So fascinated was Penrod that he postponed his departure until this film came round again, by which time he had finished his unnatural repast and almost, but not quite, decided against following the profession of a drunkard when he grew up.

Emerging, satiated, from the theatre, a public timepiece before a jeweller’s shop confronted him with an unexpected dial and imminent perplexities.  How was he to explain at home these hours of dalliance?  There was a steadfast rule that he return direct from Sunday-school; and Sunday rules were important, because on that day there was his father, always at home and at hand, perilously ready for action.  One of the hardest conditions of boyhood is the almost continuous strain put upon the powers of invention by the constant and harassing necessity for explanations of every natural act.

Proceeding homeward through the deepening twilight as rapidly as possible, at a gait half skip and half canter, Penrod made up his mind in what manner he would account for his long delay, and, as he drew nearer, rehearsed in words the opening passage of his defence.

“Now see here,” he determined to begin; “I do not wished to be blamed for things I couldn’t help, nor any other boy.  I was going along the street by a cottage and a lady put her head out of the window and said her husband was drunk and whipping her and her little girl, and she asked me wouldn’t I come in and help hold him.  So I went in and tried to get hold of this drunken lady’s husband where he was whipping their baby daughter, but he wouldn’t pay any attention, and I told her I ought to be getting home, but she kep’ on askin’ me to stay——­”

At this point he reached the corner of his own yard, where a coincidence not only checked the rehearsal of his eloquence but happily obviated all occasion for it.  A cab from the station drew up in front of the gate, and there descended a troubled lady in black and a fragile little girl about three.  Mrs. Schofield rushed from the house and enfolded both in hospitable arms.

They were Penrod’s Aunt Clara and cousin, also Clara, from Dayton, Illinois, and in the flurry of their arrival everybody forgot to put Penrod to the question.  It is doubtful, however, if he felt any relief; there may have been even a slight, unconscious disappointment not altogether dissimilar to that of an actor deprived of a good part.

In the course of some really necessary preparations for dinner he stepped from the bathroom into the pink-and-white bedchamber of his sister, and addressed her rather thickly through a towel.

“When’d mamma find out Aunt Clara and Cousin Clara were coming?”

“Not till she saw them from the window.  She just happened to look out as they drove up.  Aunt Clara telegraphed this morning, but it wasn’t delivered.”

“How long they goin’ to stay?”

“I don’t know.”

Penrod ceased to rub his shining face, and thoughtfully tossed the towel through the bathroom door.  “Uncle John won’t try to make ’em come back home, I guess, will he?” (Uncle John was Aunt Clara’s husband, a successful manufacturer of stoves, and his lifelong regret was that he had not entered the Baptist ministry.) “He’ll let ’em stay here quietly, won’t he?”