Penrod and Sam

by Booth Tarkington

  CHAPTER XXIII. THE PARTY

  ____________________________ | | | Miss Amy Rennsdale | | | | At Home | | Saturday, the twenty-third | | from three to six | | | | R.s.v.p. Dancing | ----------------------------

  This little card, delicately engraved, betokened the hospitalityincidental to the ninth birthday anniversary of Baby Rennsdale, youngestmember of the Friday Afternoon Dancing Class, and, by the same token, itrepresented the total social activity (during that season) of a certainlimited bachelor set consisting of Messrs. Penrod Schofield and SamuelWilliams. The truth must be faced: Penrod and Sam were seldom invited tosmall parties; they were considered too imaginative. But in the case ofso large an affair as Miss Rennsdale's, the feeling that their parentswould be sensitive outweighed fears of what Penrod and Sam might do atthe party. Reputation is indeed a bubble, but sometimes it is blown ofsticky stuff.

  The comrades set out for the fete in company, final maternal outpouringsupon deportment and the duty of dancing with the hostess evaporating intheir freshly cleaned ears. Both boys, however, were in a state ofmind, body, and decoration appropriate to the gala scene they wereapproaching. Their collars were wide and white; inside the pockets oftheir overcoats were glistening dancing-pumps, wrapped in tissue-paper;inside their jacket pockets were pleasant-smelling new white gloves,and inside their heads solemn timidity commingled with glitteringanticipations. Before them, like a Christmas tree glimpsed throughlace curtains, they beheld joy shimmering--music, ice-cream, macaroons,tinsel caps, and the starched ladies of their hearts Penrod and Samwalked demurely yet almost boundingly; their faces were shining butgrave--they were on their way to the Party!

  "Look at there!" said Penrod. "There's Carlie Chitten!"

  "Where?" Sam asked.

  "'Cross the street. Haven't you got any eyes?"

  "Well, whyn't you say he was 'cross the street in the first place?"Sam returned plaintively. "Besides, he's so little you can't hardlysee him." This was, of course, a violent exaggeration, though MasterChitten, not yet eleven years old, was an inch or two short for his age."He's all dressed up," Sam added. "I guess he must be invited."

  "I bet he does sumpthing," said Penrod.

  "I bet he does, too," Sam agreed.

  This was the extent of their comment upon the small person across thestreet; but, in spite of its non-committal character, the manner of bothcommentators seemed to indicate that they had just exchanged views uponan interesting and even curious subject. They walked along in silencefor several minutes, staring speculatively at Master Chitten.

  His appearance was pleasant and not remarkable. He was a handsome, darklittle boy, with quick eyes and a precociously reserved expression; hisair was "well-bred"; he was exquisitely neat, and he had a look of manlycompetence that grown people found attractive and reassuring. In short,he was a boy of whom a timid adult stranger would have inquired the waywith confidence. And yet Sam and Penrod had mysterious thoughts abouthim--obviously there was something subterranean here.

  They continued to look at him for the greater part of block, when,their progress bringing them in sight of Miss Amy Rennsdale's place ofresidence their attention was directed to a group of men bearing festalburdens--encased violins, a shrouded harp and other beckoning shapes.There were signs, too, that most of "those invited" intended to miss nomoment of this party; guests already indoors watched from the windowsthe approach of the musicians. Washed boys in black and white, and girlsin tender colours converged from various directions, making gayly forthe thrilling gateway--and the most beautiful little girl in all theworld, Marjorie Jones, of the amber curls, jumped from a carriage stepto the curbstone as Penrod and Sam came up. She waved to them.

  Sam responded heartily; but Penrod, feeling real emotion and seekingto conceal it, muttered, "'Lo, Marjorie!" gruffly, offering no furtherdemonstration. Marjorie paused a moment, expectant, and then, as he didnot seize the opportunity to ask her for the first dance, she triednot to look disappointed and ran into the house ahead of the two boys.Penrod was scarlet; he wished to dance the first dance with Marjorie,and the second and the third and all the other dances, and he stronglydesired to sit with her "at refreshments"; but he had been unable to askfor a single one of these privileges. It would have been impossible forhim to state why he was thus dumb, although the reason was simple andwholly complimentary to Marjorie: she had looked so overpoweringlypretty that she had produced in the bosom of her admirer a severe caseof stage fright. That was "all the matter with him"; but it was thebeginning of his troubles, and he did not recover until he and Samreached the "gentlemen's dressing-room", whither they were directed by apolite coloured man.

