ils who were never tardy, and these multitudes,
representing persecution and government in general, were all cringing
before a Penrod Schofield who rode a grim black horse up and down their
miserable ranks, and gave curt orders.

"Make 'em step back there!" he commanded his myrmidons savagely. "Fix
it so's your horses'll step on their feet if they don't do what I say!"
Then, from his shining saddle, he watched the throngs slinking away. "I
guess they know who I am NOW!"

CHAPTER XI. THE TONIC

These broodings helped a little; but it was a severe morning, and on
his way home at noon he did not recover heart enough to practice the
bullfrog's croak, the craft that Sam Williams had lately mastered to
inspiring perfection. This sonorous accomplishment Penrod had determined
to make his own. At once guttural and resonant, impudent yet plaintive,
with a barbaric twang like the plucked string of a Congo war-fiddle, the
sound had fascinated him. It is made in the throat by processes utterly
impossible to describe in human words, and no alphabet as yet produced
by civilized man affords the symbols to vocalize it to the ear of
imagination. "Gunk" is the poor makeshift that must be employed to
indicate it.

Penrod uttered one half-hearted "Gunk" as he turned in at his own gate.
However, this stimulated him, and he paused to practice. "Gunk!" he
croaked. "Gunk-gunk-gunk-gunk!"

Mrs. Schofield leaned out of an open window upstairs.

"Don't do that, Penrod," she said anxiously. "Please don't do that."

"Why not?" Penrod asked, and, feeling encouraged by his progress in the
new art, he continued: "Gunk--gunk-gunk! Gunk-gunk--"

"Please try not to do it," she urged pleadingly. "You CAN stop it if you
try. Won't you, dear?"

But Penrod felt that he was almost upon the point of attaining a mastery
equal to Sam Williams's. He had just managed to do something in his
throat that he had never done before, and he felt that unless he kept
on doing it at this time, his new-born facility might evade him later.
"Gunk!" he croaked. "Gunk--gunk-gunk!" And he continued to croak,
persevering monotonously, his expression indicating the depth of his
preoccupation.

His mother looked down solicitously, murmured in a melancholy undertone,
shook her head; then disappeared from the window, and, after a moment or
two, opened the front door.

"Come in, dear," she said; "I've got something for you."

Penrod's look of preoccupation vanished; h