is state of mind was that of the
stable-puppy who knows he MUST not be found in the parlour. Not thrice
in his life had Verman been within the doors of White-Folks' House, and,
above all things, he felt that it was in some undefined way vital to him
to get out of White-Folks' House unobserved and unknown. It was in his
very blood to be sure of that.

Further than this point, the processes of Verman's mind become
mysterious to the observer. It appears, however, that he had a definite
(though somewhat primitive) conception of the usefulness of disguise;
and he must have begun his preparations before he heard footsteps in the
room outside his closed door.

These footsteps were Margaret's. Just as Mr. Schofield's coffee was
brought, and just after Penrod had been baffled in another attempt to
leave the table, Margaret rose and patted her father impertinently upon
the head.

"You can't bully ME that way!" she said. "I got home too late to dress,
and I'm going to a dance. 'Scuse!"

And she began her dancing on the spot, pirouetting herself swiftly out
of the room, and was immediately heard running up the stairs.

"Penrod!" Mr. Schofield shouted. "Sit down! How many times am I going to
tell you? What IS the matter with you to-night?"

"I GOT to go," Penrod gasped. "I got to tell Margaret sumpthing."

"What have you 'got' to tell her?"

"It's--it's sumpthing I forgot to tell her."

"Well, it will keep till she comes downstairs," Mr. Schofield said
grimly. "You sit down till this meal is finished."

Penrod was becoming frantic.

"I got to tell her--it's sumpthing Sam's mother told me to tell her,"
he babbled. "Didn't she, Sam? You heard her tell me to tell her; didn't
you, Sam?"

Sam offered prompt corroboration.

"Yes, sir; she did. She said for us both to tell her. I better go, too,
I guess, because she said--"

He was interrupted. Startlingly upon their ears rang shriek on shriek.
Mrs. Schofield, recognizing Margaret's voice, likewise shrieked, and Mr.
Schofield uttered various sounds; but Penrod and Sam were incapable of
doing anything vocally. All rushed from the table.

Margaret continued to shriek, and it is not to be denied that there
was some cause for her agitation. When she opened the closet door, her
light-blue military cape, instead of hanging on the hook where she had
left it, came out into the room in a manner that she afterward described
as "a kind of horrible creep, but faster than a creep." N