I've been waiting here to tell you, Bob, you
mustn't come near the house if I were you I'd stay away from even this
neighbourhood--far away! For a while I don't think it would be actually
SAFE for----"
"Margaret, will you please----"
"It's all on account of that dollar you gave Penrod this morning," she
walled. "First, he bought that horrible concertina that made papa so
furious--"
"But Penrod didn't tell that I----"
"Oh, wait!" she cried lamentably. "Listen! He didn't tell at lunch, but
he got home about dinner-time in the most--well! I've seen pale people
before, but nothing like Penrod. Nobody could IMAGINE it--not unless
they'd seen him! And he looked, so STRANGE, and kept making such
unnatural faces, and at first all he would say was that he'd eaten a
little piece of apple and thought it must have some microbes on it. But
he got sicker and sicker, and we put him to bed--and then we all thought
he was going to die--and, of COURSE, no little piece of apple would
have--well, and he kept getting worse and then he said he'd had a
dollar. He said he'd spent it for the concertina, and watermelon, and
chocolate-creams, and licorice sticks, and lemon-drops, and peanuts,
and jaw-breakers, and sardines, and raspberry lemonade, and pickles, and
popcorn, and ice-cream, and cider, and sausage--there was sausage in
his pocket, and mamma says his jacket is ruined--and cinnamon drops--and
waffles--and he ate four or five lobster croquettes at lunch--and papa
said, 'Who gave you that dollar?' Only he didn't say 'WHO'--he said
something horrible, Bob! And Penrod thought he was going to die, and he
said you gave it to him, and oh! it was just pitiful to hear the poor
child, Bob, because he thought he was dying, you see, and he blamed you
for the whole thing.
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