rhead 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