  Here they found a cloud of acquaintances getting into pumps and gloves,and, in a few extreme cases, readjusting hair before a mirror. Some evenwent so far--after removing their shoes and putting on their pumps--asto wash traces of blacking from their hands in the adjacent bathroombefore assuming their gloves. Penrod, being in a strange mood, was oneof these, sharing the basin with little Maurice Levy.

  "Carrie Chitten's here," said Maurice, as they soaped their hands.

  "I guess I know it," Penrod returned. "I bet he does sumpthing, too."

  Maurice shook his head ominously. "Well, I'm gettin' tired of it. I knowhe was the one stuck that cold fried egg in P'fesser Bartet's overcoatpocket at dancin'-school, and ole p'fesser went and blamed it on me.Then, Carlie, he cum up to me, th' other day, and he says, 'Smell mybuttonhole bokay.' He had some vi'lets stickin' in his buttonhole, andI went to smell 'em and water squirted on me out of 'em. I guess I'vestood about enough, and if he does another thing I don't like, he betterlook out!"

  Penrod showed some interest, inquiring for details, whereupon Mauriceexplained that if Master Chitten displeased him further, Master Chittenwould receive a blow upon one of his features. Maurice was simple andhomely about it, seeking rhetorical vigour rather than elegance; infact, what he definitely promised Master Chitten was "a bang on thesnoot."

  "Well," said Penrod, "he never bothered ME any. I expect he knows toomuch for that!"

  A cry of pain was heard from the dressing-room at this juncture, and,glancing through the doorway, Maurice and Penrod beheld Sam Williams inthe act of sucking his right thumb with vehemence, the while his browwas contorted and his eyes watered. He came into the bathroom and heldhis thumb under a faucet.

  "That darn little Carlie Chitten!" he complained. "He ast me to hold alittle tin box he showed me. He told me to hold it between my thumb andfingers and he'd show me sumpthing. Then he pushed the lid, and a bigneedle came out of a hole and stuck me half through my thumb. That's aNICE way to act, isn't it?"

  Carlie Chitten's dark head showed itself cautiously beyond the casing ofthe door.

  "How's your thumb, Sam?" he asked.

  "You wait!" Sam shouted, turning furiously; but the smallprestidigitator was gone. With a smothered laugh, Carlie dashed throughthe groups of boys in the dressing-room and made his way downstairs,his manner reverting to its usual polite gravity before he entered thedrawing-room, where his hostess waited. Music sounding at about thistime, he was followed by the other boys, who came trooping down, leavingthe dressing-room empty.

  Penrod, among the tail-enders of the procession, made his dancing-schoolbow to Miss Rennsdale and her grown-up supporters (two maiden aunts anda governess) then he looked about for Marjorie, discovering her but tooeasily. Her amber curls were swaying gently in time to the music; shelooked never more beautiful, and her partner was Master Chitten!

  A pang of great penetrative power and equal unexpectedness found themost vulnerable spot beneath the simple black of Penrod Schofield'sjacket. Straightway he turned his back upon the crash-covered floorswhere the dancers were, and moved gloomily toward the hall. But one ofthe maiden aunts Rennsdale waylaid him.

  "It's Penrod Schofie
ld, isn't it?" she asked. "Or Sammy Williams? I'mnot sure which. Is it Penrod?"

  "Ma'am?" he said. "Yes'm."

  "Well, Penrod, I can find a partner for you. There are several dearlittle girls over here, if you'll come with me."

  "Well--" He paused, shifted from one foot to the other, and lookedenigmatic. "I better not," he said. He meant no offence; his trouble wasonly that he had not yet learned how to do as he pleased at a party and,at the same time, to seem polite about it. "I guess I don't want to," headded.

  "Very well!" And Miss Rennsdale instantly left him to his own devices.

