"Come on, Verman,\" said Herman. \"We ain' go' 'at stove-wood f' supper\nyit.\"\n\nGiggling reminiscently, the brothers disappeared leaving silence behind\nthem in the carriage-house. Penrod and Sam retired slowly into the\nshadowy interior, each glancing, now and then, with a preoccupied air,\nat the open, empty doorway where the late afternoon sunshine was growing\nruddy. At intervals one or the other scraped the floor reflectively\nwith the side of his shoe. Finally, still without either having made\nany effort at conversation, they went out into the yard and stood,\ncontinuing their silence.\n\n\"Well,\" said Sam, at last, \"I guess it's time I better be gettin' home.\nSo long, Penrod!\"\n\n\"So long, Sam,\" said Penrod, feebly.\n\nWith a solemn gaze he watched his friend out of sight. Then he went\nslowly into the house, and after an interval occupied in a unique\nmanner, appeared in the library, holding a pair of brilliantly gleaming\nshoes in his hand.\n\nMr. Schofield, reading the evening paper, glanced frowningly over it at\nhis offspring.\n\n\"Look, papa,\" said Penrod. \"I found your shoes where you'd taken 'em\noff in your room, to put on your slippers, and they were all dusty. So I\ntook 'em out on the back porch and gave 'em a good blacking. They shine\nup fine, don't they?\"\n\n\"Well, I'll be d-dud-dummed!\" said the startled Mr. Schofield.\n\nPenrod was zigzagging back to normal.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXIV \"LITTLE GENTLEMAN\"\n\nThe midsummer sun was stinging hot outside the little barber-shop next\nto the corner drug store and Penrod, undergoing a toilette preliminary\nto his very slowly approaching twelfth birthday, was adhesive enough to\nretain upon his face much hair as it fell from the shears. There is a\nmystery here: the tonsorial processes are not unagreeable to manhood; in\ntruth, they are soothing; but the hairs detached from a boy's head get\ninto his eyes, his ears, his nose, his mouth, and down his neck, and he\ndoes everywhere itch excruciatingly. Wherefore he blinks, winks, weeps,\ntwitches, condenses his countenance, and squirms; and perchance the\nbarber's scissors clip more than intended--belike an outlying flange of\near.\n\n\"Um--muh--OW!\" said Penrod, this thing having happened.\n\n\"D' I touch y' up a little?\" inquired the barber, smiling falsely.\n\n\"Ooh--UH!\" The boy in the chair offered inarticulate protest, as the\nwound was rubbed with alum.\n\n\"THAT don't hurt!\" said the barber. \"You WILL get it, though, if you\ndon't sit stiller,\" he continued, nipping in the bud any attempt on the\npart of his patient to think that he already had \"it.\"\n\n\"Pfuff!\" said Penrod, meaning no disrespect, but endeavoring to dislodge\na temporary moustache from his lip.\n\n\"You ought to see how still that little Georgie Bassett sits,\" the\nbarber went on, reprovingly. \"I hear everybody says he's the best boy in\ntown.\"\n\n\"Pfuff! PHIRR!\" There was a touch of intentional contempt in this.\n\n\"I haven't heard nobody around the neighbourhood makin' no such\nremarks,\" added the barber, \"about nobody of the name of Penrod\nSchofield.\"\n\n\"Well,\" said Penrod, clearing his mouth after a struggle, \"who wants 'em\nto? Ouch!\"\n\n\"I hear they call Georgie Bassett the 'little gentleman,'\" ventured the\nbarber, provocatively, meeting with instant success.\n\n\"They better not call ME that,\" returned Penrod truculently. \"I'd like\nto hear anybody try. Just once, that's all! I bet they'd never try it\nag----OUCH!\"\n\n\"Why? What'd you do to 'em?\"\n\n\"It's all right what I'd DO! I bet they wouldn't want to call me that\nagain long as they lived!\"\n\n\"What'd you do if it was a little girl? You wouldn't hit her, would\nyou?\"\n\n\"Well, I'd----Ouch!\"\n\n\"You wouldn't hit a little girl, would you?\" the barber persisted,\ngathering into his powerful fingers a mop of hair from the top of\nPenrod's head and pulling that suffering head into an unnatural\nposition. \"Doesn't the Bible say it ain't never right to hit the weak\nsex?\"\n\n\"Ow! SAY, look OUT!\"\n\n\"So you'd go and punch a pore, weak, little girl, would you?\" said the\nbarber, reprovingly.\n\n\"Well, who said I'd hit her?\" demanded the chivalrous Penrod. \"I bet I'd\nFIX her though, all right. She'd see!\"\n\n\"You wouldn't call her names, would you?\"\n\n\"No, I wouldn't! What hurt is it to call anybody names?\"\n\n\"Is that SO!\" exclaimed the barber. \"Then you was intending what I heard\nyou hollering at Fisher's grocery delivery wagon driver fer a favour,\nthe other day when I was goin' by your house, was you? I reckon I better\ntell him, because he says to me after-WERDS if he ever lays eyes on you\nwhen you ain't in your own yard, he's goin' to do a whole lot o' things\nyou ain't goin' to like! Yessir, that's what he says to ME!\"\n\n\"He better catch me first, I guess, before he talks so much.\"\n\n\"Well,\" resumed the barber, \"that ain't sayin' what you'd do if a young\nlady ever walked up and called you a little gentleman. _I_ want to hear\nwhat you'd do to her. I guess I know, though--come to think of it.\"\n\n\"What?\" demanded Penrod.\n\n\"You'd sick that pore ole dog of yours on her cat, if she had one, I\nexpect,\" guessed the barber derisively.\n\n\"No, I would not!\"\n\n\"Well, what WOULD you do?\"\n\n\"I'd do enough. Don't worry about that!\"\n\n\"Well, suppose it was a boy, then: what'd you do if a boy come up to you\nand says, 'Hello, little gentleman'?\"\n\n\"He'd be lucky,\" said Penrod, with a sinister frown, \"if he got home\nalive.\"\n\n\"Suppose it was a boy twice your size?\"\n\n\"Just let him try,\" said Penrod ominously. \"You just let him try. He'd\nnever see daylight again; that's all!\"\n\nThe barber dug ten active fingers into the helpless scalp before him\nand did his best to displace it, while the anguished Penrod, becoming\ninstantly a seething crucible of emotion, misdirected his natural\nresentment into maddened brooding upon what he would do to a boy \"twice\nhis size\" who should dare to call him \"little gentleman.\" The barber\nshook him as his father had never shaken him; the barber buffeted him,\nrocked him frantically to and fro; the barber seemed to be trying to\nwring his neck; and Penrod saw himself in staggering zigzag pictures,\ndestroying large, screaming, fragmentary boys who had insulted him.\n\nThe torture stopped suddenly; and clenched, weeping eyes began to see\nagain, while the barber applied cooling lotions which made Penrod smell\nlike a coloured housemaid's ideal.\n\n\"Now what,\" asked the barber, combing the reeking locks gently, \"what\nwould it make you so mad fer, to have somebody call you a little\ngentleman? It's a kind of compliment, as it were, you might say. What\nwould you want to hit anybody fer THAT fer?\"\n\nTo the mind of Penrod, this question was without meaning or\nreasonableness. It was within neither his power nor his desire to\nanalyze the process by which the phrase had become offensive to him,\nand was now rapidly assuming the proportions of an outrage. He knew only\nthat his gorge rose at the thought of it.\n\n\"You just let 'em try it!\" he said threateningly, as he slid down from\nthe chair. And as he went out of the door, after further conversation\non the same subject, he called back those warning words once more: \"Just\nlet 'em try it! Just once--that's all _I_ ask 'em to. They'll find out\nwhat they GET!\"\n\nThe barber chuckled. Then a fly lit on the barber's nose and he slapped\nat it, and the slap missed the fly but did not miss the nose. The barber\nwas irritated. At this moment his birdlike eye gleamed a gleam as it\nfell upon customers approaching: the prettiest little girl in the world,\nleading by the hand her baby brother, Mitchy-Mitch, coming to have\nMitchy-Mitch's hair clipped, against the heat.\n\nIt was a hot day and idle, with little to feed the mind--and the barber\nwas a mischievous man with an irritated nose. He did his worst.\n\nMeanwhile, the brooding Penrod pursued his homeward way; no great\ndistance, but long enough for several one-sided conflicts with malign\ninsulters made of thin air. \"You better NOT call me that!\" he muttered.\n\"You just try it, and you'll get what other people got when THEY tried\nit. You better not ack fresh with ME! Oh, you WILL, will you?\" He\ndelivered a vicious kick full upon the shins of an iron fence-post,\nwhich suffered little, though Penrod instantly regretted his\nindiscretion. \"Oof!\" he grunted, hopping; and went on after bestowing a\nlook of awful hostility upon the fence-post. \"I guess you'll know better\nnext time,\" he said, in parting, to this antagonist. \"You just let me\ncatch you around here again and I'll----\" His voice sank to inarticulate\nbut ominous murmurings. He was in a dangerous mood.\n\nNearing home, however, his belligerent spirit was diverted to happier\ninterests by the discovery that some workmen had left a caldron of tar\nin the cross-street, close by his father's stable. He tested it, but\nfound it inedible. Also, as a substitute for professional chewing-gum\nit was unsatisfactory, being insufficiently boiled down and too thin,\nthough of a pleasant, lukewarm temperature. But it had an excess of one\nquality--it was sticky. It was the stickiest tar Penrod had ever used\nfor any purposes whatsoever, and nothing upon which he wiped his hands\nserved to rid them of it; neither his polka-dotted shirt waist nor his\nknickerbockers; neither the fence, nor even Duke, who came unthinkingly\nwagging out to greet him, and retired wiser.\n\nNevertheless, tar is tar. Much can be done with it, no matter what its\ncondition; so Penrod lingered by the caldron, though from a neighbouring\nyard could be heard the voices of comrades, including that of Sam\nWilliams. On the ground about the caldron were scattered chips and\nsticks and bits of wood to the number of a great multitude. Penrod mixed\nquantities of this refuse into the tar, and interested himself in\nseeing how much of it he could keep moving in slow swirls upon the ebon\nsurface.\n\nOther surprises were arranged for the absent workmen. The caldron was\nalmost full, and the surface of the tar near the rim.\n\nPenrod endeavoured to ascertain how many pebbles and brickbats, dropped\nin, would cause an overflow. Labouring heartily to this end, he\nhad almost accomplished it, when he received the suggestion for an\nexperiment on a much larger scale. Embedded at the corner of a\ngrassplot across the street was a whitewashed stone, the size of a small\nwatermelon and serving no purpose whatever save the questionable one of\ndecoration. It was easily pried up with a stick; though getting it to\nthe caldron tested the full strength of the ardent labourer. Instructed\nto perform such a task, he would have sincerely maintained its\nimpossibility but now, as it was unbidden, and promised rather\ndestructive results, he set about it with unconquerable energy, feeling\ncertain that he would be rewarded with a mighty splash. Perspiring,\ngrunting vehemently, his back aching and all muscles strained, he\nprogressed in short stages until the big stone lay at the base of the\ncaldron. He rested a moment, panting, then lifted the stone, and was\nbending his shoulders for the heave that would lift it over the rim,\nwhen a sweet, taunting voice, close behind him, startled him cruelly.\n\n\"How do you do, LITTLE GENTLEMAN!\"\n\nPenrod squawked, dropped the stone, and shouted, \"Shut up, you dern\nfool!\" purely from instinct, even before his about-face made him aware\nwho had so spitefully addressed him.\n\nIt was Marjorie Jones. Always dainty, and prettily dressed, she was in\nspeckless and starchy white to-day, and a refreshing picture she made,\nwith the new-shorn and powerfully scented Mitchy-Mitch clinging to\nher hand. They had stolen up behind the toiler, and now stood laughing\ntogether in sweet merriment. Since the passing of Penrod's Rupe Collins\nperiod he had experienced some severe qualms at the recollection of his\nlast meeting with Marjorie and his Apache behaviour; in truth, his heart\ninstantly became as wax at sight of her, and he would have offered\nher fair speech; but, alas! in Marjorie's wonderful eyes there shone\na consciousness of new powers for his undoing, and she denied him\nopportunity.\n\n\"Oh, OH!\" she cried, mocking his pained outcry. \"What a way for a LITTLE\nGENTLEMAN to talk! Little gentleman don't say wicked----\"\n\n\"Marjorie!\" Penrod, enraged and dismayed, felt himself stung beyond all\nendurance. Insult from her was bitterer to endure than from any other.\n\"Don't you call me that again!\"\n\n\"Why not, LITTLE GENTLEMAN?\"\n\nHe stamped his foot. \"You better stop!\"\n\nMarjorie sent into his furious face her lovely, spiteful laughter.