In the upper hall and upon the stairway, panic-stricken little
girls listened, wild-eyed, to the uproar that went on, while
waiters and maid servants rushed with pails and towels into what
was essentially the worst ward in Bedlam. Boys who had behaved
properly all afternoon now gave way and joined the confraternity
of lunatics. The floors of the house shook to tramplings, rushes,
wrestlings, falls and collisions. The walls resounded to chorused
bellowings and roars. There were pipings of pain and pipings of
joy; there was whistling to pierce the drums of ears; there were
hootings and howlings and bleatings and screechings, while over
all bleated the heathen battle-cry incessantly: "GOTCHER
BUMPUS! GOTCHER BUMPUS!" For the boys had been inspired by
the unusual water to transform Penrod's game of "Gotcher bumpus"
into an aquatic sport, and to induce one another, by means of
superior force, dexterity, or stratagems, either to sit or to lie
at full length in the flood, after the example of Carlie Chitten.
One of the aunts Rennsdale had taken what charge she could of the
deafened and distracted maids and waiters who were working to
stem the tide, while the other of the aunts Rennsdale stood with
her niece and Miss Lowe at the foot of the stairs, trying to say
good-night reassuringly to those of the terrified little girls
who were able to tear themselves away.
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