“Why not, little gentleman?”
He stamped his foot. “You better stop!”
Marjorie sent into his furious face her lovely, spiteful
laughter.
“Little gentleman, little gentleman, little
gentleman!” she said deliberately. “How’s
the little gentleman, this afternoon? Hello, little
gentleman!”
Penrod, quite beside himself, danced eccentrically.
“Dry up!” he howled.
“Dry up, dry up, dry up, dry up!”
Mitchy-Mitch shouted with delight and applied a finger
to the side of the caldron—a finger immediately
snatched away and wiped upon a handkerchief by his
fastidious sister.
“’Ittle gellamun!” said Mitchy-Mitch.
“You better look out!” Penrod whirled
upon this small offender with grim satisfaction.
Here was at least something male that could without
dishonour be held responsible. “You say
that again, and I’ll give you the worst——”
“You will not!” snapped Marjorie,
instantly vitriolic. “He’ll say just
whatever he wants to, and he’ll say it just as
much as he wants to. Say it again, Mitchy-Mitch!”
“’Ittle gellamun!” said Mitchy-Mitch
promptly.
“Ow-yah!” Penrod’s tone-production
was becoming affected by his mental condition.
“You say that again, and I’ll——”
“Go on, Mitchy-Mitch,” cried Marjorie.
“He can’t do a thing. He don’t
dare! Say it some more, Mitchy-Mitch—say
it a whole lot!”
Mitchy-Mitch, his small, fat face shining with confidence
in his immunity, complied.
“’Ittle gellamun!” he squeaked malevolently.
“’Ittle gellamun! ’Ittle gellamun!
’Ittle gellamun!”
The desperate Penrod bent over the whitewashed rock,
lifted it, and then—outdoing Porthos, John
Ridd, and Ursus in one miraculous burst of strength—heaved
it into the air.
Marjorie screamed.
But it was too late. The big stone descended
into the precise midst of the caldron and Penrod got
his mighty splash. It was far, far beyond his
expectations.
Spontaneously there were grand and awful effects—volcanic
spectacles of nightmare and eruption. A black
sheet of eccentric shape rose out of the caldron and
descended upon the three children, who had no time
to evade it.
After it fell, Mitchy-Mitch, who stood nearest the
caldron, was the thickest, though there was enough
for all. Br’er Rabbit would have fled from
any of them.
When Marjorie and Mitchy-Mitch got their breath, they
used it vocally; and seldom have more penetrating
sounds issued from human throats. Coincidentally,
Marjorie, quite baresark, laid hands upon the largest
stick within reach and fell upon Penrod with blind
fury. He had the presence of mind to flee, and
they went round and round the caldron, while Mitchy-Mitch
feebly endeavoured to follow—his appearance,
in this pursuit, being pathetically like that of a
bug fished out of an ink-well, alive but discouraged.