\n\n\"Little gentleman, little gentleman, little gentleman!\" she said\ndeliberately. \"How's the little gentleman, this afternoon? Hello, little\ngentleman!\"\n\nPenrod, quite beside himself, danced eccentrically. \"Dry up!\" he howled.\n\"Dry up, dry up, dry up, dry UP!\"\n\nMitchy-Mitch shouted with delight and applied a finger to the side\nof the caldron--a finger immediately snatched away and wiped upon a\nhandkerchief by his fastidious sister.\n\n\"'Ittle gellamun!\" said Mitchy-Mitch.\n\n\"You better look out!\" Penrod whirled upon this small offender with\ngrim satisfaction. Here was at least something male that could without\ndishonour be held responsible. \"You say that again, and I'll give you\nthe worst----\"\n\n\"You will NOT!\" snapped Marjorie, instantly vitriolic. \"He'll say just\nwhatever he wants to, and he'll say it just as MUCH as he wants to. Say\nit again, Mitchy-Mitch!\"\n\n\"'Ittle gellamun!\" said Mitchy-Mitch promptly.\n\n\"Ow-YAH!\" Penrod's tone-production was becoming affected by his mental\ncondition. \"You say that again, and I'll----\"\n\n\"Go on, Mitchy-Mitch,\" cried Marjorie. \"He can't do a thing. He don't\nDARE! Say it some more, Mitchy-Mitch--say it a whole lot!\"\n\nMitchy-Mitch, his small, fat face shining with confidence in his\nimmunity, complied.\n\n\"'Ittle gellamun!\" he squeaked malevolently. \"'Ittle gellamun! 'Ittle\ngellamun! 'Ittle gellamun!\"\n\nThe desperate Penrod bent over the whitewashed rock, lifted it, and\nthen--outdoing Porthos, John Ridd, and Ursus in one miraculous burst of\nstrength--heaved it into the air.\n\nMarjorie screamed.\n\nBut it was too late. The big stone descended into the precise midst of\nthe caldron and Penrod got his mighty splash. It was far, far beyond his\nexpectations.\n\nSpontaneously there were grand and awful effects--volcanic spectacles of\nnightmare and eruption. A black sheet of eccentric shape rose out of the\ncaldron and descended upon the three children, who had no time to evade\nit.\n\nAfter it fell, Mitchy-Mitch, who stood nearest the caldron, was the\nthickest, though there was enough for all. Br'er Rabbit would have fled\nfrom any of them.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXV TAR\n\nWhen Marjorie and Mitchy-Mitch got their breath, they used it vocally;\nand seldom have more penetrating sounds issued from human throats.\nCoincidentally, Marjorie, quite baresark, laid hands upon the largest\nstick within reach and fell upon Penrod with blind fury. He had the\npresence of mind to flee, and they went round and round the caldron,\nwhile Mitchy-Mitch feebly endeavoured to follow--his appearance, in\nthis pursuit, being pathetically like that of a bug fished out of an\nink-well, alive but discouraged.\n\nAttracted by the riot, Samuel Williams made his appearance, vaulting a\nfence, and was immediately followed by Maurice Levy and Georgie Bassett.\nThey stared incredulously at the extraordinary spectacle before them.\n\n\"Little GEN-TIL-MUN!\" shrieked Marjorie, with a wild stroke that landed\nfull upon Penrod's tarry cap.\n\n\"OOOCH!\" bleated Penrod.\n\n\"It's Penrod!\" shouted Sam Williams, recognizing him by the voice. For\nan instant he had been in some doubt.\n\n\"Penrod Schofield!\" exclaimed Georgie Bassett. \"WHAT does this mean?\"\nThat was Georgie's style, and had helped to win him his title.\n\nMarjorie leaned, panting, upon her stick. \"I cu-called--uh--\nhim--oh!\" she sobbed--\"I called him a lul-little--oh--gentleman!\nAnd oh--lul-look!--oh! lul-look at my du-dress! Lul-look at\nMumitchy--oh--Mitch--oh!\"\n\nUnexpectedly, she smote again--with results--and then, seizing the\nindistinguishable hand of Mitchy-Mitch, she ran wailing homeward down\nthe street.\n\n\"'Little gentleman'?\" said Georgie Bassett, with some evidences of\ndisturbed complacency. \"Why, that's what they call ME!\"\n\n\"Yes, and you ARE one, too!\" shouted the maddened Penrod. \"But you\nbetter not let anybody call ME that! I've stood enough around here for\none day, and you can't run over ME, Georgie Bassett. Just you put that\nin your gizzard and smoke it!\"\n\n\"Anybody has a perfect right,\" said Georgie, with, dignity, \"to call a\nperson a little gentleman. There's lots of names nobody ought to call,\nbut this one's a NICE----\"\n\n\"You better look out!\"\n\nUnavenged bruises were distributed all over Penrod, both upon his body\nand upon his spirit. Driven by subtle forces, he had dipped his hands in\ncatastrophe and disaster: it was not for a Georgie Bassett to beard him.\nPenrod was about to run amuck.\n\n\"I haven't called you a little gentleman, yet,\" said Georgie. \"I only\nsaid it. Anybody's got a right to SAY it.\"\n\n\"Not around ME! You just try it again and----\"\n\n\"I shall say it,\" returned Georgie, \"all I please. Anybody in this town\nhas a right to SAY 'little gentleman'----\"\n\nBellowing insanely, Penrod plunged his right hand into the caldron,\nrushed upon Georgie and made awful work of his hair and features.\n\nAlas, it was but the beginning! Sam Williams and Maurice Levy screamed\nwith delight, and, simultaneously infected, danced about the struggling\npair, shouting frantically:\n\n\"Little gentleman! Little gentleman! Sick him, Georgie! Sick him, little\ngentleman! Little gentleman! Little gentleman!\"\n\nThe infuriated outlaw turned upon them with blows and more tar, which\ngave Georgie Bassett his opportunity and later seriously impaired the\npurity of his fame. Feeling himself hopelessly tarred, he dipped both\nhands repeatedly into the caldron and applied his gatherings to Penrod.\nIt was bringing coals to Newcastle, but it helped to assuage the just\nwrath of Georgie.\n\nThe four boys gave a fine imitation of the Laocoon group complicated\nby an extra figure frantic splutterings and chokings, strange cries and\nstranger words issued from this tangle; hands dipped lavishly into the\ninexhaustible reservoir of tar, with more and more picturesque results.\nThe caldron had been elevated upon bricks and was not perfectly\nbalanced; and under a heavy impact of the struggling group it lurched\nand went partly over, pouring forth a Stygian tide which formed a deep\npool in the gutter.\n\nIt was the fate of Master Roderick Bitts, that exclusive and immaculate\nperson, to make his appearance upon the chaotic scene at this juncture.\nAll in the cool of a white \"sailor suit,\" he turned aside from the path\nof duty--which led straight to the house of a maiden aunt--and paused\nto hop with joy upon the sidewalk. A repeated epithet continuously half\npanted, half squawked, somewhere in the nest of gladiators, caught his\near, and he took it up excitedly, not knowing why.\n\n\"Little gentleman!\" shouted Roderick, jumping up and down in childish\nglee. \"Little gentleman! Little gentleman! Lit----\"\n\nA frightful figure tore itself free from the group, encircled this\ninnocent bystander with a black arm, and hurled him headlong. Full\nlength and flat on his face went Roderick into the Stygian pool. The\nfrightful figure was Penrod.\n\nInstantly, the pack flung themselves upon him again, and, carrying\nthem with him, he went over upon Roderick, who from that instant was as\nactive a belligerent as any there.\n\nThus began the Great Tar Fight, the origin of which proved, afterward,\nso difficult for parents to trace, owing to the opposing accounts of\nthe combatants. Marjorie said Penrod began it; Penrod said Mitchy-Mitch\nbegan it; Sam Williams said Georgie Bassett began it; Georgie and\nMaurice Levy said Penrod began it; Roderick Bitts, who had not\nrecognized his first assailant, said Sam Williams began it.\n\nNobody thought of accusing the barber. But the barber did not begin it;\nit was the fly on the barber's nose that began it--though, of course,\nsomething else began the fly. Somehow, we never manage to hang the real\noffender.\n\nThe end came only with the arrival of Penrod's mother, who had been\nhaving a painful conversation by telephone with Mrs. Jones, the mother\nof Marjorie, and came forth to seek an errant son. It is a mystery how\nshe was able to pick out her own, for by the time she got there his\nvoice was too hoarse to be recognizable. Mr. Schofield's version of\nthings was that Penrod was insane. \"He's a stark, raving lunatic!\"\ndeclared the father, descending to the library from a before-dinner\ninterview with the outlaw, that evening. \"I'd send him to military\nschool, but I don't believe they'd take him. Do you know WHY he says all\nthat awfulness happened?\"\n\n\"When Margaret and I were trying to scrub him,\" responded Mrs. Schofield\nwearily, \"he said 'everybody' had been calling him names.\"\n\n\"'Names!'\" snorted her husband. \"'Little gentleman!' THAT'S the vile\nepithet they called him! And because of it he wrecks the peace of six\nhomes!\"\n\n\"SH! Yes; he told us about it,\" said Mrs. Schofield, moaning. \"He told\nus several hundred times, I should guess, though I didn't count. He's\ngot it fixed in his head, and we couldn't get it out. All we could do\nwas to put him in the closet. He'd have gone out again after those boys\nif we hadn't. I don't know WHAT to make of him!\"\n\n\"He's a mystery to ME!\" said her husband. \"And he refuses to explain\nwhy he objects to being called 'little gentleman.' Says he'd do the same\nthing--and worse--if anybody dared to call him that again. He said if\nthe President of the United States called him that he'd try to whip him.\nHow long did you have him locked up in the closet?\"\n\n\"SH!\" said Mrs. Schofield warningly. \"About two hours; but I don't think\nit softened his spirit at all, because when I took him to the barber's\nto get his hair clipped again, on account of the tar in it, Sammy\nWilliams and Maurice Levy were there for the same reason, and they just\nWHISPERED 'little gentleman,' so low you could hardly hear them--and\nPenrod began fighting with them right before me, and it was really all\nthe barber and I could do to drag him away from them. The barber was\nvery kind about it, but Penrod----\"\n\n\"I tell you he's a lunatic!\" Mr. Schofield would have said the same\nthing of a Frenchman infuriated by the epithet \"camel.\" The philosophy\nof insult needs expounding.\n\n\"SH!\" said Mrs. Schofield. \"It does seem a kind of frenzy.\"\n\n\"Why on earth should any sane person mind being called----\"\n\n\"SH!\" said Mrs. Schofield. \"It's beyond ME!\"\n\n\"What are you SH-ing me for?\" demanded Mr. Schofield explosively.\n\n\"SH!\" said Mrs. Schofield. \"It's Mr. Kinosling, the new rector of Saint\nJoseph's.\"\n\n\"Where?\"\n\n\"SH! On the front porch with Margaret; he's going to stay for dinner. I\ndo hope----\"\n\n\"Bachelor, isn't he?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"OUR old minister was speaking of him the other day,\" said Mr.\nSchofield, \"and he didn't seem so terribly impressed.\"\n\n\"SH! Yes; about thirty, and of course so superior to most of Margaret's\nfriends--boys home from college. She thinks she likes young Robert\nWilliams, I know--but he laughs so much! Of course there isn't any\ncomparison. Mr. Kinosling talks so intellectually; it's a good thing for\nMargaret to hear that kind of thing, for a change and, of course, he's\nvery spiritual. He seems very much interested in her.\" She paused to\nmuse. \"I think Margaret likes him; he's so different, too. It's the\nthird time he's dropped in this week, and I----\"\n\n\"Well,\" said Mr. Schofield grimly, \"if you and Margaret want him to come\nagain, you'd better not let him see Penrod.\"\n\n\"But he's asked to see him; he seems interested in meeting all the\nfamily. And Penrod nearly always behaves fairly well at table.\"\nShe paused, and then put to her husband a question referring to his\ninterview with Penrod upstairs. \"Did you--did you--do it?\"\n\n\"No,\" he answered gloomily. \"No, I didn't, but----\" He was interrupted\nby a violent crash of china and metal in the kitchen, a shriek from\nDella, and the outrageous voice of Penrod. The well-informed Della,\nill-inspired to set up for a wit, had ventured to address the scion of\nthe house roguishly as \"little gentleman,\" and Penrod, by means of the\nrapid elevation of his right foot, had removed from her supporting\nhands a laden tray. Both parents, started for the kitchen, Mr. Schofield\ncompleting his interrupted sentence on the way.\n\n\"But I will, now!\"\n\nThe rite thus promised was hastily but accurately performed in that\napartment most distant from the front porch; and, twenty minutes later,\nPenrod descended to dinner. The Rev. Mr. Kinosling had asked for the\npleasure of meeting him, and it had been decided that the only course\npossible was to cover up the scandal for the present, and to offer an\nundisturbed and smiling family surface to the gaze of the visitor.