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BOOTH TARKINGTON
Penrod

TO
JOHN, DONALD AND BOOTH JAMESON
FROM A GRATEFUL UNCLE

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I
. A Boy and His Dog II. Romance III. The Costume IV. Desperation V.
The Pageant of the Table Round VI. Evening VII. Evils of Drink VIII.
School IX. Soaring X. Uncle John XI. Fidelity of a Little Dog XII.
Miss Rennsdale Accepts XIII. The Smallpox Medicine XIV. Maurice
Levy's Constitution XV. The Two Families XVI. The New Star XVII.
Retiring from the Show-Business XVIII. Music XIX. The Inner Boy
XX. Brothers of Angels XXI. Rupe Collins XXII. The Imitator XXIII.
Coloured Troops in Action XXIV. "Little Gentleman" XXV. Tar XXVI.
The Quiet Afternoon XXVII. Conclusion of the Quiet Afternoon
XXVIII. Twelve XXIX. Fanchon XXX. The Birthday Party XXXI.
Over the Fence

CHAPTER I
A BOY AND HIS DOG
Penrod sat morosely upon the back fence and gazed with envy at Duke,
his wistful dog.

A bitter soul dominated the various curved and angular surfaces known
by a careless world as the face of Penrod Schofield. Except in solitude,
that face was almost always cryptic and emotionless; for Penrod had
come into his twelfth year wearing an expression carefully trained to be
inscrutable. Since the world was sure to misunderstand everything,
mere defensive instinct prompted him to give it as little as possible to
lay hold upon. Nothing is more impenetrable than the face of a boy
who has learned this, and Penrod's was habitually as fathomless as the
depth of his hatred this morning for the literary activities of Mrs. Lora
Rewbush--an almost universally respected fellow citizen, a lady of
charitable and poetic inclinations, and one of his own mother's most
intimate friends.
Mrs. Lora Rewbush had written something which she called "The
Children's Pageant of the Table Round," and it was to be performed in
public that very afternoon at the Women's Arts and Guild Hall for the
benefit of the Coloured Infants' Betterment Society. And if any flavour
of sweetness remained in the nature of Penrod Schofield after the
dismal trials of the school-week just past, that problematic,
infinitesimal remnant was made pungent acid by the imminence of his
destiny to form a prominent feature of the spectacle, and to declaim the
loathsome sentiments of a character named upon the programme the
Child Sir Lancelot. After each rehearsal he had plotted escape, and only
ten days earlier there had been a glimmer of light: Mrs. Lora Rewbush
caught a very bad cold, and it was hoped it might develop into
pneumonia; but she recovered so quickly that not even a rehearsal of
the Children's Pageant was postponed. Darkness closed in. Penrod had
rather vaguely debated plans for a self-mutilation such as would make
his appearance as the Child Sir Lancelot inexpedient on public grounds;
it was a heroic and attractive thought, but the results of some extremely
sketchy preliminary experiments caused him to abandon it.
There was no escape; and at last his hour was hard upon him. Therefore
he brooded on the fence and gazed with envy at his wistful Duke. The
dog's name was undescriptive of his person, which was obviously the
result of a singular series of mesalliances. He wore a grizzled
moustache and indefinite whiskers; he was small and shabby, and
looked like an old postman. Penrod envied Duke because he was sure
Duke would never be compelled to be a Child Sir Lancelot. He thought

a dog free and unshackled to go or come as the wind listeth. Penrod
forgot the life he led Duke. There was a long soliloquy upon the fence,
a plaintive monologue without words: the boy's thoughts were
adjectives, but they were expressed by a running film of pictures in his
mind's eye, morbidly prophetic of the hideosities before him. Finally he
spoke aloud, with such spleen that Duke rose from his haunches and
lifted one ear in keen anxiety.
"`I hight Sir Lancelot du Lake, the Child, Gentul-hearted, meek, and
mild. What though I'm BUT a littul child, Gentul-hearted, meek,
and----' OOF!"
All of this except "oof" was a quotation from the Child Sir Lancelot, as
conceived by Mrs. Lora Rewbush. Choking upon it, Penrod slid down
from the fence, and with slow and thoughtful steps entered a
one-storied