not there in two minutes----"

"I will be!"

After her departure, Penrod expended some finalities of eloquence upon
Duke, then disgustedly gathered him up in his arms, dumped him into the
basket and, shouting sternly, "All in for the ground floor--step back
there, madam--all ready, Jim!" lowered dog and basket to the floor
of the storeroom. Duke sprang out in tumultuous relief, and bestowed
frantic affection upon his master as the latter slid down from the box.

Penrod dusted himself sketchily, experiencing a sense of satisfaction,
dulled by the overhanging afternoon, perhaps, but perceptible: he had
the feeling of one who has been true to a cause. The operation of the
elevator was unsinful and, save for the shock to Duke's nervous system,
it was harmless; but Penrod could not possibly have brought himself to
exhibit it in the presence of his mother or any other grown person in
the world. The reasons for secrecy were undefined; at least, Penrod did
not define them.

CHAPTER III THE COSTUME

After lunch his mother and his sister Margaret, a pretty girl of
nineteen, dressed him for the sacrifice. They stood him near his
mother's bedroom window and did what they would to him.

During the earlier anguishes of the process he was mute, exceeding the
pathos of the stricken calf in the shambles; but a student of eyes
might have perceived in his soul the premonitory symptoms of a sinister
uprising. At a rehearsal (in citizens' clothes) attended by mothers and
grown-up sisters, Mrs. Lora Rewbush had announced that she wished the
costuming to be "as medieval and artistic as possible." Otherwise, and
as to details, she said, she would leave the costumes entirely to the
good taste of the children's parents. Mrs. Schofield and Margaret were
no archeologists, but they knew that their taste was as good as that of
other mothers and sisters concerned; so with perfect confidence they had
planned and executed a costume for Penrod; and the only misgiving they
felt was connected with the tractability of the Child Sir Lancelot
himself.

Stripped to his underwear, he had been made to wash himself vehemently;
then they began by shrouding his legs in a pair of silk stockings, once
blue but now mostly whitish. Upon Penrod they visibly surpassed mere
ampleness; but they were long, and it required only a rather loose
imagination to assume that they were tights.

The upper part of his body was next concealed from view by a garment
so p