\n\nScorched but not bowed, the smouldering Penrod was led forward for the\nsocial formulae simultaneously with the somewhat bleak departure of\nRobert Williams, who took his guitar with him, this time, and went in\nforlorn unconsciousness of the powerful forces already set in secret\nmotion to be his allies.\n\nThe punishment just undergone had but made the haughty and unyielding\nsoul of Penrod more stalwart in revolt; he was unconquered. Every time\nthe one intolerable insult had been offered him, his resentment had\nbecome the hotter, his vengeance the more instant and furious. And,\nstill burning with outrage, but upheld by the conviction of right, he\nwas determined to continue to the last drop of his blood the defense\nof his honour, whenever it should be assailed, no matter how mighty or\naugust the powers that attacked it. In all ways, he was a very sore boy.\n\nDuring the brief ceremony of presentation, his usually inscrutable\ncountenance wore an expression interpreted by his father as one of\ninsane obstinacy, while Mrs. Schofield found it an incentive to inward\nprayer. The fine graciousness of Mr. Kinosling, however, was unimpaired\nby the glare of virulent suspicion given him by this little brother: Mr.\nKinosling mistook it for a natural curiosity concerning one who might\npossibly become, in time, a member of the family. He patted Penrod upon\nthe head, which was, for many reasons, in no condition to be patted with\nany pleasure to the patter. Penrod felt himself in the presence of a new\nenemy.\n\n\"How do you do, my little lad,\" said Mr. Kinosling. \"I trust we shall\nbecome fast friends.\"\n\nTo the ear of his little lad, it seemed he said, \"A trost we shall\nbick-home fawst frainds.\" Mr. Kinosling's pronunciation was, in fact,\nslightly precious; and, the little lad, simply mistaking it for some\ncryptic form of mockery of himself, assumed a manner and expression\nwhich argued so ill for the proposed friendship that Mrs. Schofield\nhastily interposed the suggestion of dinner, and the small procession\nwent in to the dining-room.\n\n\"It has been a delicious day,\" said Mr. Kinosling, presently; \"warm but\nbalmy.\" With a benevolent smile he addressed Penrod, who sat opposite\nhim. \"I suppose, little gentleman, you have been indulging in the usual\noutdoor sports of vacation?\"\n\nPenrod laid down his fork and glared, open-mouthed at Mr. Kinosling.\n\n\"You'll have another slice of breast of the chicken?\" Mr. Schofield\ninquired, loudly and quickly.\n\n\"A lovely day!\" exclaimed Margaret, with equal promptitude and emphasis.\n\"Lovely, oh, lovely! Lovely!\"\n\n\"Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful!\" said Mrs. Schofield, and after a\nglance at Penrod which confirmed her impression that he intended to\nsay something, she continued, \"Yes, beautiful, beautiful, beautiful,\nbeautiful, beautiful beautiful!\"\n\nPenrod closed his mouth and sank back in his chair--and his relatives\ntook breath.\n\nMr. Kinosling looked pleased. This responsive family, with its ready\nenthusiasm, made the kind of audience he liked. He passed a delicate\nwhite hand gracefully over his tall, pale forehead, and smiled\nindulgently.\n\n\"Youth relaxes in summer,\" he said. \"Boyhood is the age of relaxation;\none is playful, light, free, unfettered. One runs and leaps and enjoys\none's self with one's companions. It is good for the little lads to play\nwith their friends; they jostle, push, and wrestle, and simulate little,\nhappy struggles with one another in harmless conflict. The young muscles\nare toughening. It is good. Boyish chivalry develops, enlarges, expands.\nThe young learn quickly, intuitively, spontaneously. They perceive the\nobligations of noblesse oblige. They begin to comprehend the necessity\nof caste and its requirements. They learn what birth means--ah,--that\nis, they learn what it means to be well born. They learn courtesy in\ntheir games; they learn politeness, consideration for one another in\ntheir pastimes, amusements, lighter occupations. I make it my pleasure\nto join them often, for I sympathize with them in all their wholesome\njoys as well as in their little bothers and perplexities. I understand\nthem, you see; and let me tell you it is no easy matter to understand\nthe little lads and lassies.\" He sent to each listener his beaming\nglance, and, permitting it to come to rest upon Penrod, inquired:\n\n\"And what do you say to that, little gentleman?\"\n\nMr. Schofield uttered a stentorian cough. \"More? You'd better have some\nmore chicken! More! Do!\"\n\n\"More chicken!\" urged Margaret simultaneously. \"Do please! Please! More!\nDo! More!\"\n\n\"Beautiful, beautiful,\" began Mrs. Schofield. \"Beautiful, beautiful,\nbeautiful, beautiful----\"\n\nIt is not known in what light Mr. Kinosling viewed the expression of\nPenrod's face. Perhaps he mistook it for awe; perhaps he received\nno impression at all of its extraordinary quality. He was a rather\nself-engrossed young man, just then engaged in a double occupation, for\nhe not only talked, but supplied from his own consciousness a critical\nthough favourable auditor as well, which of course kept him quite busy.\nBesides, it is oftener than is expected the case that extremely peculiar\nexpressions upon the countenances of boys are entirely overlooked,\nand suggest nothing to the minds of people staring straight at them.\nCertainly Penrod's expression--which, to the perception of his family,\nwas perfectly horrible--caused not the faintest perturbation in the\nbreast of Mr. Kinosling.\n\nMr. Kinosling waived the chicken, and continued to talk. \"Yes, I think\nI may claim to understand boys,\" he said, smiling thoughtfully. \"One\nhas been a boy one's self. Ah, it is not all playtime! I hope our young\nscholar here does not overwork himself at his Latin, at his classics,\nas I did, so that at the age of eight years I was compelled to wear\nglasses. He must be careful not to strain the little eyes at his\nscholar's tasks, not to let the little shoulders grow round over his\nscholar's desk. Youth is golden; we should keep it golden, bright,\nglistening. Youth should frolic, should be sprightly; it should play its\ncricket, its tennis, its hand-ball. It should run and leap; it should\nlaugh, should sing madrigals and glees, carol with the lark, ring out in\nchanties, folk-songs, ballads, roundelays----\"\n\nHe talked on. At any instant Mr. Schofield held himself ready to cough\nvehemently and shout, \"More chicken,\" to drown out Penrod in case the\nfatal words again fell from those eloquent lips; and Mrs. Schofield and\nMargaret kept themselves prepared at all times to assist him. So passed\na threatening meal, which Mrs. Schofield hurried, by every means with\ndecency, to its conclusion. She felt that somehow they would all be\nsafer out in the dark of the front porch, and led the way thither as\nsoon as possible.\n\n\"No cigar, I thank you.\" Mr. Kinosling, establishing himself in a wicker\nchair beside Margaret, waved away her father's proffer. \"I do not smoke.\nI have never tasted tobacco in any form.\" Mrs. Schofield was confirmed\nin her opinion that this would be an ideal son-in-law. Mr. Schofield was\nnot so sure.\n\n\"No,\" said Mr. Kinosling. \"No tobacco for me. No cigar, no pipe, no\ncigarette, no cheroot. For me, a book--a volume of poems, perhaps.\nVerses, rhymes, lines metrical and cadenced--those are my dissipation.\nTennyson by preference: 'Maud,' or 'Idylls of the King'--poetry of the\nsound Victorian days; there is none later. Or Longfellow will rest me\nin a tired hour. Yes; for me, a book, a volume in the hand, held lightly\nbetween the fingers.\"\n\nMr. Kinosling looked pleasantly at his fingers as he spoke, waving his\nhand in a curving gesture which brought it into the light of a window\nfaintly illumined from the interior of the house. Then he passed those\ngraceful fingers over his hair, and turned toward Penrod, who was\nperched upon the railing in a dark corner.\n\n\"The evening is touched with a slight coolness,\" said Mr. Kinosling.\n\"Perhaps I may request the little gentleman----\"\n\n\"B'gr-r-RUFF!\" coughed Mr. Schofield. \"You'd better change your mind\nabout a cigar.\"\n\n\"No, I thank you. I was about to request the lit----\"\n\n\"DO try one,\" Margaret urged. \"I'm sure papa's are nice ones. Do\ntry----\"\n\n\"No, I thank you. I remarked a slight coolness in the air, and my hat is\nin the hallway. I was about to request----\"\n\n\"I'll get it for you,\" said Penrod suddenly.\n\n\"If you will be so good,\" said Mr. Kinosling. \"It is a black bowler hat,\nlittle gentleman, and placed upon a table in the hall.\"\n\n\"I know where it is.\" Penrod entered the door, and a feeling of relief,\nmutually experienced, carried from one to another of his three relatives\ntheir interchanged congratulations that he had recovered his sanity.\n\n\"'The day is done, and the darkness,'\" began Mr. Kinosling--and recited\nthat poem entire. He followed it with \"The Children's Hour,\" and after a\npause, at the close, to allow his listeners time for a little reflection\nupon his rendition, he passed his handagain over his head, and called,\nin the direction of the doorway:\n\n\"I believe I will take my hat now, little gentleman.\"\n\n\"Here it is,\" said Penrod, unexpectedly climbing over the porch railing,\nin the other direction. His mother and father and Margaret had supposed\nhim to be standing in the hallway out of deference, and because he\nthought it tactful not to interrupt the recitations. All of them\nremembered, later, that this supposed thoughtfulness on his part struck\nthem as unnatural.\n\n\"Very good, little gentleman!\" said Mr. Kinosling, and being somewhat\nchilled, placed the hat firmly upon his head, pulling it down as far\nas it would go. It had a pleasant warmth, which he noticed at once. The\nnext instant, he noticed something else, a peculiar sensation of the\nscalp--a sensation which he was quite unable to define. He lifted his\nhand to take the hat off, and entered upon a strange experience: his hat\nseemed to have decided to remain where it was.\n\n\"Do you like Tennyson as much as Longfellow, Mr. Kinosling?\" inquired\nMargaret.\n\n\"I--ah--I cannot say,\" he returned absently. \"I--ah--each has his\nown--ugh! flavour and savour, each his--ah--ah----\"\n\nStruck by a strangeness in his tone, she peered at him curiously through\nthe dusk. His outlines were indistinct, but she made out that his arms\nwere, uplifted in a singular gesture. He seemed to be wrenching at his\nhead.\n\n\"Is--is anything the matter?\" she asked anxiously. \"Mr. Kinosling, are\nyou ill?\"\n\n\"Not at--ugh!--all,\" he replied, in the same odd tone. \"I--ah--I\nbelieve--UGH!\"\n\nHe dropped his hands from his hat, and rose. His manner was\nslightly agitated. \"I fear I may have taken a trifling--ah--cold.\nI should--ah--perhaps be--ah--better at home. I will--ah--say\ngood-night.\"\n\nAt the steps, he instinctively lifted his hand to remove his hat,\nbut did not do so, and, saying \"Goodnight,\" again in a frigid voice,\ndeparted with visible stiffness from that house, to return no more.\n\n\"Well, of all----!\" cried Mrs. Schofield, astounded. \"What was the\nmatter? He just went--like that!\" She made a flurried gesture. \"In\nheaven's name, Margaret, what DID you say to him?\"\n\n\"_I_!\" exclaimed Margaret indignantly. \"Nothing! He just WENT!\"\n\n\"Why, he didn't even take off his hat when he said good-night!\" said\nMrs. Schofield.\n\nMargaret, who had crossed to the doorway, caught the ghost of a whisper\nbehind her, where stood Penrod.\n\n\"YOU BET HE DIDN'T!\"\n\nHe knew not that he was overheard.\n\nA frightful suspicion flashed through Margaret's mind--a suspicion that\nMr. Kinosling's hat would have to be either boiled off or shaved off.\nWith growing horror she recalled Penrod's long absence when he went to\nbring the hat.\n\n\"Penrod,\" she cried, \"let me see your hands!\"\n\nShe had toiled at those hands herself late that afternoon, nearly\nscalding her own, but at last achieving a lily purity.\n\n\"Let me see your hands!\"\n\nShe seized them.\n\nAgain they were tarred!\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXVI THE QUIET AFTERNOON\n\nPerhaps middle-aged people might discern Nature's real intentions in the\nmatter of pain if they would examine a boy's punishments and sorrows,\nfor he prolongs neither beyond their actual duration. With a boy,\ntrouble must be of Homeric dimensions to last overnight. To him, every\nnext day is really a new day. Thus, Penrod woke, next morning, with\nneither the unspared rod, nor Mr. Kinosling in his mind. Tar, itself,\nso far as his consideration of it went, might have been an undiscovered\nsubstance. His mood was cheerful and mercantile; some process having\nworked mysteriously within him, during the night, to the result that\nhis first waking thought was of profits connected with the sale of old\niron--or perhaps a ragman had passed the house, just before he woke.