  He went to lurk in the wide doorway between the hall and thedrawing-room--under such conditions the universal refuge of his sex atall ages. There he found several boys of notorious shyness, and stoodwith them in a mutually protective group. Now and then one of them wouldlean upon another until repelled by action and a husky "What's matter'th you? Get off o' me!" They all twisted their slender necks uneasilyagainst the inner bands of their collars, at intervals, and sometimesexchanged facetious blows under cover. In the distance Penrod caughtglimpses of amber curls flashing to and fro, and he knew himself to beamong the derelicts.

  He remained in this questionable sanctuary during the next dance; but,edging along the wall to lean more comfortably in a corner, as the musicof the third sounded, he overheard part of a conversation that somewhatconcerned him. The participants were the governess of his hostess, MissLowe, and that one of the aunts Rennsdale who had offered to providehim with a partner. These two ladies were standing just in front of him,unconscious of his nearness.

  "I never," Miss Rennsdale said, "never saw a more fascinating little boythan that Carlie Chitten. There'll be some heartaches when he grows up;I can't keep my eyes off him."

  "Yes; he's a charming boy," Miss Lowe said. "His manners areremarkable."

  "He's a little man of the world," the enthusiastic Miss Rennsdale wenton, "very different from such boys as Penrod Schofield!"

  "Oh, PENROD!" Miss Lowe exclaimed. "Good gracious!"

  "I don't see why he came. He declines to dance--rudely, too!"

  "I don't think the little girls will mind that so much!" Miss Lowe said."If you'd come to the dancing class some Friday with Amy and me, you'dunderstand why."

  They moved away. Penrod heard his name again mentioned between them asthey went, and, though he did not catch the accompanying remark, he wasinclined to think it unfavourable. He remained where he was, broodingmorbidly.

  He understood that the government was against him, nor was his judgmentat fault in this conclusion. He was affected, also, by the conduct ofMarjorie, who was now dancing gayly with Maurice Levy, a former rivalof Penrod's. The fact that Penrod had not gone near her did not make herculpability seem the less; in his gloomy heart he resolved not to askher for one single dance. He would not go near her. He would not go nearANY OF 'EM!

  His eyes began to burn, and he swallowed heavily; but he was never oneto succumb piteously to such emotion, and it did not even enter his headthat he was at liberty to return to his own home. Neither he nor anyof his friends had ever left a party until it was officially concluded.What his sufferings demanded of him now for their alleviation was notdeparture but action!

  Underneath the surface, nearly all children's parties contain a groupof outlaws who wait only for a leader to hoist the black flag. The groupconsists mainly of boys too shy to be at ease with the girls, butwho wish to distinguish themselves in some way; and there are others,ordinarily well behaved, whom the mere actuality of a party makesdrunken. The effect of music, too, upon children is incalculable,especially when they do not hear it often--and both a snare-drum and abass drum were in the expensive orchestra at the Rennsdale party.

  Nevertheless, the outlawry at any party may remain incipient unless achieftain appears; but in Penrod's corner were now gathering into oneanarchical mood all the necessary qualifications for leadership. Outof that bitter corner there stepped, not a Penrod Schofield subduedand hoping to win the lost favour of the Authorities, but a hot-heartedrebel determined on an uprising.

  Smiling a reckless and challenging smile, he returned to the clusterof boys in the wide doorway and began to push one and another of themabout. They responded hopefully with counter-pushes, and presently therewas a tumultuous surging and eddying in that quarter, accompanied bynoises that began to compete with the music. Then Penrod allowed himselfto be shoved out among the circling dancers, so that he collided withMarjorie and Maurice Levy, almost oversetting them.

  He made a mock bow and a mock apology, being inspired to invent a jargonphrase.

  "Excuse me," he said, at the same time making vocal his own conceptionof a taunting laugh. "Excuse me, but I must 'a' got your bumpus!"

  Marjorie looked grieved and turned away with Maurice; but the boys inthe doorway squealed with maniac laughter.

  "Gotcher bumpus! Gotcher bumpus!" they shrilled. And they began to pushothers of their number against the dancing couples, shouting, "'Scuseme! Gotcher bumpus!"

