might be dangerous for other children," said
Mrs. Williams, with a solicitous glance at Sam. "Don't you know whom he
belongs to?"

"No'm. It was just a dog."

"You poor boy! Your mother must have been dreadfully frightened when you
came home and she saw--"

She was interrupted by the entrance of a middle-aged coloured woman.
"Miz Williams," she began, and then, as she caught sight of Penrod, she
addressed him directly, "You' ma telefoam if you here, send you home
right away, 'cause they waitin' dinner on you."

"Run along, then," said Mrs. Williams, patting the visitor lightly upon
his shoulder; and she accompanied him to the front door. "Tell your
mother I'm so sorry about your getting bitten, and you must take good
care of it, Penrod."

"Yes'm."

Penrod lingered helplessly outside the doorway, looking at Sam, who
stood partially obscured in the hall, behind Mrs. Williams. Penrod's
eyes, with veiled anguish, conveyed a pleading for help as well as a
horror of the position in which he found himself. Sam, however, pale and
determined, seemed to have assumed a stony attitude of detachment, as if
it were well understood between them that his own comparative innocence
was established, and that whatever catastrophe ensued, Penrod had
brought it on and must bear the brunt of it alone.

"Well, you'd better run along, since they're waiting for you at home,"
said Mrs. Williams, closing the door. "Good-night, Penrod."

... Ten minutes later Penrod took his place at his own dinner-table,
somewhat breathless but with an expression of perfect composure.

"Can't you EVER come home without being telephoned for?" demanded his
father.

"Yes, sir." And Penrod added reproachfully, placing the blame upon
members of Mr. Schofield's own class, "Sam's mother and father kept me,
or I'd been home long ago. They would keep on talkin', and I guess I had
to be POLITE, didn't I?"

His left arm was as free as his right; there was no dreadful bulk
beneath his jacket, and at Penrod's age the future is too far away to
be worried about the difference between temporary security and permanent
security is left for grown people. To Penrod, security was security, and
before his dinner was half eaten his spirit had become fairly serene.

Nevertheless, when he entered the empty carriage-house of the stable,
on his return from school the next afternoon, his expression was not
altogether without apprehension, and he stood in the doorway looking
w