\n\nBy ten o'clock he had formed a partnership with the indeed amiable Sam,\nand the firm of Schofield and Williams plunged headlong into commerce.\nHeavy dealings in rags, paper, old iron and lead gave the firm a balance\nof twenty-two cents on the evening of the third day; but a venture in\nglassware, following, proved disappointing on account of the scepticism\nof all the druggists in that part of town, even after seven laborious\nhours had been spent in cleansing a wheelbarrow-load of old medicine\nbottles with hydrant water and ashes. Likewise, the partners were\ndisheartened by their failure to dispose of a crop of \"greens,\" although\nthey had uprooted specimens of that decorative and unappreciated flower,\nthe dandelion, with such persistence and energy that the Schofields' and\nWilliams' lawns looked curiously haggard for the rest of that summer.\n\nThe fit passed: business languished; became extinct. The dog-days had\nset in.\n\nOne August afternoon was so hot that even boys sought indoor shade. In\nthe dimness of the vacant carriage-house of the stable, lounged Masters\nPenrod Schofield, Samuel Williams, Maurice Levy, Georgie Bassett, and\nHerman. They sat still and talked. It is a hot day, in rare truth, when\nboys devote themselves principally to conversation, and this day was\nthat hot.\n\nTheir elders should beware such days. Peril hovers near when the\nfierceness of weather forces inaction and boys in groups are quiet.\nThe more closely volcanoes, Western rivers, nitroglycerin, and boys\nare pent, the deadlier is their action at the point of outbreak. Thus,\nparents and guardians should look for outrages of the most singular\nviolence and of the most peculiar nature during the confining weather of\nFebruary and August.\n\nThe thing which befell upon this broiling afternoon began to brew and\nstew peacefully enough. All was innocence and languor; no one could have\nforetold the eruption.\n\nThey were upon their great theme: \"When I get to be a man!\" Being human,\nthough boys, they considered their present estate too commonplace to be\ndwelt upon. So, when the old men gather, they say: \"When I was a boy!\"\nIt really is the land of nowadays that we never discover.\n\n\"When I'm a man,\" said Sam Williams, \"I'm goin' to hire me a couple of\ncoloured waiters to swing me in a hammock and keep pourin' ice-water on\nme all day out o' those waterin'-cans they sprinkle flowers from. I'll\nhire you for one of 'em, Herman.\"\n\n\"No; you ain' goin' to,\" said Herman promptly. \"You ain' no flowuh.\nBut nev' min' nat, anyway. Ain' nobody goin' haih me whens _I_'m a man.\nGoin' be my own boss. _I_'m go' be a rai'road man!\"\n\n\"You mean like a superintendent, or sumpthing like that, and sell\ntickets?\" asked Penrod.\n\n\"Sup'in--nev' min' nat! Sell ticket? NO suh! Go' be a PO'tuh! My uncle a\npo'tuh right now. Solid gole buttons--oh, oh!\"\n\n\"Generals get a lot more buttons than porters,\" said Penrod.\n\"Generals----\"\n\n\"Po'tuhs make the bes' l'vin',\" Herman interrupted. \"My uncle spen' mo'\nmoney 'n any white man n'is town.\"\n\n\"Well, I rather be a general,\" said Penrod, \"or a senator, or sumpthing\nlike that.\"\n\n\"Senators live in Warshington,\" Maurice Levy contributed the\ninformation. \"I been there. Warshington ain't so much; Niag'ra Falls is\na hundred times as good as Warshington. So's 'Tlantic City, I was there,\ntoo. I been everywhere there is. I----\"\n\n\"Well, anyway,\" said Sam Williams, raising his voice in order to obtain\nthe floor, \"anyway, I'm goin' to lay in a hammock all day, and have\nice-water sprinkled on top o' me, and I'm goin' to lay there all night,\ntoo, and the next day. I'm goin' to lay there a couple o' years, maybe.\"\n\n\"I bet you don't!\" exclaimed Maurice. \"What'd you do in winter?\"\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"What you goin' to do when it's winter, out in a hammock with water\nsprinkled on top o' you all day? I bet you----\"\n\n\"I'd stay right there,\" Sam declared, with strong conviction, blinking\nas he looked out through the open doors at the dazzling lawn and trees,\ntrembling in the heat. \"They couldn't sprinkle too much for ME!\"\n\n\"It'd make icicles all over you, and----\"\n\n\"I wish it would,\" said Sam. \"I'd eat 'em up.\"\n\n\"And it'd snow on you----\"\n\n\"Yay! I'd swaller it as fast as it'd come down. I wish I had a BARREL\no' snow right now. I wish this whole barn was full of it. I wish they\nwasn't anything in the whole world except just good ole snow.\"\n\nPenrod and Herman rose and went out to the hydrant, where they drank\nlong and ardently. Sam was still talking about snow when they returned.\n\n\"No, I wouldn't just roll in it. I'd stick it all round inside my\nclo'es, and fill my hat. No, I'd freeze a big pile of it all hard, and\nI'd roll her out flat and then I'd carry her down to some ole tailor's\nand have him make me a SUIT out of her, and----\"\n\n\"Can't you keep still about your ole snow?\" demanded Penrod petulantly.\n\"Makes me so thirsty I can't keep still, and I've drunk so much now I\nbet I bust. That ole hydrant water's mighty near hot anyway.\"\n\n\"I'm goin' to have a big store, when I grow up,\" volunteered Maurice.\n\n\"Candy store?\" asked Penrod.\n\n\"NO, sir! I'll have candy in it, but not to eat, so much. It's goin' to\nbe a deportment store: ladies' clothes, gentlemen's clothes, neckties,\nchina goods, leather goods, nice lines in woollings and lace goods----\"\n\n\"Yay! I wouldn't give a five-for-a-cent marble for your whole store,\"\nsaid Sam. \"Would you, Penrod?\"\n\n\"Not for ten of 'em; not for a million of 'em! _I_'m goin' to have----\"\n\n\"Wait!\" clamoured Maurice. \"You'd be foolish, because they'd be a toy\ndeportment in my store where they'd be a hunderd marbles! So, how much\nwould you think your five-for-a-cent marble counts for? And when I'm\nkeepin' my store I'm goin' to get married.\"\n\n\"Yay!\" shrieked Sam derisively. \"MARRIED! Listen!\" Penrod and Herman\njoined in the howl of contempt.\n\n\"Certumly I'll get married,\" asserted Maurice stoutly. \"I'll get married\nto Marjorie Jones. She likes me awful good, and I'm her beau.\"\n\n\"What makes you think so?\" inquired Penrod in a cryptic voice.\n\n\"Because she's my beau, too,\" came the prompt answer. \"I'm her beau\nbecause she's my beau; I guess that's plenty reason! I'll get married to\nher as soon as I get my store running nice.\"\n\nPenrod looked upon him darkly, but, for the moment, held his peace.\n\n\"Married!\" jeered Sam Williams. \"Married to Marjorie Jones! You're the\nonly boy I ever heard say he was going to get married. I wouldn't\nget married for--why, I wouldn't for--for----\" Unable to think of\nany inducement the mere mention of which would not be ridiculously\nincommensurate, he proceeded: \"I wouldn't do it! What you want to get\nmarried for? What do married people do, except just come home tired, and\nworry around and kind of scold? You better not do it, M'rice; you'll be\nmighty sorry.\"\n\n\"Everybody gets married,\" stated Maurice, holding his ground.\n\n\"They gotta.\"\n\n\"I'll bet _I_ don't!\" Sam returned hotly. \"They better catch me before\nthey tell ME I have to. Anyway, I bet nobody has to get married unless\nthey want to.\"\n\n\"They do, too,\" insisted Maurice. \"They GOTTA!\"\n\n\"Who told you?\"\n\n\"Look at what my own papa told me!\" cried Maurice, heated with argument.\n\"Didn't he tell me your papa had to marry your mamma, or else he\nnever'd got to handle a cent of her money? Certumly, people gotta marry.\nEverybody. You don't know anybody over twenty years old that isn't\nmarried--except maybe teachers.\"\n\n\"Look at policemen!\" shouted Sam triumphantly. \"You don't s'pose anybody\ncan make policemen get married, I reckon, do you?\"\n\n\"Well, policemen, maybe,\" Maurice was forced to admit. \"Policemen and\nteachers don't, but everybody else gotta.\"\n\n\"Well, I'll be a policeman,\" said Sam. \"THEN I guess they won't come\naround tellin' me I have to get married. What you goin' to be, Penrod?\"\n\n\"Chief police,\" said the laconic Penrod.\n\n\"What you?\" Sam inquired of quiet Georgie Bassett.\n\n\"I am going to be,\" said Georgie, consciously, \"a minister.\"\n\nThis announcement created a sensation so profound that it was followed\nby silence. Herman was the first to speak.\n\n\"You mean preachuh?\" he asked incredulously. \"You go' PREACH?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" answered Georgie, looking like Saint Cecilia at the organ.\n\nHerman was impressed. \"You know all 'at preachuh talk?\"\n\n\"I'm going to learn it,\" said Georgie simply.\n\n\"How loud kin you holler?\" asked Herman doubtfully.\n\n\"He can't holler at all,\" Penrod interposed with scorn. \"He hollers like\na girl. He's the poorest hollerer in town!\"\n\nHerman shook his head. Evidently he thought Georgie's chance of being\nordained very slender. Nevertheless, a final question put to the\ncandidate by the coloured expert seemed to admit one ray of hope.\n\n\"How good kin you clim a pole?\"\n\n\"He can't climb one at all,\" Penrod answered for Georgie. \"Over at Sam's\nturning-pole you ought to see him try to----\"\n\n\"Preachers don't have to climb poles,\" Georgie said with dignity.\n\n\"GOOD ones do,\" declared Herman. \"Bes' one ev' _I_ hear, he clim up an'\ndown same as a circus man. One n'em big 'vivals outen whens we livin' on\na fahm, preachuh clim big pole right in a middle o' the church, what\nwas to hol' roof up. He clim way high up, an' holler: 'Goin' to heavum,\ngoin' to heavum, goin' to heavum NOW. Hallelujah, praise my Lawd!' An'\nhe slide down little, an' holler: 'Devil's got a hol' o' my coat-tails;\ndevil tryin' to drag me down! Sinnuhs, take wawnun! Devil got a hol' o'\nmy coat-tails; I'm a-goin' to hell, oh Lawd!' Nex', he clim up little\nmo', an' yell an' holler: 'Done shuck ole devil loose; goin' straight to\nheavum agin! Goin' to heavum, goin' to heavum, my Lawd!' Nex', he slide\ndown some mo' an' holler, 'Leggo my coat-tails, ole devil! Goin' to\nhell agin, sinnuhs! Goin' straight to hell, my Lawd!' An' he clim an' he\nslide, an' he slide, an' he clim, an' all time holler: 'Now 'm a-goin'\nto heavum; now 'm a-goin' to hell! Goin'to heavum, heavum, heavum, my\nLawd!' Las' he slide all a-way down, jes' a-squallin' an' a-kickin' an'\na-rarin' up an' squealin', 'Goin' to hell. Goin' to hell! Ole Satum got\nmy soul! Goin' to hell! Goin' to hell! Goin' to hell, hell, hell!\"\n\nHerman possessed that extraordinary facility for vivid acting which is\nthe great native gift of his race, and he enchained his listeners. They\nsat fascinated and spellbound.\n\n\"Herman, tell that again!\" said Penrod, breathlessly.\n\nHerman, nothing loath, accepted the encore and repeated the Miltonic\nepisode, expanding it somewhat, and dwelling with a fine art upon those\nportions of the narrative which he perceived to be most exciting to his\naudience. Plainly, they thrilled less to Paradise gained than to its\nlosing, and the dreadful climax of the descent into the Pit was the\ngreatest treat of all.\n\nThe effect was immense and instant. Penrod sprang to his feet.\n\n\"Georgie Bassett couldn't do that to save his life,\" he declared. \"_I_'m\ngoin' to be a preacher! I'D be all right for one, wouldn't I, Herman?\"\n\n\"So am I!\" Sam Williams echoed loudly. \"I guess I can do it if YOU can.\nI'd be better'n Penrod, wouldn't I, Herman?\"\n\n\"I am, too!\" Maurice shouted. \"I got a stronger voice than anybody here,\nand I'd like to know what----\"\n\nThe three clamoured together indistinguishably, each asserting his\nqualifications for the ministry according to Herman's theory, which had\nbeen accepted by these sudden converts without question.\n\n\"Listen to ME!\" Maurice bellowed, proving his claim to at least the\nvoice by drowning the others. \"Maybe I can't climb a pole so good, but\nwho can holler louder'n this? Listen to ME-E-E!\"\n\n\"Shut up!\" cried Penrod, irritated. \"Go to heaven; go to hell!\"\n\n\"Oo-o-oh!\" exclaimed Georgie Bassett, profoundly shocked.\n\nSam and Maurice, awed by Penrod's daring, ceased from turmoil, staring\nwide-eyed.\n\n\"You cursed and swore!\" said Georgie.\n\n\"I did not!\" cried Penrod, hotly. \"That isn't swearing.\"\n\n\"You said, 'Go to a big H'!\" said Georgie.