She stood, evidently expecting them to precede her. To linger might renew vague suspicion, causing it to become more definite; and boys preserve themselves from moment to moment, not often attempting to secure the future. Consequently, the apprehensive Sam and the unfortunate Penrod (with the monstrous implement bulking against his ribs) walked out of the room and down the stairs, their countenances indicating an interior condition of solemnity. And a curious shade of behaviour might have here interested a criminologist. Penrod endeavoured to keep as close to Sam as possible, like a lonely person seeking company, while, on the other hand, Sam kept moving away from Penrod, seeming to desire an appearance of aloofness.
"Go into the library, boys," said Mrs. Williams, as the three reached the foot of the stairs. "I'll bring you your cookies.
Papa's in there."
Under her eye the two entered the library, to find Mr. Williams reading his evening paper. He looked up pleasantly, but it seemed to Penrod that he had an ominous and penetrating expression.
"What have you been up to, you boys?" inquired this enemy.
"Nothing," said Sam. "Different things."
"What like?"
"Oh--just different things."
Mr. Williams nodded; then his glance rested casually upon Penrod.
"What's the matter with your arm, Penrod?"
Penrod became paler, and Sam withdrew from him almost conspicuously.
"Sir?"
"I said, What's the matter with your arm?"
"Which one?" Penrod quavered.
"Your left. You seem to be holding it at an unnatural position.
Have you hurt it?"
Penrod swallowed. "Yes, sir. A boy bit me--I mean a dog--a dog bit me."
Mr. Williams murmured sympathetically: "That's too bad! Where did he bite you?"
"On the--right on the elbow."
"Good gracious! Perhaps you ought to have it cauterized."
"Sir?"
"Did you have a doctor look at it?"
"No, sir. My mother put some stuff from the drug store on it."
"Oh, I see. Probably it's all right, then."
"Yes, sir." Penrod drew breath more freely, and accepted the warm cookie Mrs. Williams brought him. He ate it without relish.
"You can have only one apiece," she said. "It's too near dinner-time. You needn't beg for any more, because you can't have 'em."
They were good about that; they were in no frame of digestion for cookies.
"Was it your own dog that bit you?" Mr. Williams inquired.
"Sir? No, sir. It wasn't Duke."
"Penrod!" Mrs. Williams exclaimed. "When did it happen?"
"I don't remember just when," he answered feebly. "I guess it was day before yesterday."
"Gracious! How did it--"
"He--he just came up and bit me."
"Why, that's terrible! It might be dangerous for other children," said Mrs. Williams, with a solicitous glance at Sam. "Don't you know whom he belongs to?"
"No'm. It was just a dog."
"You poor boy! Your mother must have been dreadfully frightened when you came home and she saw--"
She was interrupted by the entrance of a middle-aged coloured woman. "Miz Williams," she began, and then, as she caught sight of Penrod, she addressed him directly, "You' ma telefoam if you here, send you home right away, 'cause they waitin' dinner on you."
"Run along, then," said Mrs. Williams, patting the visitor lightly upon his shoulder; and she accompanied him to the front door. "Tell your mother I'm so sorry about your getting bitten, and you must take good care of it, Penrod."
"Yes'm."
Penrod lingered helplessly outside the doorway, looking at Sam, who stood partially obscured in the hall, behind Mrs. Williams.
Penrod's eyes, with veiled anguish, conveyed a pleading for help as well as a horror of the position in which he found himself.
Sam, however, pale and determined, seemed to have assumed a stony attitude of detachment, as if it were well understood between them that his own comparative innocence was established, and that whatever catastrophe ensued, Penrod had brought it on and must bear the brunt of it alone.
"Well, you'd better run along, since they're waiting for you at home," said Mrs. Williams, closing the door. "Good-night, Penrod."
. . . Ten minutes later Penrod took his place at his own dinner-table, somewhat breathless but with an expression of perfect composure.
"Can't you EVER come home without being telephoned for?" demanded his father.
"Yes, sir." And Penrod added reproachfully, placing the blame upon members of Mr. Schofield's own class, "Sam's mother and father kept me, or I'd been home long ago. They would keep on talkin', and I guess I had to be POLITE, didn't I?"
His left arm was as free as his right; there was no dreadful bulk beneath his jacket, and at Penrod's age the future is too far away to be worried about. the difference between temporary security and permanent security is left for grown people. To Penrod, security was security, and before his dinner was half eaten his spirit had become fairly serene.
Nevertheless, when he entered the empty carriage-house of the stable, on his return from school the next afternoon, his expression was not altogether without apprehension, and he stood in the doorway looking well about him before he lifted a loosened plank in the flooring and took from beneath it the grand old weapon of the Williams family. Not did his eye lighten with any pleasurable excitement as he sat himself down in a shadowy corner and began some sketchy experiments with the mechanism. The allure of first sight was gone. In Mr. Williams' bedchamber, with Sam clamouring for possession, it had seemed to Penrod that nothing in the world was so desirable as to have that revolver in his own hands--it was his dream come true. But, for reasons not definitely known to him, the charm had departed; he turned the cylinder gingerly, almost with distaste; and slowly there stole over him a feeling that there was something repellent and threatening in the heavy blue steel.
Thus does the long-dreamed Real misbehave--not only for Penrod!
More out of a sense of duty to bingism in general than for any other reason, he pointed the revolver at the lawn-mower, and gloomily murmured, "Bing!"
