Nevertheless, tar is tar.  Much can be done with it, no matter what its condition; so Penrod lingered by the caldron, though from a neighbouring yard could be heard the voices of comrades, including that of Sam Williams.  On the ground about the caldron were scattered chips and sticks and bits of wood to the number of a great multitude.  Penrod mixed quantities of this refuse into the tar, and interested himself in seeing how much of it he could keep moving in slow swirls upon the ebon surface.

Other surprises were arranged for the absent workmen.  The caldron was almost full, and the surface of the tar near the rim.

Penrod endeavoured to ascertain how many pebbles and brickbats, dropped in, would cause an overflow.  Labouring heartily to this end, he had almost accomplished it, when he received the suggestion for an experiment on a much larger scale.  Embedded at the corner of a grassplot across the street was a whitewashed stone, the size of a small watermelon and serving no purpose whatever save the questionable one of decoration.  It was easily pried up with a stick; though getting it to the caldron tested the full strength of the ardent labourer.  Instructed to perform such a task, he would have sincerely maintained its impossibility but now, as it was unbidden, and promised rather destructive results, he set about it with unconquerable energy, feeling certain that he would be rewarded with a mighty splash.  Perspiring, grunting vehemently, his back aching and all muscles strained, he progressed in short stages until the big stone lay at the base of the caldron.  He rested a moment, panting, then lifted the stone, and was bending his shoulders for the heave that would lift it over the rim, when a sweet, taunting voice, close behind him, startled him cruelly.

“How do you do, little gentleman!”

Penrod squawked, dropped the stone, and shouted, “Shut up, you dern fool!” purely from instinct, even before his about-face made him aware who had so spitefully addressed him.

It was Marjorie Jones.  Always dainty, and prettily dressed, she was in speckless and starchy white to-day, and a refreshing picture she made, with the new-shorn and powerfully scented Mitchy-Mitch clinging to her hand.  They had stolen up behind the toiler, and now stood laughing together in sweet merriment.  Since the passing of Penrod’s Rupe Collins period he had experienced some severe qualms at the recollection of his last meeting with Marjorie and his Apache behaviour; in truth, his heart instantly became as wax at sight of her, and he would have offered her fair speech; but, alas! in Marjorie’s wonderful eyes there shone a consciousness of new powers for his undoing, and she denied him opportunity.

“Oh, oh!” she cried, mocking his pained outcry.  “What a way for a little gentleman to talk!  Little gentleman don’t say wicked——­”

“Marjorie!” Penrod, enraged and dismayed, felt himself stung beyond all endurance.  Insult from her was bitterer to endure than from any other.  “Don’t you call me that again!”