the unfortunate man was seen in the
act of striking his wife and, subsequently, his pleading baby daughter
with an abnormally heavy walking-stick. Their flight--through the
snow--to seek the protection of a relative was shown, and finally, the
drunkard's picturesque behaviour at the portals of a madhouse.

So fascinated was Penrod that he postponed his departure until this film
came round again, by which time he had finished his unnatural repast
and almost, but not quite, decided against following the profession of a
drunkard when he grew up.

Emerging, satiated, from the theatre, a public timepiece before a
jeweller's shop confronted him with an unexpected dial and imminent
perplexities. How was he to explain at home these hours of dalliance?
There was a steadfast rule that he return direct from Sunday-school; and
Sunday rules were important, because on that day there was his father,
always at home and at hand, perilously ready for action. One of the
hardest conditions of boyhood is the almost continuous strain put upon
the powers of invention by the constant and harassing necessity for
explanations of every natural act.

Proceeding homeward through the deepening twilight as rapidly as
possible, at a gait half skip and half canter, Penrod made up his mind
in what manner he would account for his long delay, and, as he drew
nearer, rehearsed in words the opening passage of his defence.

"Now see here," he determined to begin; "I do not wished to be blamed
for things I couldn't help, nor any other boy. I was going along the
street by a cottage and a lady put her head out of the window and said
her husband was drunk and whipping her and her little girl, and she
asked me wouldn't I come in and help hold him. So I went in and tried to
get hold of this drunken lady's husband where he was whipping their baby
daughter, but he wouldn't pay any attention, and I TOLD her I ought to
be getting home, but she kep' on askin' me to stay----"

At this point he reached the corner of his own yard, where a coincidence
not only checked the rehearsal of his eloquence but happily obviated all
occasion for it. A cab from the station drew up in front of the gate,
and there descended a troubled lady in black and a fragile little girl
about three. Mrs. Schofield rushed from the house and enfolded both in
hospitable arms.

They were Penrod's Aunt Clara and cousin, also Clara, from Dayton,
Illinois, and in the flurry of their arrival everybod