en the sexes appears to sterilize the
affections, and schoolroom romances are few.

Victorine's hair was thick, and the brickish glints in it were
beautiful, but Penrod was very tired of it. A tiny knot of green ribbon
finished off the braid and kept it from unravelling; and beneath the
ribbon there was a final wisp of hair which was just long enough to
repose upon Penrod's desk when Victorine leaned back in her seat. It was
there now. Thoughtfully, he took the braid between thumb and forefinger,
and, without disturbing Victorine, dipped the end of it and the green
ribbon into the inkwell of his desk. He brought hair and ribbon forth
dripping purple ink, and partially dried them on a blotter, though, a
moment later when Victorine leaned forward, they were still able to add
a few picturesque touches to the plaid waist.

Rudolph Krauss, across the aisle from Penrod, watched the operation with
protuberant eyes, fascinated. Inspired to imitation, he took a piece of
chalk from his pocket and wrote "RATS" across the shoulder-blades of the
boy in front of him, then looked across appealingly to Penrod for tokens
of congratulation. Penrod yawned. It may not be denied that at times he
appeared to be a very self-centred boy.

CHAPTER IX SOARING

Half the members of the class passed out to a recitation-room, the
empurpled Victorine among them, and Miss Spence started the remaining
half through the ordeal of trial by mathematics. Several boys and girls
were sent to the blackboard, and Penrod, spared for the moment, followed
their operations a little while with his eyes, but not with his mind;
then, sinking deeper in his seat, limply abandoned the effort. His eyes
remained open, but saw nothing; the routine of the arithmetic lesson
reached his ears in familiar, meaningless sounds, but he heard nothing;
and yet, this time, he was profoundly occupied. He had drifted away from
the painful land of facts, and floated now in a new sea of fancy which
he had just discovered.

Maturity forgets the marvellous realness of a boy's day-dreams, how
colourful they glow, rosy and living, and how opaque the curtain closing
down between the dreamer and the actual world. That curtain is almost
sound-proof, too, and causes more throat-trouble among parents than is
suspected.

The nervous monotony of the schoolroom inspires a sometimes unbearable
longing for something astonishing to happen, and as every boy's
fundamental desire is to do someth