How long he was "kept in" after school that afternoon is not a matter of record; but it was long. Before he finally appeared upon the street, he had composed an ample letter on a subject of general interest, namely "School Life", under the supervision of Miss Spencer. He had also received some scorching admonitions in respect to honourable behaviour regarding other people's letters; and Margaret's had been returned to him with severe instructions to bear it straight to the original owner accompanied by full confession and apology. As a measure of insurance that these things be done, Miss Spence stated definitely her intention to hold a conversation by telephone with Margaret that evening.
Altogether, the day had been unusually awful, even for Wednesday, and Penrod left the school-house with the heart of an anarchist throbbing in his hot bosom. It were more accurate, indeed, to liken him to the anarchist's characteristic weapon; for as Penrod came out to the street he was, in al1 inward respects, a bomb, loaded and ticking.
He walked moodily, with a visible aspect of soreness. A murmurous sound was thick about his head, wherefore it is to be surmised that he communed with his familiar, and one vehement, oft-repeated phrase beat like a tocsin of revolt upon the air:
"Daw-gone 'em!"
He meant everybody--the universe.
Particularly included, evidently, was a sparrow, offensively cheerful upon a lamp-post. This self-centred little bird allowed a pebble to pass overhead and remained unconcerned, but, a moment later, feeling a jar beneath his feet, and hearing the tinkle of falling glass, he decided to leave. Similarly, and at the same instant, Penrod made the same decision, and the sparrow in flight took note of a boy likewise in flight.
The boy disappeared into the nearest alley and emerged therefrom, breathless, in the peaceful vicinity of his own home. He entered the house, clumped upstairs and down, discovered Margaret reading a book in the library, and flung the accursed letter toward her with loathing.
"You can take the old thing," he said bitterly. "_I_ don't want it!"
And before she was able to reply, he was out of the room. The next moment he was out of the house.
"Daw-GONE 'em!" he said.
And then, across the street, his soured eye fell upon his true comrade and best friend leaning against a picket fence and holding desultory converse with Mabel Rorebeck, an attractive member of the Friday Afternoon Dancing Class, that hated organization of which Sam and Penrod were both members. Mabel was a shy little girl; but Penrod had a vague understanding that Sam considered her two brown pig-tails beautiful.
Howbeit, Sam had never told his love; he was, in fact, sensitive about it. This meeting with the lady was by chance, and, although it afforded exquisite moments, his heart was beating in an unaccustomed manner, and he was suffering from embarrassment, being at a loss, also, for subjects of conversation. It is, indeed, no easy matter to chat easily with a person, however lovely and beloved, who keeps her face turned the other way, maintains one foot in rapid and continuous motion through an arc seemingly perilous to her equilibrium, and confines her responses, both affirmative and negative, to "Uh-huh."
Altogether, Sam was sufficiently nervous without any help from Penrod, and it was with pure horror that he heard his own name and Mabel's shrieked upon the ambient air with viperish insinuation.
"Sam-my and May-bul! OH, oh!"
Sam started violently. Mabel ceased to swing her foot, and both, encarnadined, looked up and down and everywhere for the invisible but well-known owner of that voice. It came again, in taunting mockery:
"Sammy's mad, and I am glad, And I know what will please him:
A bottle o' wine to make him shine, And Mabel Rorebeck to squeeze him!"
"Fresh ole thing!" said Miss Rorebeck, becoming articulate. And unreasonably including Sam in her indignation, she tossed her head at him with an unmistakable effect of scorn. She began to walk away.
"Well, Mabel," Sam said plaintively, following, "it ain't MY fault. _I_ didn't do anything. It's Penrod."
"I don't care," she began pettishly, when the viperish voice was again lifted:
"Oh, oh, oh!
Who's your beau?
Guess _I_ know:
Mabel and Sammy, oh, oh, oh!
_I_ caught you!"
Then Mabel did one of those things that eternally perplex the slower ***. She deliberately made a face, not at the tree behind which Penrod was lurking, but at the innocent and heart-wrung Sam. "You needn't come limpin' after me, Sam Williams!" she said, though Sam was approaching upon two perfectly sound legs. And then she ran away at the top of her speed.
"Run, rigger, run!" Penrod began inexcusably. But Sam cut the persecutions short at this point. Stung to fury, he charged upon the sheltering tree in the Schofields' yard.
Ordinarily, at such a juncture, Penrod would have fled, keeping his own temper and increasing the heat of his pursuer's by back-flung jeers. But this was Wednesday, and he was in no mood to run from Sam. He stepped away from the tree, awaiting the onset.
"Well, what you goin' to do so much?" he said.
Sam did not pause to proffer the desired information. "'Tcha got'ny SENSE!" was the total extent of his vocal preliminaries before flinging himself headlong upon the taunter; and the two boys went to the ground together. Embracing, they rolled, they pommelled, they hammered, they kicked. Alas, this was a fight.
They rose, flailing a while, then renewed their embrace, and, grunting, bestowed themselves anew upon our ever too receptive Mother Earth. Once more upon their feet, they beset each other sorely, dealing many great blows, ofttimes upon the air, but with sufficient frequency upon resentful flesh. Tears were jolted to the rims of eyes, but technically they did not weep. "Got'ny sense," was repeated chokingly many, many times; also, "Dern ole fool!" and, "I'll SHOW you!"
