Penrod

back fence and gazed with e

refully trained to be inscrutable. Since the world was sure to misunderstand everything, mere defensive instinct prompted him to give it as little as possible to lay hold upon. Nothing is more impenetrable than the face of a boy who has learned this, and Penrod'

of the Coloured Infants' Betterment Society. And if any flavour of sweetness remained in the nature of Penrod Schofield after the dismal trials of the school-week just past, that problematic, infinitesimal re

t she recovered so quickly that not even a rehearsal of the Children's Pageant was postponed. Darkness closed in. Penrod had rather vaguely debated plans for a self-mutilation such as would make his

hard upon him. Therefore he brooded on the f

e and indefinite whiskers; he was small and shabby, and looked like an old postman. Penrod envied Duke because he was sure Duke would never be c

but they were expressed by a running film of pictures in his mind's eye, morbidly prophetic of the hideosities befor

Lancelot du La

rted, meek

I'm but a

ted, meek,

slow and thoughtful steps entered a one-storied wing of the stable, consisting of a single apartment, floored with cement and used as a storeroom for broken bric-a-

partition. The big box, so high and towerlike, so commodious, so suggestive, had ceased to fulfil its legitimate function; though, providentially, it had been at least half full of sawdust when the horse died. Two years had gone by since that

on the front wall of the box; the don

K. Ra

cHoFiELD

E FOR

The storeroom was locked and guarded, but twenty-seven rabbits and Belgian hares, old and young, had perished here on a single night-through no human agency, but in a fora

g a knot-hole as a stirrup, threw one leg over the top, drew himself up, and dropped

s consisting of an old bushel-basket with a few yards of clothes-line tied to each of its handles. He passed the ends of the lines over a big spool, which revolved upon an axle of wire suspended fr

shouted Penro

awed the basket delicately; then, as if that were all his master had expected of him, uttered one bright bark, sat down, and

nrod sternly. "You want me

and, upon another outburst from on high, prostrated himself f

n that el-

which he did not alter until he had been drawn up and poured out upon the floor of saw

ey; but Penrod Schofield had more interesting means of illumination. He knelt, and from a former soap-box, in a corner, took a lantern, without a chimney, and a la

. Then he lit the lantern and hung it upon a nail against the wall. The sawdust floor was slightly impregnated with oil, and the open flame quivered in suggestive proximity to the side of the box; however,

igar-box in which were half a dozen cigarettes, made of hayseed and thick brown wrapping paper, a le

Schofield. Room 6, Ward

udy of English undefiled terminated with a slight jar at th

tely fo

AMoREZ TH

LiFE A

KY

k appeared to have little concern wit