"I do my share though but--though but a tot,
I pray you knight Sir Lancelot!"

This also met the royal favour, and Penrod was bidden to join Sir
Galahad at the throne. As he crossed the stage, Mrs. Schofield whispered
to Margaret:

"That boy! He's unpinned his mantle and fixed it to cover his whole
costume. After we worked so hard to make it becoming!"

"Never mind; he'll have to take the cape off in a minute," returned
Margaret. She leaned forward suddenly, narrowing her eyes to see
better. "What IS that thing hanging about his left ankle?" she whispered
uneasily. "How queer! He must have got tangled in something."

"Where?" asked Mrs. Schofield, in alarm.

"His left foot. It makes him stumble. Don't you see? It looks--it looks
like an elephant's foot!"

The Child Sir Lancelot and the Child Sir Galahad clasped hands before
their Child King. Penrod was conscious of a great uplift; in a moment he
would have to throw aside his mantle, but even so he was protected and
sheltered in the human garment of a man. His stage-fright had passed,
for the audience was but an indistinguishable blur of darkness beyond
the dazzling lights. His most repulsive speech (that in which he
proclaimed himself a "tot") was over and done with; and now at last the
small, moist hand of the Child Sir Galahad lay within his own. Craftily
his brown fingers stole from Maurice's palm to the wrist. The two boys