  It became a contagion and then a game. As the dances went on, stringsof boys, led by Penrod, pursued one another across the rooms, howling,"Gotcher bumpus!" at the top of their lungs. They dodged and ducked,and seized upon dancers as shields; they caromed from one couple intoanother, and even into the musicians of the orchestra. Boys who weredancing abandoned their partners and joined the marauders, shrieking,"Gotcher bumpus!" Potted plants went down; a slender gilt chair refusedto support the hurled body of Master Roderick Magsworth Bitts, and thesound of splintering wood mingled with other sounds. Dancing becameimpossible; Miss Amy Rennsdale wept in the midst of the riot, andeverybody knew that Penrod Schofield had "started it".

  Under instructions, the leader of the orchestra, clapping his hands forattention, stepped to the centre of the drawing-room, and shouted,

  "A moment silence, if you bleace!"

  Slowly the hubbub ceased; the virtuous and the wicked paused alike intheir courses to listen. Miss Amy Rennsdale was borne away to have hertearful face washed, and Marjorie Jones and Carlie Chitten and GeorgieBassett came forward consciously, escorted by Miss Lowe. The musicianwaited until the return of the small hostess; then he announced in aloud voice:

  "A fency dence called 'Les Papillons', denced by Miss Amy Rennstul, MissChones, Mister Chorch Passett, ant Mister Jitten. Some young chentlemenhaf mate so much noise ant confoosion Miss Lowe wish me to ask bleace nomore such a nonsense. Fency dence, 'Les Papillons'."

  Thereupon, after formal salutations, Mr. Chitten took Marjorie's hand,Georgie Bassett took Miss Rennsdale's, and they proceeded to dance "LesPapillons" in a manner that made up in conscientiousness whatever itmay have lacked in abandon. The outlaw leader looked on, smiling asmile intended to represent careless contempt, but in reality he wasunpleasantly surprised. A fancy dance by Georgie Bassett and BabyRennsdale was customary at every party attended by members of theFriday Afternoon Dancing Class; but Marjorie and Carlie Chitten were newperformers, and Penrod had not heard that they had learned to dance "LesPapillons" together. He was the further embittered.

  Carlie made a false step, recovering himself with some difficulty,whereupon a loud, jeering squawk of laughter was heard from theinsurgent cluster, which had been awed to temporary quiet but stillmaintained its base in the drawing-room doorway. There was a general"SH!" followed by a shocked whispering, as well as a general turning ofeyes toward Penrod. But it was not Penrod who had laughed, though noone would have credited him with an alibi. The laughter came from twothroats that breathed as one with such perfect simultaneousness thatonly one was credited with the disturbance. These two throats belongedrespectively to Samuel Williams and Maurice Levy, who were standing in astrikingly Rosencrantz-and-Guildenstern attitude.

  "He got me with his ole tin-box needle, too," Maurice muttered to Sam."He was goin' to do it to Marjorie, and I told her to look out, and hesays, 'Here, YOU take it!' all of a sudden, and he stuck it in my handso quick I never thought. And then, BIM! his ole needle
shot out andperty near went through my thumb-bone or sumpthing. He'll be sorrybefore this day's over!"

  "Well," said Sam darkly, "he's goin' to be sorry he stuck ME, anyway!"Neither Sam nor Maurice had even the vaguest plan for causing thedesired regret in the breast of Master Chitten; but both derived alittle consolation from these prophecies. And they, too, had alignedthemselves with the insurgents. Their motives were personal--CarlieChitten had wronged both of them, and Carlie was conspicuously in highfavour with the Authorities. Naturally Sam and Maurice were against theAuthorities.

  "Les Papillons" came to a conclusion. Carlie and Georgie bowed; MarjorieJones and Baby Rennsdale curtesied, and there was loud applause. Infact, the demonstration became so uproarious that some measure of it wasopen to suspicion, especially as hisses of reptilian venomousness werecommingled with it, and also a hoarse but vociferous repetition ofthe dastard words, "Carrie dances ROTTEN!" Again it was the work ofRosencrantz and Guildenstern; but the plot was attributed to another.