\n\n\"I did not! I said, 'Go to heaven,' before I said a big H. That isn't\nswearing, is it, Herman? It's almost what the preacher said, ain't it,\nHerman? It ain't swearing now, any more--not if you put 'go to heaven'\nwith it, is it, Herman? You can say it all you want to, long as you\nsay 'go to heaven' first, CAN'T you, Herman? Anybody can say it if\nthe preacher says it, can't they, Herman? I guess I know when I ain't\nswearing, don't I, Herman?\"\n\nJudge Herman ruled for the defendant, and Penrod was considered to have\ncarried his point. With fine consistency, the conclave established\nthat it was proper for the general public to \"say it,\" provided \"go to\nheaven\" should in all cases precede it. This prefix was pronounced a\nperfect disinfectant, removing all odour of impiety or insult; and, with\nthe exception of Georgie Bassett (who maintained that the minister's\nwords were \"going\" and \"gone,\" not \"go\"), all the boys proceeded to\nexercise their new privilege so lavishly that they tired of it.\n\nBut there was no diminution of evangelical ardour; again were heard the\nclamours of dispute as to which was the best qualified for the ministry,\neach of the claimants appealing passionately to Herman, who, pleased but\nconfused, appeared to be incapable of arriving at a decision.\n\nDuring a pause, Georgie Bassett asserted his prior rights. \"Who said\nit first, I'd like to know?\" he demanded. \"I was going to be a minister\nfrom long back of to-day, I guess. And I guess I said I was going to be\na minister right to-day before any of you said anything at all. DIDN'T\nI, Herman? YOU heard me, didn't you, Herman? That's the very thing\nstarted you talking about it, wasn't it, Herman?\"\n\n\"You' right,\" said Herman. \"You the firs' one to say it.\"\n\nPenrod, Sam, and Maurice immediately lost faith in Herman.\n\n\"What if you did say it first?\" Penrod shouted. \"You couldn't BE a\nminister if you were a hunderd years old!\"\n\n\"I bet his mother wouldn't let him be one,\" said Sam. \"She never lets\nhim do anything.\"\n\n\"She would, too,\" retorted Georgie. \"Ever since I was little, she----\"\n\n\"He's too sissy to be a preacher!\" cried Maurice. \"Listen at his squeaky\nvoice!\"\n\n\"I'm going to be a better minister,\" shouted Georgie, \"than all three of\nyou put together. I could do it with my left hand!\"\n\nThe three laughed bitingly in chorus. They jeered, derided, scoffed,\nand raised an uproar which would have had its effect upon much stronger\nnerves than Georgie's. For a time he contained his rising choler and\nchanted monotonously, over and over: \"I COULD! I COULD, TOO! I COULD!\nI COULD, TOO!\" But their tumult wore upon him, and he decided to avail\nhimself of the recent decision whereby a big H was rendered innocuous\nand unprofane. Having used the expression once, he found it comforting,\nand substituted it for: \"I could! I could, too!\"\n\nBut it relieved him only temporarily. His tormentors were unaffected\nby it and increased their howlings, until at last Georgie lost his head\naltogether. Badgered beyond bearing, his eyes shining with a wild light,\nhe broke through the besieging trio, hurling little Maurice from his\npath with a frantic hand.\n\n\"I'll show you!\" he cried, in this sudden frenzy. \"You give me a chance,\nand I'll prove it right NOW!\"\n\n\"That's talkin' business!\" shouted Penrod. \"Everybody keep still a\nminute. Everybody!\"\n\nHe took command of the situation at once, displaying a fine capacity for\norganization and system. It needed only a few minutes to set order in\nthe place of confusion and to determine, with the full concurrence of\nall parties, the conditions under which Georgie Bassett was to defend\nhis claim by undergoing what may be perhaps intelligibly defined as the\nHerman test. Georgie declared he could do it easily. He was in a state\nof great excitement and in no condition to think calmly or, probably, he\nwould not have made the attempt at all. Certainly he was overconfident.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXVII CONCLUSION OF THE QUIET AFTERNOON\n\nIt was during the discussion of the details of this enterprise that\nGeorgie's mother, a short distance down the street, received a few\nfemale callers, who came by appointment to drink a glass of iced tea\nwith her, and to meet the Rev. Mr. Kinosling. Mr. Kinosling was proving\nalmost formidably interesting to the women and girls of his own\nand other flocks. What favour of his fellow clergymen a slight\nprecociousness of manner and pronunciation cost him was more than\nbalanced by the visible ecstasies of ladies. They blossomed at his\ntouch.\n\nHe had just entered Mrs. Bassett's front door, when the son of the\nhouse, followed by an intent and earnest company of four, opened the\nalley gate and came into the yard. The unconscious Mrs. Bassett was\nabout to have her first experience of a fatal coincidence. It was her\nfirst, because she was the mother of a boy so well behaved that he had\nbecome a proverb of transcendency. Fatal coincidences were plentiful\nin the Schofield and Williams families, and would have been familiar to\nMrs. Bassett had Georgie been permitted greater intimacy with Penrod and\nSam.\n\nMr. Kinosling sipped his iced tea and looked about, him approvingly.\nSeven ladies leaned forward, for it was to be seen that he meant to\nspeak.\n\n\"This cool room is a relief,\" he said, waving a graceful hand in\na neatly limited gesture, which everybody's eyes followed, his own\nincluded. \"It is a relief and a retreat. The windows open, the blinds\nclosed--that is as it should be. It is a retreat, a fastness, a bastion\nagainst the heat's assault. For me, a quiet room--a quiet room and a\nbook, a volume in the hand, held lightly between the fingers. A volume\nof poems, lines metrical and cadenced; something by a sound Victorian.\nWe have no later poets.\"\n\n\"Swinburne?\" suggested Miss Beam, an eager spinster. \"Swinburne, Mr.\nKinosling? Ah, SWINBURNE!\"\n\n\"Not Swinburne,\" said Mr. Kinosling chastely. \"No.\"\n\nThat concluded all the remarks about Swinburne.\n\n\nMiss Beam retired in confusion behind another lady; and somehow there\nbecame diffused an impression that Miss Beam was erotic.\n\n\"I do not observe your manly little son,\" Mr. Kinosling addressed his\nhostess.\n\n\"He's out playing in the yard,\" Mrs. Bassett returned. \"I heard his\nvoice just now, I think.\"\n\n\"Everywhere I hear wonderful report of him,\" said Mr. Kinosling. \"I\nmay say that I understand boys, and I feel that he is a rare, a fine, a\npure, a lofty spirit. I say spirit, for spirit is the word I hear spoken\nof him.\"\n\nA chorus of enthusiastic approbation affirmed the accuracy of this\nproclamation, and Mrs. Bassett flushed with pleasure. Georgie's\nspiritual perfection was demonstrated by instances of it, related by\nthe visitors; his piety was cited, and wonderful things he had said were\nquoted.\n\n\"Not all boys are pure, of fine spirit, of high mind,\" said Mr.\nKinosling, and continued with true feeling: \"You have a neighbour, dear\nMrs. Bassett, whose household I indeed really feel it quite impossible\nto visit until such time when better, firmer, stronger handed, more\ndetermined discipline shall prevail. I find Mr. and Mrs. Schofield and\ntheir daughter charming----\"\n\nThree or four ladies said \"Oh!\" and spoke a name simultaneously. It was\nas if they had said, \"Oh, the bubonic plague!\"\n\n\"Oh! Penrod Schofield!\"\n\n\"Georgie does not play with him,\" said Mrs. Bassett quickly--\"that\nis, he avoids him as much as he can without hurting Penrod's feelings.\nGeorgie is very sensitive to giving pain. I suppose a mother should not\ntell these things, and I know people who talk about their own children\nare dreadful bores, but it was only last Thursday night that Georgie\nlooked up in my face so sweetly, after he had said his prayers and his\nlittle cheeks flushed, as he said: 'Mamma, I think it would be right for\nme to go more with Penrod. I think it would make him a better boy.'\"\n\nA sibilance went about the room. \"Sweet! How sweet! The sweet little\nsoul! Ah, SWEET!\"\n\n\"And that very afternoon,\" continued Mrs. Bassett, \"he had come home in\na dreadful state. Penrod had thrown tar all over him.\"\n\n\"Your son has a forgiving spirit!\" said Mr. Kinosling with vehemence. \"A\ntoo forgiving spirit, perhaps.\" He set down his glass. \"No more, I thank\nyou. No more cake, I thank you. Was it not Cardinal Newman who said----\"\n\nHe was interrupted by the sounds of an altercation just outside the\nclosed blinds of the window nearest him.\n\n\"Let him pick his tree!\" It was the voice of Samuel Williams. \"Didn't we\ncome over here to give him one of his own trees? Give him a fair show,\ncan't you?\"\n\n\"The little lads!\" Mr. Kinosling smiled. \"They have their games, their\noutdoor sports, their pastimes. The young muscles are toughening. The\nsun will not harm them. They grow; they expand; they learn. They learn\nfair play, honour, courtesy, from one another, as pebbles grow round\nin the brook. They learn more from themselves than from us. They take\nshape, form, outline. Let them.\"\n\n\"Mr. Kinosling!\" Another spinster--undeterred by what had happened\nto Miss Beam--leaned fair forward, her face shining and ardent. \"Mr.\nKinosling, there's a question I DO wish to ask you.\"\n\n\"My dear Miss Cosslit,\" Mr. Kinosling responded, again waving his hand\nand watching it, \"I am entirely at your disposal.\"\n\n\"WAS Joan of Arc,\" she asked fervently, \"inspired by spirits?\"\n\nHe smiled indulgently. \"Yes--and no,\" he said. \"One must give both\nanswers. One must give the answer, yes; one must give the answer, no.\"\n\n\"Oh, THANK you!\" said Miss Cosslit, blushing.\n\n\"She's one of my great enthusiasms, you know.\"\n\n\"And I have a question, too,\" urged Mrs. Lora Rewbush, after a moment's\nhasty concentration. \"'I've never been able to settle it for myself, but\nNOW----\"\n\n\"Yes?\" said Mr. Kinosling encouragingly.\n\n\"Is--ah--is--oh, yes: Is Sanskrit a more difficult language than\nSpanish, Mr. Kinosling?\"\n\n\"It depends upon the student,\" replied the oracle smiling. \"One must not\nlook for linguists everywhere. In my own especial case--if one may cite\none's self as an example--I found no great, no insurmountable difficulty\nin mastering, in conquering either.\"\n\n\"And may _I_ ask one?\" ventured Mrs. Bassett. \"Do you think it is right\nto wear egrets?\"\n\n\"There are marks of quality, of caste, of social distinction,\" Mr.\nKinosling began, \"which must be permitted, allowed, though perhaps\nregulated. Social distinction, one observes, almost invariably\nimplies spiritual distinction as well. Distinction of circumstances\nis accompanied by mental distinction. Distinction is hereditary; it\ndescends from father to son, and if there is one thing more true\nthan 'Like father, like son,' it is--\" he bowed gallantly to Mrs.\nBassett--\"it is, 'Like mother, like son.' What these good ladies have\nsaid this afternoon of YOUR----\"\n\nThis was the fatal instant. There smote upon all ears the voice of\nGeorgie, painfully shrill and penetrating--fraught with protest and\nprotracted, strain. His plain words consisted of the newly sanctioned\nand disinfected curse with a big H.\n\nWith an ejaculation of horror, Mrs. Bassett sprang to the window and\nthrew open the blinds.\n\nGeorgie's back was disclosed to the view of the tea-party. He was\nendeavouring to ascend a maple tree about twelve feet from the window.\nEmbracing the trunk with arms and legs, he had managed to squirm to a\npoint above the heads of Penrod and Herman, who stood close by, watching\nhim earnestly--Penrod being obviously in charge of the performance.\nAcross the yard were Sam Williams and Maurice Levy, acting as a jury on\nthe question of voice-power, and it was to a complaint of theirs that\nGeorgie had just replied.\n\n\"That's right, Georgie,\" said Penrod encouragingly. \"They can, too, hear\nyou. Let her go!\"\n\n\"Going to heaven!\" shrieked Georgie, squirming up another inch. \"Going\nto heaven, heaven, heaven!\"\n\nHis mother's frenzied attempts to attract his attention failed utterly.\nGeorgie was using the full power of his lungs, deafening his own ears to\nall other sounds. Mrs. Bassett called in vain; while the tea-party stood\npetrified in a cluster about the window.\n\n\"Going to heaven!\" Georgie bellowed. \"Going to heaven! Going to heaven,\nmy Lord! Going to heaven, heaven, heaven!\"\n\nHe tried to climb higher, but began to slip downward, his exertions\ncausing damage to his apparel. A button flew into the air, and his\nknickerbockers and his waistband severed relations.\n\n\"Devil's got my coat-tails, sinners! Old devil's got my coat-tails!\" he\nannounced appropriately. Then he began to slide.\n\nHe relaxed his clasp of the tree and slid to the ground.\n\n\"Going to hell!\" shrieked Georgie, reaching a high pitch of enthusiasm\nin this great climax. \"Going to hell! Going to hell! I'm gone to hell,\nhell, hell!