hough!"

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

"They would, too," he asserted, with renewed bitterness. "If the house
was 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 fell
on my--"

"Why, it couldn't--" he began. But at this instant a drop fell upon his
head, too, and, looking up, they beheld a great oozing splotch upon the
ceiling. Drops were gathering upon it and falling; the tinted plaster
was cracking, and a little stream began to patter down and splash upon
the 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 rain
outdoors."

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

"Good gracious!" Marjorie cried, while the ceiling above them shook as
with earthquake--or as with boys in numbers jumping, and a great uproar
burst 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 swung
into "Home Sweet Home" some time before, the children were preparing
to leave, and Master Chitten had been the first boy to ascend to the
gentlemen's dressing-room for his cap, overcoat and shoes, his
motive being to avoid by departure any difficulty in case his earlier
activities should cause him to be suspected by the other boys. But in
the doorway he halted, aghast.

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

For a moment, his savoir faire deserted him, and he was filled with
ordinary, human-boy panic. Then, at a sound of voices behind him, he
lost his head and rushed into the bathroom. It was dark, but certain
sensations and the splashing of his pumps warned him that the water was
deepe