  "SHAME, Penrod Schofield!" said both the aunts Rennsdale publicly, andPenrod, wholly innocent, became scarlet with indignant mortification.Carlie Chitten himself, however, marked the true offenders. A slightflush tinted his cheeks, and then, in his quiet, self-contained way, heslipped through the crowd of girls and boys, unnoticed, into thehall, and ran noiselessly up the stairs and into the "gentlemen'sdressing-room", now inhabited only by hats, caps, overcoats, and thetemporarily discarded shoes of the dancers. Most of the shoes stood inrows against the wall, and Carlie examined these rows attentively, aftera time discovering a pair of shoes with patent leather tips. He knewthem; they belonged to Maurice Levy, and, picking them up, he went toa corner of the room where four shoes had been left together undera chair. Upon the chair were overcoats and caps that he was able toidentify as the property of Penrod Schofield and Samuel Williams; but,as he was not sure which pair of shoes belonged to Penrod and whichto Sam, he added both pairs to Maurice's and carried them into thebathroom. Here he set the plug in the tub, turned the faucets, and,after looking about him and discovering large supplies of all sorts in awall cabinet, he tossed six cakes of green soap into the tub. He letthe soap remain in the water to soften a little, and, returning to thedressing room, whiled away the time in mixing and mismating pairs ofshoes along the walls, and also in tying the strings of the mismatedshoes together in hard knots.

  Throughout all this, his expression was grave and intent; his brighteyes grew brighter, but he did not smile. Carlie Chitten was a singularboy, though not unique: he was an "only child", lived at a hotel, andfound life there favourable to the development of certain peculiaritiesin his nature. He played a lone hand, and with what precocious diplomacyhe played that curious hand was attested by the fact that Carlie wasbrilliantly esteemed by parents and guardians in general.

  It must be said for Carlie that, in one way, his nature was liberal.For instance, having come upstairs to prepare a vengeance upon Sam andMaurice in return for their slurs upon his dancing, he did not confinehis efforts to the belongings of those two alone. He provided every boyin the house with something to think about later, when shoes should beresumed; and he was far from stopping at that. Casting about him forsome material that he desired, he opened a door of the dressing-roomand found himself confronting the apartment of Miss Lowe. Upon a desk hebeheld the bottle of mucilage he wanted, and, having taken possession ofit, he allowed his eye the privilege of a rapid glance into a dressingtable drawer, accidentally left open.

  He returned to the dressing-room, five seconds later, carrying not onlythe mucilage but a "switch" worn by Miss Lowe when her hair was dressedin a fashion different from that which she had favoured for the party.This "switch" he placed in the pocket of a juvenile overcoat unknown tohim, and then he took the mucilage into the bathroom. There he rescuedfrom the water the six cakes of soap, placed one in each of the sixshoes, pounding it down securely into the toe of the shoe with thehandle of a back brush. After that, Carlie poured mucilage into all sixshoes impartially until the bottle was empty, then took them back totheir former positions in the dressing-room. Finally, with carefulforethought, he placed his own shoes in the pockets of his overcoat, andleft the overcoat and his cap upon a chair near the outer door of theroom. Then he went quietly downstairs, having been absent fromthe festivities a little less than twelve minutes. He had beenenergetic--only a boy could have accomplished so much in so short atime. In fact, Carlie had been so busy that his forgetting to turn offthe faucets in the bathroom is not at all surprising.

  No one had noticed his absence. That infectious pastime, "Gotcherbumpus", had broken out again, and the general dancing, which had beenresumed upon the conclusion of "Les Papillons", was once more becomingdemoralized. Despairingly the aunts Rennsdale and Miss Lowe broughtforth from the rear of the house a couple of waiters and commanded themto arrest the ringleaders, whereupon hilarious terror spread amongthe outlaw band. Shouting tauntingly at their pursuers, they fled--andbellowing, trampling flight swept through every quarter of the house.

  Refreshments quelled this outbreak for a time. The orchestra playeda march; Carlie Chitten and Georgie Bassett, with Amy Rennsdale andMarjorie, formed the head of a procession, while all the boys who hadretained their sense of decorum immediately sought partners and fell inbehind. The outlaws, succumbing to ice cream hunger, followed suit,one after the other, until all of the girls were provided with escorts.Then, to the moral strains of "The Stars and Stripes Forever", thechildren paraded out to the dining-room. Two and two they marched,except at the extreme tail end of the line, where, since there werethree more boys than girls at the party, the three left-over boys wereplaced. These three were also the last three outlaws to succumb andreturn to civilization from outlying portions of the house after thepursuit by waiters. They were Messieurs Maurice Levy, Samuel Williams,and Penrod Schofield.