\"\n\nWith a loud scream, Mrs. Bassett threw herself out of the window,\nalighting by some miracle upon her feet with ankles unsprained.\n\nMr. Kinosling, feeling that his presence as spiritual adviser was\ndemanded in the yard, followed with greater dignity through the front\ndoor. At the corner of the house a small departing figure collided with\nhim violently. It was Penrod, tactfully withdrawing from what promised\nto be a family scene of unusual painfulness.\n\nMr. Kinosling seized him by the shoulders and, giving way to emotion,\nshook him viciously.\n\n\"You horrible boy!\" exclaimed Mr. Kinosling. \"You ruffianly creature! Do\nyou know what's going to happen to you when you grow up? Do you realize\nwhat you're going to BE!\"\n\nWith flashing eyes, the indignant boy made know his unshaken purpose. He\nshouted the reply:\n\n\"A minister!\"\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXVIII TWELVE\n\nThis busy globe which spawns us is as incapable of flattery and as\nintent upon its own affair, whatever that is, as a gyroscope; it keeps\nsteadily whirling along its lawful track, and, thus far seeming to hold\na right of way, spins doggedly on, with no perceptible diminution of\nspeed to mark the most gigantic human events--it did not pause to pant\nand recuperate even when what seemed to Penrod its principal purpose\nwas accomplished, and an enormous shadow, vanishing westward over its\nsurface, marked the dawn of his twelfth birthday.\n\nTo be twelve is an attainment worth the struggle. A boy, just twelve, is\nlike a Frenchman just elected to the Academy.\n\nDistinction and honour wait upon him. Younger boys show deference to a\nperson of twelve: his experience is guaranteed, his judgment, therefore,\nmellow; consequently, his influence is profound. Eleven is not quite\nsatisfactory: it is only an approach. Eleven has the disadvantage of\nsix, of nineteen, of forty-four, and of sixty-nine. But, like twelve,\nseven is an honourable age, and the ambition to attain it is laudable.\nPeople look forward to being seven. Similarly, twenty is worthy, and so,\narbitrarily, is twenty-one; forty-five has great solidity; seventy is\nmost commendable and each year thereafter an increasing honour. Thirteen\nis embarrassed by the beginnings of a new colthood; the child becomes a\nyouth. But twelve is the very top of boyhood.\n\nDressing, that morning, Penrod felt that the world was changed from the\nworld of yesterday. For one thing, he seemed to own more of it; this\nday was HIS day. And it was a day worth owning; the midsummer sunshine,\npouring gold through his window, came from a cool sky, and a breeze\nmoved pleasantly in his hair as he leaned from the sill to watch the\ntribe of clattering blackbirds take wing, following their leader\nfrom the trees in the yard to the day's work in the open country. The\nblackbirds were his, as the sunshine and the breeze were his, for they\nall belonged to the day which was his birthday and therefore most surely\nhis. Pride suffused him: he was twelve!\n\nHis father and his mother and Margaret seemed to understand the\ndifference between to-day and yesterday. They were at the table when\nhe descended, and they gave him a greeting which of itself marked the\nmilestone. Habitually, his entrance into a room where his elders sat\nbrought a cloud of apprehension: they were prone to look up in pathetic\nexpectancy, as if their thought was, \"What new awfulness is he going to\nstart NOW?\" But this morning they laughed; his mother rose and kissed\nhim twelve times, so did Margaret; and his father shouted, \"Well, well!\nHow's the MAN?\"\n\nThen his mother gave him a Bible and \"The Vicar of Wakefield\"; Margaret\ngave him a pair of silver-mounted hair brushes; and his father gave him\na \"Pocket Atlas\" and a small compass.\n\n\"And now, Penrod,\" said his mother, after breakfast, \"I'm going to\ntake you out in the country to pay your birthday respects to Aunt Sarah\nCrim.\"\n\nAunt Sarah Crim, Penrod's great-aunt, was his oldest living relative.\nShe was ninety, and when Mrs. Schofield and Penrod alighted from a\ncarriage at her gate they found her digging with a spade in the garden.\n\n\"I'm glad you brought him,\" she said, desisting from labour. \"Jinny's\nbaking a cake I'm going to send for his birthday party. Bring him in the\nhouse. I've got something for him.\"\n\nShe led the way to her \"sitting-room,\" which had a pleasant smell,\nunlike any other smell, and, opening the drawer of a shining old\nwhat-not, took therefrom a boy's \"sling-shot,\" made of a forked stick,\ntwo strips of rubber and a bit of leather.\n\n\"This isn't for you,\" she said, placing it in Penrod's eager hand.\n\"No. It would break all to pieces the first time you tried to shoot\nit, because it is thirty-five years old. I want to send it back to your\nfather. I think it's time. You give it to him from me, and tell him\nI say I believe I can trust him with it now. I took it away from him\nthirty-five years ago, one day after he'd killed my best hen with\nit, accidentally, and broken a glass pitcher on the back porch with\nit--accidentally. He doesn't look like a person who's ever done things\nof that sort, and I suppose he's forgotten it so well that he believes\nhe never DID, but if you give it to him from me I think he'll remember.\nYou look like him, Penrod. He was anything but a handsome boy.\"\n\nAfter this final bit of reminiscence--probably designed to be repeated\nto Mr. Schofield--she disappeared in the direction of the kitchen,\nand returned with a pitcher of lemonade and a blue china dish sweetly\nfreighted with flat ginger cookies of a composition that was her own\nsecret. Then, having set this collation before her guests, she presented\nPenrod with a superb, intricate, and very modern machine of destructive\ncapacities almost limitless. She called it a pocket-knife.\n\n\"I suppose you'll do something horrible with it,\" she said, composedly.\n\"I hear you do that with everything, anyhow, so you might as well do it\nwith this, and have more fun out of it. They tell me you're the Worst\nBoy in Town.\"\n\n\"Oh, Aunt Sarah!\" Mrs. Schofield lifted a protesting hand.\n\n\"Nonsense!\" said Mrs. Crim.\n\n\"But on his birthday!\"\n\n\"That's the time to say it. Penrod, aren't you the Worst Boy in Town?\"\n\nPenrod, gazing fondly upon his knife and eating cookies rapidly,\nanswered as a matter of course, and absently, \"Yes'm.\"\n\n\"Certainly!\" said Mrs. Crim. \"Once you accept a thing about yourself\nas established and settled, it's all right. Nobody minds. Boys are just\npeople, really.\"\n\n\"No, no!\" Mrs. Schofield cried, involuntarily.\n\n\"Yes, they are,\" returned Aunt Sarah. \"Only they're not quite so awful,\nbecause they haven't learned to cover themselves all over with little\npretences. When Penrod grows up he'll be just the same as he is now,\nexcept that whenever he does what he wants to do he'll tell himself and\nother people a little story about it to make his reason for doing it\nseem nice and pretty and noble.\"\n\n\"No, I won't!\" said Penrod suddenly.\n\n\"There's one cookie left,\" observed Aunt Sarah. \"Are you going to eat\nit?\"\n\n\"Well,\" said her great-nephew, thoughtfully, \"I guess I better.\"\n\n\"Why?\" asked the old lady. \"Why do you guess you'd 'better'?\"\n\n\"Well,\" said Penrod, with a full mouth, \"it might get all dried up if\nnobody took it, and get thrown out and wasted.\"\n\n\"You're beginning finely,\" Mrs. Crim remarked. \"A year ago you'd have\ntaken the cookie without the same sense of thrift.\"\n\n\"Ma'am?\"\n\n\"Nothing. I see that you're twelve years old, that's all. There are more\ncookies, Penrod.\" She went away, returning with a fresh supply and the\nobservation, \"Of course, you'll be sick before the day's over; you might\nas well get a good start.\"\n\nMrs. Schofield looked thoughtful. \"Aunt Sarah,\" she ventured, \"don't you\nreally think we improve as we get older?\"\n\n\"Meaning,\" said the old lady, \"that Penrod hasn't much chance to escape\nthe penitentiary if he doesn't? Well, we do learn to restrain ourselves\nin some things; and there are people who really want someone else to\ntake the last cookie, though they aren't very common. But it's all\nright, the world seems to be getting on.\" She gazed whimsically upon her\ngreat-nephew and added, \"Of course, when you watch a boy and think about\nhim, it doesn't seem to be getting on very fast.\"\n\nPenrod moved uneasily in his chair; he was conscious that he was her\ntopic but unable to make out whether or not her observations were\ncomplimentary; he inclined to think they were not. Mrs. Crim settled the\nquestion for him.\n\n\"I suppose Penrod is regarded as the neighbourhood curse?\"\n\n\"Oh, no,\" cried Mrs. Schofield. \"He----\"\n\n\"I dare say the neighbours are right,\" continued the old lady placidly.\n\"He's had to repeat the history of the race and go through all the\nstages from the primordial to barbarism. You don't expect boys to be\ncivilized, do you?\"\n\n\"Well, I----\"\n\n\"You might as well expect eggs to crow. No; you've got to take boys as\nthey are, and learn to know them as they are.\"\n\n\"Naturally, Aunt Sarah,\" said Mrs. Schofield, \"I KNOW Penrod.\"\n\nAunt Sarah laughed heartily. \"Do you think his father knows him, too?\"\n\n\"Of course, men are different,\" Mrs. Schofield returned, apologetically.\n\"But a mother knows----\"\n\n\"Penrod,\" said Aunt Sarah, solemnly, \"does your father understand you?\"\n\n\"Ma'am?\"\n\n\"About as much as he'd understand Sitting Bull!\" she laughed.\n\n\"And I'll tell you what your mother thinks you are, Penrod. Her real\nbelief is that you're a novice in a convent.\"\n\n\"Ma'am?\"\n\n\"Aunt Sarah!\"\n\n\"I know she thinks that, because whenever you don't behave like a novice\nshe's disappointed in you. And your father really believes that you're\na decorous, well-trained young business man, and whenever you don't\nlive up to that standard you get on his nerves and he thinks you need a\nwalloping. I'm sure a day very seldom passes without their both saying\nthey don't know what on earth to do with you. Does whipping do you any\ngood, Penrod?\"\n\n\"Ma'am?\"\n\n\"Go on and finish the lemonade; there's about glassful left. Oh, take\nit, take it; and don't say why! Of COURSE you're a little pig.\"\n\nPenrod laughed gratefully, his eyes fixed upon her over the rim of his\nuptilted glass.\n\n\"Fill yourself up uncomfortably,\" said the old lady. \"You're twelve\nyears old, and you ought to be happy--if you aren't anything else. It's\ntaken over nineteen hundred years of Christianity and some hundreds of\nthousands of years of other things to produce you, and there you sit!\"\n\n\"Ma'am?\"\n\n\"It'll be your turn to struggle and muss things up, for the betterment\nof posterity, soon enough,\" said Aunt Sarah Crim. \"Drink your lemonade!\"\n\n\nCHAPTER XXIX FANCHON\n\n\"Aunt Sarah's a funny old lady,\" Penrod observed, on the way back to the\ntown. \"What's she want me to give papa this old sling for? Last thing\nshe said was to be sure not to forget to give it to him. HE don't want\nit; and she said, herself, it ain't any good. She's older than you or\npapa, isn't she?\"\n\n\"About fifty years older,\" answered Mrs. Schofield, turning upon him a\nstare of perplexity. \"Don't cut into the leather with your new knife,\ndear; the livery man might ask us to pay if----No. I wouldn't scrape\nthe paint off, either--nor whittle your shoe with it. COULDN'T you put\nit up until we get home?\"\n\n\"We goin' straight home?\"\n\n\"No. We're going to stop at Mrs. Gelbraith's and ask a strange little\ngirl to come to your party, this afternoon.\"\n\n\"Who?\"\n\n\"Her name is Fanchon. She's Mrs. Gelbraith's little niece.\"\n\n\"What makes her so queer?\"\n\n\"I didn't say she's queer.\"\n\n\"You said----\"\n\n\"No; I mean that she is a stranger. She lives in New York and has come\nto visit here.\"\n\n\"What's she live in New York for?\"\n\n\"Because her parents live there. You must be very nice to her, Penrod;\nshe has been very carefully brought up. Besides, she doesn't know the\nchildren here, and you must help to keep her from feeling lonely at your\nparty.\"\n\n\"Yes'm.\"\n\nWhen they reached Mrs. Gelbraith's, Penrod sat patiently humped upon a\ngilt chair during the lengthy exchange of greetings between his mother.\nand Mrs. Gelbraith. That is one of the things a boy must learn to bear:\nwhen his mother meets a compeer there is always a long and dreary wait\nfor him, while the two appear to be using strange symbols of speech,\ntalking for the greater part, it seems to him, simultaneously, and\nemploying a wholly incomprehensible system of emphasis at other times\nnot in vogue. Penrod twisted his legs, his cap and his nose.