Penrod and Sam

ld or might be resumed. The fashion of its conclusion had been so consummately enjoyed by all parties (with the natural exception of R

re. Being detained bodily and pressed for explanation, he desperately said that he had to go home to tease the cook-which had the rakehelly air he thought would insure his release, but was not considered plausible. However, he was finally al

imself. "I got git 'at lil' soap-box wagon, an' go on ovuh wheres 'at new ho

d, "Can't HEAR you!" and Herman replied, but still unintelligibly; then, upon Sam's repetition of "Can't HEAR you!" Herman waved his arm in farewell, implying that the matter was of little significance,

the moon. That unfortunate bonded prisoner had been long since utterly effaced from their fields of consciousness,

istic questionings beginning to stir within them. They did not mean to do the cat the slightest injury or to cause her any pain. They were above teasing cats, and they merely detained this one and made her feel a little wet-at considerable cost to themselves from both the ink and the cat. However, at the conclusion of their efforts, it was thought safer to drop

d's guest for the evening meal. Clean to the elbows and with light hearts, they set forth. They marched, whistling-though not producing a distinctly musical effect, since neither had any pa

e I did, and I'm sure dinner is waiting. Run on out

hich she gave her hair a push, subsequent to her scrutiny of a mirror; then, turning out the light, she went as far as the door. Being an orderly girl, she returned to the bed and took the cape and the hat to her clothes-closet. She opened the door o

rvals, to inquiries concerning the health of his relatives. So sweet and assured was the condition of Sam and Penrod that Margaret's ar

a calling and questing voice, at first in th

n! O-o-o-oh, V

e voice o

H, VER-ER-E

that cheerful table and ceased to

!" Sam

chofield said. "Swallow so

es,

H, VER-ER-E

as near the windows

pushed back his c

ith YOU?" his father

lives in the alley," Penrod sai

hat's th

's maybe got lost, and Sam

," Mr. Schofield said sharply.

alarming. If she had opened her closet door without discovering Verman, that must have been because Verman was dead and Margaret had failed to notice the body. (Such were the thoughts of Penrod and Sam.) But she might not have opened the closet door

; no bugaboos came to trouble him. When the boys closed the door upon him, he made himself comfortable upon the floor and, for a time, thoughtfully chewed a patent-leather slipper that had come under his hand. He found the patent leather not unpleasant to his palate, though he swallowed on

s than half an inch of his nose-and neither of them knew it. Verman slept on, without being wakened by either the closing or the opening

stomach. Hours had vanished strangely into nowhere; the game of bonded prisoner was something cloudy and remote of the long, long ago, and, although Verman knew where he

ught and not even conceived, much less entertained, by the little and humble Verman. For, with the bewildering gap of his slumber between him and previous events, he did not place the responsibility for his being in White-Folks' House upon the white folks who had put him there. His state of mind was that of the st

however, that he had a definite (though somewhat primitive) conception of the usefulness of disguise;

ht, and just after Penrod had been baffled in another attempt to leave th

said. "I got home too late to dress

etting herself swiftly out of the room, and

wn! How many times am I going to tell yo

gasped. "I got to te

you 'got' t

pthing I forgo

stairs," Mr. Schofield said grimly. "Yo

s becomin

d me to tell her," he babbled. "Didn't she, Sam? Y

prompt cor

us both to tell her. I better go,

ecognizing Margaret's voice, likewise shrieked, and Mr. Schofield uttered various sounds

ibed as "a kind of horrible creep, but faster than a creep." Nothing was to be seen except the creeping cape, she said, but, of course, she could tell there was some awful thing inside of it. It was too large to be a cat, and too small to be a boy; it was too large to be Duke,

for when Sam and Penrod reached the front hall, a few steps in advan

glimpse of it as it reached the

shouted, dashing forwa

he right action almost never failed him in a crisis, and it did not fail him now. Leaping to the door, at the very instant when the rolling cap

e cape. He shook out its folds, breathing hard but acquiring confidence. In fact

Well, it couldn't have acted that way itself. I think

his head slowly, in

e Mrs. Schofield ran to support the enfeeble

nd Mrs. Schofield were still discussing the visitation, Penrod hav

anything to tell her, because most likely they'd misunderstood something she said-well, of course, all that does sound mixed-up and peculiar; but they sound that way about half the time, anyhow. No; it couldn't possibly have had a thing to do with it. They were right there at the table with us all the time, and they came straight to the tabl

ofield

d. "I'll admit it wasn't anyth

of each other, one on each side of the gate, a

Sam said. "It was a pretty

nrod casually.