  They took their chairs in the capacious dining-room quietly enough,though their expressions were eloquent of bravado, and they jostled oneanother and their neighbours intentionally, even in the act of sitting.However, it was not long before delectable foods engaged their wholeattention and Miss Amy Rennsdale's party relapsed into etiquette forthe following twenty minutes. The refection concluded with the mildexplosion of paper "crackers" that erupted bright-coloured, fantasticheadgear, and, during the snapping of the "crackers", Penrod heard thevoice of Marjorie calling from somewhere behind him, "Carrie and Amy,will you change chairs with Georgie Bassett and me--just for fun?" Thechairs had been placed in rows, back to back, and Penrod would noteven turn his head to see if Master Chitten and Miss Rennsdale acceptedMarjorie's proposal, though they were directly behind him and Sam; buthe grew red and breathed hard. A moment later, the liberty-cap that hehad set upon his head was softly removed, and a little crown of silverpaper put in its place.

  "PENROD?"

  The whisper was close to his ear, and a gentle breath cooled the back ofhis neck.

  CHAPTER XXIV. THE HEART OF MARJORIE JONES

  "Well, what you want?" Penrod asked, brusquely.

  Marjorie's wonderful eyes were dark and mysterious, like still water attwilight.

  "What makes you behave so AWFUL?" she whispered.

  "I don't either! I guess I got a right to do the way I want to, haven'tI?"

  "Well, anyway," said Marjorie, "you ought to quit bumping into people soit hurts."

  "Poh! It wouldn't hurt a fly!"

  "Yes, it did. It hurt when you bumped Maurice and me that time."

  "It didn't either. WHERE'D it hurt you? Let's see if it--"

  "Well, I can't show you, but it did. Penrod, are you going to keep on?"

  Penrod's heart had melted within him; but his reply was pompous andcold. "I will if I feel like it, and I won't if I feel like it. You waitand see."

  But Marjorie jumped up and ran around to him abandoning her escort.All the children were leaving their chairs and moving toward thedancing-rooms; the orchestra was playing dance-music again.

  "Come on, Penrod!
" Marjorie cried. "Let's go dance this together. Comeon!"

  With seeming reluctance, he suffered her to lead him away. "Well, I'llgo with you; but I won't dance," he said "I wouldn't dance with thePresident of the United States"

  "Why, Penrod?"

  "Well--because well, I won't DO it!"

  "All right. I don't care. I guess I've danced plenty, anyhow. Let's goin here." She led him into a room too small for dancing, used ordinarilyby Miss Amy Rennsdale's father as his study, and now vacant. For a whilethere was silence; but finally Marjorie pointed to the window and saidshyly:

  "Look, Penrod, it's getting dark. The party'll be over pretty soon, andyou've never danced one single time!"

  "Well, I guess I know that, don't I?"

  He was unable to cast aside his outward truculence though it was but arelic. However, his voice was gentler, and Marjorie seemed satisfied.From the other rooms came the swinging music, shouts of "Gotcherbumpus!" sounds of stumbling, of scrambling, of running, of muffledconcus signs and squeals of dismay. Penrod's followers were renewing thewild work, even in the absence of their chief.

  "Penrod Schofield, you bad boy," said Marjorie, "you started every bitof that! You ought to be ashamed of yourself."

  "_I_ didn't do anything," he said--and he believed it. "Pick on me foreverything!"

  "Well, they wouldn't if you didn't do so much," said Marjorie.

  "They would, too."

  "They wouldn't, either. Who would?"

  "That Miss Lowe," he specified bitterly. "Yes, and Baby Rennsdale'saunts. If the house'd burn down, I bet they'd say Penrod Schofield didit! Anybody does anything at ALL, they say, 'Penrod Schofield, shame onyou!' When you and Carlie were dan--"

  "Penrod, I just hate that little Carlie Chitten. P'fesser Bartet made melearn that dance with him; but I just hate him."