\n\n\"Here she is!\" Mrs. Gelbraith cried, unexpectedly, and a dark-haired,\ndemure person entered the room wearing a look of gracious social\nexpectancy. In years she was eleven, in manner about sixty-five,\nand evidently had lived much at court. She performed a curtsey in\nacknowledgment of Mrs. Schofield's greeting, and bestowed her hand\nupon Penrod, who had entertained no hope of such an honour, showed his\nsurprise that it should come to him, and was plainly unable to decide\nwhat to do about it.\n\n\"Fanchon, dear,\" said Mrs. Gelbraith, \"take Penrod out in the yard for a\nwhile, and play.\"\n\n\"Let go the little girl's hand, Penrod,\" Mrs. Schofield laughed, as the\nchildren turned toward the door.\n\nPenrod hastily dropped the small hand, and exclaiming, with simple\nhonesty, \"Why, _I_ don't want it!\" followed Fanchon out into the\nsunshiny yard, where they came to a halt and surveyed each other.\n\nPenrod stared awkwardly at Fanchon, no other occupation suggesting\nitself to him, while Fanchon, with the utmost coolness, made a very\nthorough visual examination of Penrod, favouring him with an estimating\nscrutiny which lasted until he literally wiggled. Finally, she spoke.\n\n\"Where do you buy your ties?\" she asked.\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"Where do you buy your neckties? Papa gets his at Skoone's. You ought to\nget yours there. I'm sure the one you're wearing isn't from Skoone's.\"\n\n\"Skoone's?\" Penrod repeated. \"Skoone's?\"\n\n\"On Fifth Avenue,\" said Fanchon. \"It's a very smart shop, the men say.\"\n\n\"Men?\" echoed Penrod, in a hazy whisper. \"Men?\"\n\n\"Where do your people go in summer?\" inquired the lady. \"WE go to Long\nShore, but so many middle-class people have begun coming there, mamma\nthinks of leaving. The middle classes are simply awful, don't you\nthink?\"\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"They're so boorjaw. You speak French, of course?\"\n\n\"Me?\"\n\n\"We ran over to Paris last year. It's lovely, don't you think? Don't you\nLOVE the Rue de la Paix?\"\n\nPenrod wandered in a labyrinth. This girl seemed to be talking, but her\nwords were dumfounding, and of course there was no way for him to know\nthat he was really listening to her mother. It was his first meeting\nwith one of those grown-up little girls, wonderful product of the winter\napartment and summer hotel; and Fanchon, an only child, was a star of\nthe brand. He began to feel resentful.\n\n\"I suppose,\" she went on, \"I'll find everything here fearfully Western.\nSome nice people called yesterday, though. Do you know the Magsworth\nBittses? Auntie says they're charming. Will Roddy be at your party?\"\n\n\"I guess he will,\" returned Penrod, finding this intelligible. \"The\nmutt!\"\n\n\"Really!\" Fanchon exclaimed airily. \"Aren't you great pals with him?\"\n\n\"What's 'pals'?\"\n\n\"Good heavens! Don't you know what it means to say you're 'great pals'\nwith any one? You ARE an odd child!\"\n\nIt was too much.\n\n\"Oh, Bugs!\" said Penrod.\n\nThis bit of ruffianism had a curious effect. Fanchon looked upon him\nwith sudden favour.\n\n\"I like you, Penrod!\" she said, in an odd way, and, whatever else there\nmay have been in her manner, there certainly was no shyness.\n\n\"Oh, Bugs!\" This repetition may have lacked gallantry, but it was\nuttered in no very decided tone. Penrod was shaken.\n\n\"Yes, I do!\" She stepped closer to him, smiling. \"Your hair is ever so\npretty.\"\n\nSailors' parrots swear like mariners, they say; and gay mothers ought to\nrealize that all children are imitative, for, as the precocious Fanchon\nleaned toward Penrod, the manner in which she looked into his eyes might\nhave made a thoughtful observer wonder where she had learned her pretty\nways.\n\nPenrod was even more confused than he had been by her previous\nmysteries: but his confusion was of a distinctly pleasant and alluring\nnature: he wanted more of it. Looking intentionally into another\nperson's eyes is an act unknown to childhood; and Penrod's discovery\nthat it could be done was sensational. He had never thought of looking\ninto the eyes of Marjorie Jones.\n\nDespite all anguish, contumely, tar, and Maurice Levy, he still secretly\nthought of Marjorie, with pathetic constancy, as his \"beau\"--though that\nis not how he would have spelled it. Marjorie was beautiful; her\ncurls were long and the colour of amber; her nose was straight and\nher freckles were honest; she was much prettier than this accomplished\nvisitor. But beauty is not all.\n\n\"I do!\" breathed Fanchon, softly.\n\nShe seemed to him a fairy creature from some rosier world than this. So\nhumble is the human heart, it glorifies and makes glamorous almost any\npoor thing that says to it: \"I like you!\"\n\nPenrod was enslaved. He swallowed, coughed, scratched the back of his\nneck, and said, disjointedly:\n\n\"Well--I don't care if you want to. I just as soon.\"\n\n\"We'll dance together,\" said Fanchon, \"at your party.\"\n\n\"I guess so. I just as soon.\"\n\n\"Don't you want to, Penrod?\"\n\n\"Well, I'm willing to.\"\n\n\"No. Say you WANT to!\"\n\n\"Well----\"\n\nHe used his toe as a gimlet, boring into the ground, his wide open eyes\nstaring with intense vacancy at a button on his sleeve.\n\nHis mother appeared upon the porch in departure, calling farewells over\nher shoulder to Mrs. Gelbraith, who stood in the doorway.\n\n\"Say it!\" whispered Fanchon.\n\n\"Well, I just as SOON.\"\n\nShe seemed satisfied.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXX THE BIRTHDAY PARTY\n\nA dancing floor had been laid upon a platform in the yard, when Mrs.\nSchofield and her son arrived at their own abode; and a white and\nscarlet striped canopy was in process of erection overhead, to shelter\nthe dancers from the sun. Workmen were busy everywhere under the\ndirection of Margaret, and the smitten heart of Penrod began to beat\nrapidly. All this was for him; he was Twelve!\n\nAfter lunch, he underwent an elaborate toilette and murmured not. For\nthe first time in his life he knew the wish to be sand-papered, waxed,\nand polished to the highest possible degree. And when the operation was\nover, he stood before the mirror in new bloom, feeling encouraged to\nhope that his resemblance to his father was not so strong as Aunt Sarah\nseemed to think.\n\nThe white gloves upon his hands had a pleasant smell, he found; and, as\nhe came down the stairs, he had great content in the twinkling of his\nnew dancing slippers. He stepped twice on each step, the better to enjoy\ntheir effect and at the same time he deeply inhaled the odour of the\ngloves. In spite of everything, Penrod had his social capacities.\nAlready it is to be perceived that there were in him the makings of a\ncotillon leader.\n\nThen came from the yard a sound of tuning instruments, squeak of fiddle,\ncroon of 'cello, a falling triangle ringing and tinkling to the floor;\nand he turned pale.\n\nChosen guests began to arrive, while Penrod, suffering from stage-fright\nand perspiration, stood beside his mother, in the \"drawing-room,\"\nto receive them. He greeted unfamiliar acquaintances and intimate\nfellow-criminals with the same frigidity, murmuring: \"'M glad to see\ny',\" to all alike, largely increasing the embarrassment which always\nprevails at the beginning of children's festivities. His unnatural pomp\nand circumstance had so thoroughly upset him, in truth, that Marjorie\nJones received a distinct shock, now to be related. Doctor Thrope, the\nkind old clergyman who had baptized Penrod, came in for a moment to\ncongratulate the boy, and had just moved away when it was Marjorie's\nturn, in the line of children, to speak to Penrod. She gave him what she\nconsidered a forgiving look, and, because of the occasion, addressed him\nin a perfectly courteous manner.\n\n\"I wish you many happy returns of the day, Penrod.\"\n\n\"Thank you, sir!\" he returned, following Dr. Thrope with a glassy\nstare in which there was absolutely no recognition of Marjorie. Then he\ngreeted Maurice Levy, who was next to Marjorie: \"'M glad to see y'!\"\n\nDumfounded, Marjorie turned aside, and stood near, observing Penrod with\ngravity. It was the first great surprise of her life. Customarily,\nshe had seemed to place his character somewhere between that of the\nprofessional rioter and that of the orang-outang; nevertheless, her\nmanner at times just hinted a consciousness that this Caliban was her\nproperty. Wherefore, she stared at him incredulously as his head bobbed\nup and down, in the dancing-school bow, greeting his guests. Then she\nheard an adult voice, near her, exclaim:\n\n\"What an exquisite child!\"\n\nMariorie galanced up--a little consciously, though she was used to\nit--naturally curious to ascertain who was speaking of her. It was Sam\nWilliams' mother addressing Mrs. Bassett, both being present to help\nMrs. Schofield make the festivities festive.\n\n\"Exquisite!\"\n\nHere was a second heavy surprise for Marjorie: they were not looking\nat her. They were looking with beaming approval at a girl she had never\nseen; a dark and modish stranger of singularly composed and yet modest\naspect. Her downcast eyes, becoming in one thus entering a crowded room,\nwere all that produced the effect of modesty, counteracting something\nabout her which might have seemed too assured. She was very slender,\nvery dainty, and her apparel was disheartening to the other girls; it\nwas of a knowing picturesqueness wholly unfamiliar to them. There was\na delicate trace of powder upon the lobe of Fanchon's left ear, and\nthe outlines of her eyelids, if very closely scrutinized, would have\nrevealed successful experimentation with a burnt match.\n\nMarjorie's lovely eyes dilated: she learned the meaning of hatred at\nfirst sight. Observing the stranger with instinctive suspicion, all\nat once she seemed, to herself, awkward. Poor Marjorie underwent that\nexperience which hearty, healthy, little girls and big girls undergo at\none time or another--from heels to head she felt herself, somehow, too\nTHICK.\n\nFanchon leaned close to Penrod and whispered in his ear:\n\n\"Don't you forget!\"\n\nPenrod blushed.\n\nMarjorie saw the blush. Her lovely eyes opened even wider, and in them\nthere began to grow a light. It was the light of indignation;--at least,\npeople whose eyes glow with that light always call it indignation.\n\nRoderick Magsworth Bitts, Junior, approached Fanchon, when she had made\nher courtesy to Mrs. Schofield. Fanchon whispered in Roderick's ear\nalso.\n\n\"Your hair is pretty, Roddy! Don't forget what you said yesterday!\"\n\nRoderick likewise blushed.\n\nMaurice Levy, captivated by the newcomer's appearance, pressed close to\nRoderick.\n\n\"Give us an intaduction, Roddy?\"\n\nRoddy being either reluctant or unable to perform the rite, Fanchon took\nmatters into her own hands, and was presently favourably impressed with\nMaurice, receiving the information that his tie had been brought to him\nby his papa from Skoone's, whereupon she privately informed him that she\nliked wavy hair, and arranged to dance with him. Fanchon also thought\nsandy hair attractive, Sam Williams discovered, a few minutes later, and\nso catholic was her taste that a ring of boys quite encircled her before\nthe musicians in the yard struck up their thrilling march, and Mrs.\nSchofield brought Penrod to escort the lady from out-of-town to the\ndancing pavilion.\n\nHeaded by this pair, the children sought partners and paraded solemnly\nout of the front door and round a corner of the house. There they found\nthe gay marquee; the small orchestra seated on the lawn at one side\nof it, and a punch bowl of lemonade inviting attention, under a tree.\nDecorously the small couples stepped upon the platform, one after\nanother, and began to dance.\n\n\"It's not much like a children's party in our day,\" Mrs. Williams said\nto Penrod's mother. \"We'd have been playing 'Quaker-meeting,' 'Clap-in,\nClap-out,' or 'Going to Jerusalem,' I suppose.\"\n\n\"Yes, or 'Post-office' and 'Drop-the-handkerchief,'\" said Mrs.\nSchofield. \"Things change so quickly. Imagine asking little Fanchon\nGelbraith to play 'London Bridge'! Penrod seems to be having a difficult\ntime with her, poor boy; he wasn't a shining light in the dancing\nclass.\"\n\nHowever, Penrod's difficulty was not precisely of the kind his mother\nsupposed. Fanchon was showing him a new step, which she taught her\nnext partner in turn, continuing instructions during the dancing. The\nchildren crowded the floor, and in the kaleidoscopic jumble of bobbing\nheads and intermingling figures her extremely different style of\nmotion was unobserved by the older people, who looked on, nodding time\nbenevolently.