himself: he blew out the lantern, and shouted
plaintively:

"Well, ain't I coming fast's I can?"

"Do hurry," returned the voice, withdrawing; and the kitchen door could
be heard to close.

Languidly, Penrod proceeded to set his house in order.

Replacing his manuscript and pencil in the cigar-box, he carefully
buried the box in the sawdust, put the lantern and oil-can back in the
soap-box, adjusted the elevator for the reception of Duke, and, in no
uncertain tone, invited the devoted animal to enter.

Duke stretched himself amiably, affecting not to hear; and when this
pretence became so obvious that even a dog could keep it up no longer,
sat down in a corner, facing it, his back to his master, and his head
perpendicular, nose upward, supported by the convergence of the two
walls. This, from a dog, is the last word, the comble of the immutable.
Penrod commanded, stormed, tried gentleness; persuaded with honeyed
words and pictured rewards. Duke's eyes looked backward; otherwise
he moved not. Time elapsed. Penrod stooped to flattery, finally to
insincere caresses; then, losing patience spouted sudden threats.

Duke remained immovable, frozen fast to his great gesture of implacable
despair.

A footstep sounded on the threshold of the store-room.

"Penrod, come down from that box this instant!"

"Ma'am?"

"Are you up in that sawdust-box again?" As Mrs. Schofield had just heard
her son's voice issue from the box, and also, as she knew he was there
anyhow, her question must have been put for oratorical purposes only.
"Because if you are," she continued promptly, "I'm going to ask your
papa not to let you play there any----"

Penrod's forehead, his eyes, the tops of his ears, and most of his hair,
became visible to her at the top of the box. "I ain't 'playing!'" he
said indignantly.

"Well, what ARE you doing?"

"Just coming down," he replied, in a grieved but patient tone.

"Then why don't you COME?"

"I got Duke here. I got to get him DOWN, haven't I? You don't suppose I
want to leave a poor dog in here to starve, do you?"

"Well, hand him down over the side to me. Let me----"

"I'll get him down all right," said Penrod. "I got him up here, and I
guess I can get him down!"

"Well then, DO it!"

"I will if you'll let me alone. If you'll go on back to the house I
promise to be there inside of two minutes. Honest!"

He put extreme urgency into this, and his mother turned toward the
house. "If you're