They led her away.
CHAPTER VI EVENING
The sun was setting behind the back fence (though at a considerable
distance) as Penrod Schofield approached that fence and looked
thoughtfully up at the top of it, apparently having in mind some purpose
to climb up and sit there. Debating this, he passed his fingers gently
up and down the backs of his legs; and then something seemed to decide
him not to sit anywhere. He leaned against the fence, sighed profoundly,
and gazed at Duke, his wistful dog.
The sigh was reminiscent: episodes of simple pathos were passing before
his inward eye. About the most painful was the vision of lovely
Marjorie Jones, weeping with rage as the Child Sir Lancelot was dragged,
insatiate, from the prostrate and howling Child Sir Galahad, after an
onslaught delivered the precise instant the curtain began to fall upon
the demoralized "pageant." And then--oh, pangs! oh, woman!--she slapped
at the ruffian's cheek, as he was led past her by a resentful janitor;
and turning, flung her arms round the Child Sir Galahad's neck.
"PENROD SCHOFIELD, DON'T YOU DARE EVER SPEAK TO ME AGAIN AS LONG AS
YOU LIVE!" Maurice's little white boots and gold tassels had done their
work.
At home the late Child Sir Lancelot was consigned to a locked
clothes-closet pending the arrival of his father. Mr. Schofield came
and, shortly after, there was put into practice an old patriarchal
custom. It is a custom of inconceivable antiquity: probably primordial,
certainly prehistoric, but still in vogue in some remaining citadels of
the ancient simplicities of the Republic.
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