Penrod lingered helplessly outside the doorway, looking at Sam,
who stood partially obscured in the hall, behind Mrs. Williams.
Penrod's eyes, with veiled anguish, conveyed a pleading for help
as well as a horror of the position in which he found himself.
Sam, however, pale and determined, seemed to have assumed a stony
attitude of detachment, as if it were well understood between
them that his own comparative innocence was established, and that
whatever catastrophe ensued, Penrod had brought it on and must
bear the brunt of it alone.

"Well, you'd better run along, since they're waiting for you at
home," said Mrs. Williams, closing the door. "Good-night,
Penrod."

. . . Ten minutes later Penrod took his place at his own
dinner-table, somewhat breathless but with an expression of
perfect composure.

"Can't you EVER come home without being telephoned for?" demanded
his father.

"Yes, sir." And Penrod added reproachfully, placing the blame
upon members of Mr. Schofield's own class, "Sam's mother and
father kept me, or I'd been home long ago. They would keep on
talkin', and I guess I had to be POLITE, didn't I?"

His left arm was as free as his right; there was no dreadful bulk
beneath his jacket, and at Penrod's age the future is too far
away to be worried about the difference between temporary