\n\nFanchon fascinated girls as well as boys. Many of the former eagerly\nsought her acquaintance and thronged about her between the dances, when,\naccepting the deference due a cosmopolitan and an oracle of the mode,\nshe gave demonstrations of the new step to succeeding groups, professing\nastonishment to find it unknown: it had been \"all the go,\" she\nexplained, at the Long Shore Casino for fully two seasons. She\npronounced \"slow\" a \"Fancy Dance\" executed during an intermission by\nBaby Rennsdale and Georgie Bassett, giving it as her opinion that Miss\nRennsdale and Mr. Bassett were \"dead ones\"; and she expressed surprise\nthat the punch bowl contained lemonade and not champagne.\n\nThe dancing continued, the new step gaining instantly in popularity,\nfresh couples adventuring with every number. The word \"step\" is somewhat\nmisleading, nothing done with the feet being vital to the evolutions\nintroduced by Fanchon. Fanchon's dance came from the Orient by a\nroundabout way; pausing in Spain, taking on a Gallic frankness in\ngallantry at the Bal Bullier in Paris, combining with a relative from\nthe South Seas encountered in San Francisco, flavouring itself with\na carefree negroid abandon in New Orleans, and, accumulating, too,\nsomething inexpressible from Mexico and South America, it kept,\nthroughout its travels, to the underworld, or to circles where nature\nis extremely frank and rank, until at last it reached the dives of New\nYork, when it immediately broke out in what is called civilized\nsociety. Thereafter it spread, in variously modified forms--some of\nthem disinfected--to watering-places, and thence, carried by hundreds of\nolder male and female Fanchons, over the country, being eagerly adopted\neverywhere and made wholly pure and respectable by the supreme moral\naxiom that anything is all right if enough people do it. Everybody was\ndoing it.\n\nNot quite everybody. It was perhaps some test of this dance that earth\ncould furnish no more grotesque sight than that of children doing it.\n\nEarth, assisted by Fanchon, was furnishing this sight at Penrod's party.\nBy the time ice-cream and cake arrived, about half the guests had\neither been initiated into the mysteries by Fanchon or were learning\nby imitation, and the education of the other half was resumed with the\ndancing, when the attendant ladies, unconscious of what was happening,\nwithdrew into the house for tea.\n\n\"That orchestra's a dead one,\" Fanchon remarked to Penrod. \"We ought to\nliven them up a little!\"\n\nShe approached the musicians.\n\n\"Don't you know,\" she asked the leader, \"the Slingo Sligo Slide?\"\n\nThe leader giggled, nodded, rapped with his bow upon his violin; and\nPenrod, following Fanchon back upon the dancing floor, blindly brushed\nwith his elbow a solitary little figure standing aloof on the lawn at\nthe edge of the platform.\n\nIt was Marjorie.\n\nIn no mood to approve of anything introduced by Fanchon, she had\nscornfully refused, from the first, to dance the new \"step,\" and,\nbecause of its bonfire popularity, found herself neglected in a society\nwhere she had reigned as beauty and belle. Faithless Penrod, dazed by\nthe sweeping Fanchon, had utterly forgotten the amber curls; he had not\nonce asked Marjorie to dance. All afternoon the light of indignation had\nbeen growing brighter in her eyes, though Maurice Levy's defection\nto the lady from New York had not fanned this flame. From the moment\nFanchon had whispered familiarly in Penrod's ear, and Penrod had\nblushed, Marjorie had been occupied exclusively with resentment against\nthat guilty pair. It seemed to her that Penrod had no right to allow a\nstrange girl to whisper in his ear; that his blushing, when the strange\ngirl did it, was atrocious; and that the strange girl, herself, ought to\nbe arrested.\n\nForgotten by the merrymakers, Marjorie stood alone upon the lawn,\nclenching her small fists, watching the new dance at its high tide,\nand hating it with a hatred that made every inch of her tremble. And,\nperhaps because jealousy is a great awakener of the virtues, she had\na perception of something in it worse than lack of dignity--something\nvaguely but outrageously reprehensible. Finally, when Penrod brushed by\nher, touched her with his elbow, and, did not even see her, Marjorie's\nstate of mind (not unmingled with emotion!) became dangerous. In fact, a\ntrained nurse, chancing to observe her at this juncture, would probably\nhave advised that she be taken home and put to bed. Marjorie was on the\nverge of hysterics.\n\nShe saw Fanchon and Penrod assume the double embrace required by the\ndance; the \"Slingo Sligo Slide\" burst from the orchestra like the\nlunatic shriek of a gin-maddened nigger; and all the little couples\nbegan to bob and dip and sway.\n\nMarjorie made a scene. She sprang upon the platform and stamped her\nfoot.\n\n\"Penrod Schofield!\" she shouted. \"You BEHAVE yourself!\"\n\nThe remarkable girl took Penrod by the ear. By his ear she swung him\naway from Fanchon and faced him toward the lawn.\n\n\"You march straight out of here!\" she commanded.\n\nPenrod marched.\n\nHe was stunned; obeyed automatically, without question, and had very\nlittle realization of what was happening to him. Altogether, and without\nreason, he was in precisely the condition of an elderly spouse detected\nin flagrant misbehaviour. Marjorie, similarly, was in precisely the\ncondition of the party who detects such misbehaviour. It may be added\nthat she had acted with a promptness, a decision and a disregard of\nsocial consequences all to be commended to the attention of ladies in\nlike predicament.\n\n\"You ought to be ashamed of yourself!\" she raged, when they reached the\nlawn. \"Aren't you ashamed of yourself?\"\n\n\"What for?\" he inquired, helplessly.\n\n\"You be quiet!\"\n\n\"But what'd _I_ do, Marjorie? _I_ haven't done anything to you,\" he\npleaded. \"I haven't even seen you, all aftern----\"\n\n\"You be quiet!\" she cried, tears filling her eyes. \"Keep still! You ugly\nboy! Shut up!\"\n\nShe slapped him.\n\nHe should have understood from this how much she cared for him. But he\nrubbed his cheek and declared ruefully:\n\n\"I'll never speak to you again!\"\n\n\"You will, too!\" she sobbed, passionately.\n\n\"I will not!\"\n\nHe turned to leave her, but paused.\n\nHis mother, his sister Margaret, and their grownup friends had finished\ntheir tea and were approaching from the house. Other parents and\nguardians were with them, coming for their children; and there were\ncarriages and automobiles waiting in the street. But the \"Slingo Slide\"\nwent on, regardless.\n\nThe group of grown-up people hesitated and came to a halt, gazing at the\npavilion.\n\n\"What are they doing?\" gasped Mrs. Williams, blushing deeply. \"What is\nit? What IS it?\"\n\n\"WHAT IS IT?\" Mrs. Gelbraith echoed in a frightened whisper. \"WHAT----\"\n\n\"They're Tangoing!\" cried Margaret Schofield. \"Or Bunny Hugging or\nGrizzly Bearing, or----\"\n\n\"They're only Turkey Trotting,\" said Robert Williams.\n\nWith fearful outcries the mothers, aunts, and sisters rushed upon the\npavilion.\n\n\"Of course it was dreadful,\" said Mrs. Schofield, an hour later,\nrendering her lord an account of the day, \"but it was every bit the\nfault of that one extraordinary child. And of all the quiet, demur\nlittle things--that is, I mean, when she first came. We all spoke of how\nexquisite she seemed--so well trained, so finished! Eleven years old! I\nnever saw anything like her in my life!\"\n\n\"I suppose it's the New Child,\" her husband grunted.\n\n\"And to think of her saying there ought to have been champagne in the\nlemonade!\"\n\n\"Probably she'd forgotten to bring her pocket flask,\" he suggested\nmusingly.\n\n\"But aren't you proud of Penrod?\" cried Penrod's mother. \"It was just as\nI told you: he was standing clear outside the pavilion----\"\n\n\"I never thought to see the day! And Penrod was the only boy not doing\nit, the only one to refuse? ALL the others were----\"\n\n\"Every one!\" she returned triumphantly. \"Even Georgie Bassett!\"\n\n\"Well,\" said Mr. Schofield, patting her on the shoulder. \"I guess we can\nhold up our heads at last.\"\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXXI OVER THE FENCE\n\nPenrod was out in the yard, staring at the empty marquee. The sun was on\nthe horizon line, so far behind the back fence, and a western window of\nthe house blazed in gold unbearable to the eye: his day was nearly\nover. He sighed, and took from the inside pocket of his new jacket the\n\"sling-shot\" aunt Sarah Crim had given him that morning.\n\nHe snapped the rubbers absently. They held fast; and his next impulse\nwas entirely irresistible. He found a shapely stone, fitted it to the\nleather, and drew back the ancient catapult for a shot. A sparrow hopped\nupon a branch between him and the house, and he aimed at the sparrow,\nbut the reflection from the dazzling window struck in his eyes as he\nloosed the leather.\n\nHe missed the sparrow, but not the window. There was a loud crash,\nand to his horror he caught a glimpse of his father, stricken in\nmid-shaving, ducking a shower of broken glass, glittering razor\nflourishing wildly. Words crashed with the glass, stentorian words,\nfragmentary but collossal.\n\nPenrod stood petrified, a broken sling in his hand. He could hear his\nparent's booming descent of the back stairs, instant and furious; and\nthen, red-hot above white lather, Mr. Schofield burst out of the kitchen\ndoor and hurtled forth upon his son.\n\n\"What do you mean?\" he demanded, shaking Penrod by the shoulder. \"Ten\nminutes ago, for the very first time in our lives, your mother and I\nwere saying we were proud of you, and here you go and throw a rock at me\nthrough the window when I'm shaving for dinner!\"\n\n\"I didn't!\" Penrod quavered. \"I was shooting at a sparrow, and the sun\ngot in his eyes, and the sling broke----\"\n\n\"What sling?\"\n\n\"This'n.\"\n\n\"Where'd you get that devilish thing? Don't you know I've forbidden you\na thousand times----\"\n\n\"It ain't mine,\" said Penrod. \"It's yours.\"\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"Yes, sir,\" said the boy meekly. \"Aunt Sarah Crim gave it to me this\nmorning and told me to give it back to you. She said she took it away\nfrom you thirty-five years ago. You killed her hen, she said. She told\nme some more to tell you, but I've forgotten.\"\n\n\"Oh!\" said Mr. Schofield.\n\nHe took the broken sling in his hand, looked at it long and\nthoughtfully--and he looked longer, and quite as thoughtfully, at\nPenrod. Then he turned away, and walked toward the house.\n\n\"I'm sorry, papa,\" said Penrod.\n\nMr. Schofield coughed, and, as he reached the door, called back, but\nwithout turning his head.\n\n\"Never mind, little boy. A broken window isn't much harm.\"\n\nWhen he had gone in, Penrod wandered down the yard to the back fence,\nclimbed upon it, and sat in reverie there.\n\nA slight figure appeared, likewise upon a fence, beyond two neighbouring\nyards.\n\n\"Yay, Penrod!\" called comrade Sam Williams.\n\n\"Yay!\" returned Penrod, mechanically.\n\n\"I caught Billy Blue Hill!\" shouted Sam, describing retribution in a\nmanner perfectly clear to his friend. \"You were mighty lucky to get out\nof it.\"\n\n\"I know that!\"\n\n\"You wouldn't of, if it hadn't been for Marjorie.\"\n\n\"Well, don't I know that?\" Penrod shouted, with heat.\n\n\"Well, so long!\" called Sam, dropping from his fence; and the friendly\nvoice came then, more faintly, \"Many happy returns of the day, Penrod!\"\n\nAnd now, a plaintive little whine sounded from below Penrod's feet, and,\nlooking down, he saw that Duke, his wistful, old, scraggly dog sat in\nthe grass, gazing seekingly up at him.\n\nThe last shaft of sunshine of that day fell graciously and like a\nblessing upon the boy sitting on the fence. Years afterward, a quiet\nsunset would recall to him sometimes the gentle evening of his twelfth\nbirthday, and bring him the picture of his boy self, sitting in rosy\nlight upon the fence, gazing pensively down upon his wistful, scraggly,\nlittle old dog, Duke. But something else, surpassing, he would remember\nof that hour, for, in the side street, close by, a pink skirt flickered\nfrom behind a shade tree to the shelter of the fence, there was a gleam\nof amber curls, and Penrod started, as something like a tiny white wing\nfluttered by his head, and there came to his ears the sound of a light\nlaugh and of light footsteps departing, the laughter tremulous, the\nfootsteps fleet.\n\nIn the grass, between Duke's forepaws, there lay a white note, folded in\nthe shape of a cocked hat, and the sun sent forth a final amazing glory\nas Penrod opened it and read:\n\n\"Your my bow.\""