It was Marjorie Jones. Always dainty, and prettily dressed, she was in
speckless and starchy white to-day, and a refreshing picture she made,
with the new-shorn and powerfully scented Mitchy-Mitch clinging to
her hand. They had stolen up behind the toiler, and now stood laughing
together in sweet merriment. Since the passing of Penrod's Rupe Collins
period he had experienced some severe qualms at the recollection of his
last meeting with Marjorie and his Apache behaviour; in truth, his heart
instantly became as wax at sight of her, and he would have offered
her fair speech; but, alas! in Marjorie's wonderful eyes there shone
a consciousness of new powers for his undoing, and she denied him
opportunity.
"Oh, OH!" she cried, mocking his pained outcry. "What a way for a LITTLE
GENTLEMAN to talk! Little gentleman don't say wicked----"
"Marjorie!" Penrod, enraged and dismayed, felt himself stung beyond all
endurance. Insult from her was bitterer to endure than from any other.
"Don't you call me that again!"
"Why not, LITTLE GENTLEMAN?"
He stamped his foot. "You better stop!"
Marjorie sent into his furious face her lovely, spiteful laughter.
"Little gentleman, little gentleman, little gentleman!" she said
deliberately. "How's the little gentleman, this afternoon? Hello, little
gentleman!"
Penrod, quite beside himself, danced eccentrically. "Dry up!" he howled.
"Dry up, dry up, dry up, dry UP!"
Mitchy-Mitch shouted with delight and applied a finger to the side
of the caldron--a finger immediately snatched away and wiped upon a
handkerchief by his fastidious sister.
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