Booth Tarkington

“ PENROD SCHOFIELD 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 approached his teens wearing an expression carefully trained to be inscrutable. Since the world was sure to misunderstand everything, pure defensive instinct prompted him to give it as little as possible to lay hold upon. ”

“ Wilson himself, dastard but eloquent foe of Harold Ramorez, could not have expressed, with all the vile dashes at his command, the sentiments which animated Penrod's bosom when the instantaneous and unalterable conviction descended upon him that he was intended by his loved ones to make a public spectacle of himself in his sister's stockings and part of an old dress of his mother's.
To him these familiar things were not disguised at all; there was no possibility that the whole world would not know them at a glance. The stockings were worse than the bodice. ”

“ For as the awful truth became plain to himself it seemed blazoned to the world; and far, far louder than the stockings, the trunks did fairly bellow the grisly secret: whose they were and what they were!
Most people have suffered in a dream the experience of finding themselves very inadequately clad in the midst of a crowd of well-dressed people; and such dreamer's sensations are comparable to Penrod's, though faintly, because Penrod was awake and in much too full possession of the most active capacities for anguish. ”

“ He extracted it frenziedly, which brought to his ears a protracted and sonorous ripping, too easily located by a final gesture of horror.
“Penrod Schofield!” Mrs. Lora Rewbush had come out into the hallway.
And now, in this extremity, when all seemed lost indeed, particularly including honor, the dilating eye of the outlaw fell upon the blue overalls which the janitor had left hanging upon a peg. Inspiration and action were almost simultaneous...
“Penrod!” Mrs. Lora Rewbush stood in the doorway, indignantly gazing upon a Child Sir Lancelot mantled to the heels. ”

“ The indelicate little girls giggled delightedly, and a javelin pierced the inwards of Penrod when he saw that the Child Elaine, amber-curled and beautiful Marjorie Jones, lifted golden laughter to the ghastly jest. Other boys and girls came flocking to the uproar. “He's nakid, he's nakid!” shrieked the Child Sir Galahad. “Penrod Schofield's nakid! He's na-a-a-kid!”
“Hush, hush!” said Mrs. Lora Rewbush, pushing her way into the group. “Remember, we are all little knights and ladies today. Little knights and ladies of the Table Round would not make so much noise. ”

“ Schofield, in alarm.
“His left foot. It makes him stumble. Don't you see? It looks—it looks like an elephants 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. ”

“ It appears that he had at least some shadowy perception of a recent fulness of life, for, as he leaned against the fence, gazing uixn his wistful Duke, he sighed again and murmured aloud:
“Well, hasn't this been a day!”
But in a little while a star came out, freshly lighted, from the highest part of the sky, and Penrod, looking up, noticed it casually and a little drowsily. He yawned. Then he sighed once more, but not reminiscently: evening had come; the day was over. ”

“ They made a brief, manful effort. But the irrepressible outbursts from the audience confused them; every time Sir Lancelot du Lake the Child opened his mouth, the great, shadowy house fell into an uproar and the children into confusion. ”

“ Penrod's father was an old-fashioned man: the twentieth century had failed to shake his faith in red flannel for cold weather; and it was while Mrs. Schofield was putting away her husband's winter underwear that she perceived how hopelessly one of the elder specimens had dwindled; and simultaneously she received the inspiration which resulted in a pair of trunks {or the Child Sir Lancelot, and added an earnest bit of color, as well as a genuine touch of the Middle Ages, to his costume. ”

“ Schoheld, gently. “Sir Lancelot must have been ever so long before Colonial times.”
“That doesn't matter,” Margaret reassured her. “Nobody'll know the difference—Mrs. Lora Rewbush least of all. I don't think she knows a thing about it, though, of course, she does write splendidly and the words of the pageant are just beautiful. Stand still, Penrod!” (The author of “Harold Ramorez” had moved convulsively.) “Besides, powdered hair's always becoming. Look at him. You'd hardly know it was Penrod!” ”

“ Retiring to a corner immediately upon his entrance, he managed to unfasten the mantle at the shoulders and, drawing it round him, pinned it again at his throat so that it concealed the rest of his costume. This permitted a temporary relief, but increased his horror of the moment when, in pursuance of the action of the “pageant,” the sheltering garment must be cast aside. ”

“ When it had been placed upon Penrod, the stockings were attached to it by a system of safety-pins, not very perceptible at a distance. Next, after being severely warned against stooping, Penrod got his feet into the slippers he wore to dancing-school—“patent-leather pumps” now decorated with large pink rosettes.
“If I cant stoop,” he began, smolderingly, “Id like to know how'm I goin' to kneel in the pag——”
“You must manage!” This, uttered through pins, was evidently thought to be sufficient. ”

“ A human male whose dress has been damaged, or reveals some vital lack, suffers from a hideous and shameful loneliness which makes every second absolutely unbearable until he is again as others of his sex and species ”

“ Strong women and brave girls in the audience went out into the lobby, shrieking and clinging to one another. Others remained, rocking in their seats, helpless and spent. The neighborhood of Mrs. Schofield and Margaret became, tactfully, a desert. Friends of the author went behind the scenes and encountered a hitherto unknown phase of Mrs. Lora Rewbush; they said, afterward, that she hardly seemed to know what she was doing. She begged to be left alone somewhere with Penrod Schofield, for just a little while ”

“ One of the reasons he gave it up was his desire to live on Maurice Levy's account: already he was forming educational plans for the Child Sir Galahad.
A stout man in blue overalls passed through the hallway muttering to himself petulantly. “I reckon they'll find that hall hot enough now!” he said, conveying to Penrod an impression that some too feminine women had sent him upon an unreasonable errand to the furnace. He went into the Janitor's Room and, emerging a moment later, minus the overalls, passed Penrod again with a bass rumble—“Dern em!” ”

“ What claim has each to knighthood earn.”
The Child Sir Mordred, the villain of this piece, rose in his place at the table round, and piped the only lines ever written by Mrs. Lora Rewbush which Penrod Schofield could have pronounced without loathing. George Bassett, a really angelic boy, had been selected for the rôle of Mordred. His perfect conduct had earned for him the sardonic sobriquet, “The Little Gentleman,” among his boy acquaintances. ”

“ The Child Mordred was properly rebuked and denied the accolade, though, like the others, he seemed to have assumed the title already. He made a plotter's exit. Whereupon Maurice Levy rose, bowed, announced that he highted the Child Sir Galahad, and continued with perfect sang-froid:
“I am the purest of the pure. ”

“ After that, he extended a foot and meditatively rubbed Duke's back with the side of his shoe. Creation, with Penrod, did not leap, full-armed, from the brain; but finally he began to produce. He wrote very slowly at first, and then with increasing rapidity; faster and faster, gathering momentum and growing more and more fevered as he sped, till at last the true fire came, without which no lamp of real literature may be made to burn.
“ELEVA-TER!” SHOUTED PENROD. “TING-TING!” RECKLESS WITH DESPAIR, DUKE JUMPED IN.
Mr. ”

“ Soon Harold got mad at this and jumped up with blasing eyes throwin off his bonds like they were air Ha Ha sneered he I guess you better not talk so much next time Soon there flowed another awful struggle and siezin his ottomatick back from Mr Wilson he shot two of the detectives through the heart Bang Bang went the ottomatick and two more went to meet their Maker Only two detectives left now and so he stabbed one and the scondrel went to meet his Maker for now our hero was fighting for his very life. ”