"Guh-uh-guh-GOODNESS!"
she sobbed.
Penrod immediately drooped to the curb-stone, which he reached,
by pure fortune, in a sitting position. Mr. Blakely leaned
against a fence, and said nothing, though his breathing was
eloquent. "We--we must go--go home," Margaret gasped. "We must,
if--if we can drag ourselves!"
Then Penrod showed them what mettle they he'd tried to crack. A
paroxysm of coughing shook him; he spoke through it sobbingly:
"'Drag!' 'S jus' lul-like a girl! Ha-why I walk--OOF!--faster'n
that every day--on my--way to school." He managed to subjugate a
tendency to nausea. "What you--want to go--home for?" he said.
"Le's go on!"
In the darkness Mr. Claude Blakely's expression could not be
seen, nor was his voice heard. For these and other reasons, his
opinions and sentiments may not be stated.
. . . Mrs. Schofield was looking rather anxiously forth from her
front door when the two adult figures and the faithful smaller
one came up the walk.
"I was getting uneasy," she said. "Papa and I came in and found
the house empty. It's after seven. Oh, Mr.
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