  Penrod was now almost completely mollified; nevertheless, he continuedto set forth his grievance. "Well, they all turned around to me and theysaid, 'Why, Penrod Schofield, shame on you!' And I hadn't done a singlething! I was just standin' there. They got to blame ME, though!"

  Marjorie laughed airily. "Well, if you aren't the foolishest--"

  "They would, too," he asserted, with renewed bitterness. "If the housewas to fall down, you'd see! They'd all say--"

  Marjorie interrupted him. She put her hand on the top of her head,looking a little startled.

  "What's that?" she said.

  "What's what?"

  "Like rain!" Marjorie cried. "Like it was raining in here! A drop fellon my--"

  "Why, it couldn't--" he began. But at this instant a drop fell upon hishead, too, and, looking up, they beheld a great oozing splotch upon theceiling. Drops were gathering upon it and falling; the tinted plasterwas cracking, and a little stream began to patter down and splash uponthe floor. Then there came a resounding thump upstairs, just above them,and fragments of wet plaster fell.

  "The roof must be leaking," said Marjorie, beginning to be alarmed.

  "Couldn't be the roof," said Penrod. "Besides there ain't any rainoutdoors."

  As he spoke, a second slender stream of water began to patter upon thefloor of the hall outside the door.

  "Good gracious!" Marjorie cried, while the ceiling above them shook aswith earthquake--or as with boys in numbers jumping, and a great uproarburst forth overhead.

  "I believe the house IS falling down, Penrod!" she quavered.

  "Well, they'll blame ME for it!" he said. "Anyways, we better get out o'here. I guess sumpthing must be the matter."

  His guess was accurate, so far as it went. The dance-music had swunginto "Home Sweet Home" some time before, the children were preparingto leave, and Master Chitten had been the first boy to ascend to thegentlemen's dressing-room for his cap, overcoat and shoes, hismotive being to avoid by departure any difficulty in case his earlieractivities should cause him to be suspected by the other boys. But inthe doorway he halted, aghast.

  The lights had not been turned on; but even the dim windows showedthat the polished floor gave back reflections no floor-polish had everequalled. It was a gently steaming lake, from an eighth to a quarter ofan inch deep. And Carlie realized that he had forgotten to turn off thefaucets in the bathroom.

  For a moment, his savoir faire deserted him, and he was filled withordinary, human-boy panic. Then, at a sound of voices behind him, helost his head and rushed into the bathroom. It was dark, but certainsensations and the splashing of his pumps warned him that the water wasdeeper in there. The next instant the lights were switched on in bothbathroom and dressing-room, and Carlie beheld Sam Williams in thedoorway of the former.

  "Oh, look, Maurice!" Sam shouted, in frantic excitement. "Somebody'slet the tub run over, and it's about ten feet deep! Carlie Chitten'ssloshin' around in here. Let's hold the door on him and keep him in!"

  Carlie rushed to prevent the execution of this project; but he slippedand went swishing full length along the floor, creating a little surfbefore him as he slid, to the demoniac happiness of Sam and Maurice.They closed the door, however, and, as other boys rushed, shouting andsplashing, into the flooded dressing-room, Carlie began to hammer uponthe panels. Then the owners of shoes, striving to rescue them from theincreasing waters, made discoveries.

  The most dangerous time to give a large children's party is whenthere has not been one for a long period. The Rennsdale party had thatmisfortune, and its climax was the complete and convulsive madness ofthe gentlemen's dressing-room during those final moments supposed to begiven to quiet preparations, on the part of guests, for departure.

  In the upper hall and upon the stairway, panic-stricken little girlslistened, wild-eyed, to the uproar that went on, while waiters and maidservants rushed with pails and towels into what was essentially theworst ward in Bedlam. Boys who had behaved properly all afternoon nowgave way and joined the confraternity of lunatics. The floors of thehouse shook to tramplings, rushes, wrestlings, falls and collisions. Thewalls resounded to chorused bellowings and roars. There were pipingsof pain and pipings of joy; there was whistling to pierce the drums ofears; there were hootings and howlings and bleatings and screechings,while over all bleated the heathen battle-cry incessantly: "GOTCHERBUMPUS! GOTCHER BUMPUS!" For the boys had been inspired by the unusualwater to transform Penrod's game of "Gotcher bumpus" into an aquaticsport, and to induce one another, by means of superior force, dexterity,or stratagems, either to sit or to lie at full length in the flood,after the example of Carlie Chitten.

