and steep; Mrs. Roderick
Magsworth Bitts was of a stout favour; and the voice of Penrod was
audible during the ascent.

"RE-MEM-BUR, gentilmun and lay-deeze, each and all are now gazing upon
Roderick Magsworth Bitts, Junior, the only living nephew of the great
Rena Magsworth. She stuck ars'nic in the milk of eight separate and
distinck people to put in their coffee and each and all of 'em died. The
great ars'nic murderess, Rena Magsworth, gentilmun and lay-deeze,
and Roddy's her only living nephew. She's a relation of all the Bitts
family, but he's her one and only living nephew. RE-MEM-BUR! Next July
she's goin' to be hung, and, each and all, you now see before you----"

Penrod paused abruptly, seeing something before himself--the august and
awful presence which filled the entryway. And his words (it should be
related) froze upon his lips.

Before HERSELF, Mrs. Roderick Magsworth Bitts saw her son--her
scion--wearing a moustache and sideburns of blue, and perched upon a box
flanked by Sherman and Verman, the Michigan rats, the Indian dog Duke,
Herman, and the dog part alligator.

Roddy, also, saw something before himself. It needed no prophet to
read the countenance of the dread apparition in the entryway. His mouth
opened--remained open--then filled to capacity with a calamitous sound
of grief not unmingled with apprehension.

Penrod's reason staggered under the crisis. For a horrible moment he saw
Mrs. Roderick Magsworth Bitts approaching like some fatal mountain in
avalanche. She seemed to grow larger and redder; lightnings played about
her head; he had a vague consciousness of the audience spraying out
in flight, of the squealings, tramplings and dispersals of a stricken
field. The mountain was close upon him----

He stood by the open mouth of the hay-chute which went through the floor
to the manger below. Penrod also went through the floor. He propelled
himself into the chute and shot down, but not quite to the manger, for
Mr. Samuel Williams had thoughtfully stepped into the chute a moment in
advance of his partner. Penrod lit upon Sam.

Catastrophic noises resounded in the loft; volcanoes seemed to romp upon
the stairway.

There ensued a period when only a shrill keening marked the passing of
Roderick as he was borne to the tumbril. Then all was silence.

. . . Sunset, striking through a western window, rouged the walls of
the Schofields' library, where gathered a joint family council and
court mart