  One of the aunts Rennsdale had taken what charge she could of thedeafened and distracted maids and waiters who were working to stem thetide, while the other of the aunts Rennsdale stood with her nieceand Miss Lowe at the foot of the stairs, trying to say good-nightreassuringly to those of the terrified little girls who were able totear themselves away. This latter aunt Rennsdale marked a drippingfigure that came unobtrusively, and yet in a self-contained andgentlemanly manner, down the stairs.

  "Carlie Chitten!" she cried. "You poor dear child, you're soaking! Tothink those outrageous little fiends wouldn't even spare YOU!" As shespoke, another departing male guest came from behind Carlie and placedin her hand a snakelike article--a thing that Miss Lowe seized andconcealed with one sweeping gesture.

  "It's some false hair somebody must of put in my overcoat pocket," saidRoderick Magsworth Bitts. "Well, 'g-night. Thank you for a very nicetime."

  "Good-night, Miss Rennsdale," said Master Chitten demurely. "Thank youfor a--"

  But Miss Rennsdale detained him. "Carrie," she said earnestly, "you'rea dear boy, and I know you'll tell me something. It was all PenrodSchofield, wasn't it?"

  "You mean he left the--"

  "I mean," she said, in a low tone, not altogether devoid of ferocity. "Imean it was Penrod who left the faucets running, and Penrod who tied theboys' shoes together, and filled some of them with soap and mucilage,and put Miss Lowe's hair in Roddy Bitts's overcoat. No; look me in theeye, Carlie! They were all shouting that silly thing he started. Didn'the do it?"
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  Carlie cast down thoughtful eyes. "I wouldn't like to tell, MissRennsdale," he said. "I guess I better be going or I'll catch cold.Thank you for a very nice time."

  "There!" said Miss Rennsdale vehemently, as Carlie went on his way."What did I tell you? Carlie Chitten's too manly to say it, but I justKNOW it was that terrible Penrod Schofield."

  Behind her, a low voice, unheard by all except the person to whom itspoke, repeated a part of this speech: "What did I tell you?"

  This voice belonged to one Penrod Schofield.

  Penrod and Marjorie had descended by another stairway, and he nowconsidered it wiser to pass to the rear of the little party at the footof the stairs. As he was still in his pumps, his choked shoes occupyinghis overcoat pockets, he experienced no difficulty in reaching the frontdoor, and getting out of it unobserved, although the noise upstairs wasgreatly abated. Marjorie, however, made her curtseys and farewells in acreditable manner.

  "There!" Penrod said again, when she rejoined him in the darknessoutside. "What did I tell you? Didn't I say I'd get the blame of it,no matter if the house went and fell down? I s'pose they think I putmucilage and soap in my own shoes."

  Marjorie delayed at the gate until some eagerly talking little girls hadpassed out. The name "Penrod Schofield" was thick and scandalous amongthem.

  "Well," said Marjorie, "_I_ wouldn't care, Penrod. 'Course, about soapand mucilage in YOUR shoes, anybody'd know some other boy must of put'em there to get even for what you put in his."

  Penrod gasped.

  "But I DIDN'T!" he cried. "I didn't do ANYTHING! That ole Miss Rennsdalecan say what she wants to, I didn't do--"

  "Well, anyway, Penrod," said Marjorie, softly, "they can't ever PROVE itwas you."

  He felt himself suffocating in a coil against which no struggle availed.

  "But I never DID it!" he wailed, helplessly. "I never did anything atall!"

  She leaned toward him a little, and the lights from her waiting carriageillumined her dimly, but enough for him to see that her look was fondand proud, yet almost awed.

  "Anyway, Penrod," she whispered, "_I_ don't believe there's any otherboy in the whole world could of done HALF as much!"

  And with that, she left him, and ran out to the carriage.

  But Penrod remained by the gate to wait for Sam, and the burden of hissorrows was beginning to lift. In fact, he felt a great deal better, inspite of his having just discovered why Marjorie loved him.