Mr. Pennington’s glance at his son showed that Piggy was unharmed.  A swift survey of the others gave each, save Bud, a bill of health.  But when Mr. Pennington’s eyes fell on Bud, he leaned on a show-case and laughed till he shook all over; for Bud, with a rimless hat upon a towselled head, with a face scratched till it looked like a railroad map, with a torn shirt that exposed a dirty shoulder and a freckled back, with trousers so badly shattered that two hands could hardly hold them together,—­as Mr. Pennington expressed it, Bud looked like a second-hand boy.  The simile pleased Pennington so that he renewed his laughter, and paid no heed to the chatter of the pack clamoring to tell all in one breath, the history of the incident that had led to Bud’s dilapidation.  Also they were drawing gloomy pictures of the appearance of his assailants, after the custom of boys in such cases.  Because his son was not involved in the calamity, Piggy’s father was not moved deeply by the story of the raid of the North-enders and their downfall.  So he put the young gentlemen of the Court of Boyville into the back room of his grocery store, where coal-oil and molasses barrels and hams and bacon and black shadows of many mysterious things were gathered.  He gave the royal party a cheese knife and a watermelon, and bade them be merry, a bidding which set the hearts of Piggy and Abe and Jimmy and Mealy to dancing, while Bud’s heart, which had been sinking lower and lower into a quagmire of dread, beat on numbly and did not join the joy.  As the time for going home approached, Bud shivered in his soul at the thought of meeting Miss Morgan.  Not even the watermelon revived him, and when a watermelon will not help a boy his extremity is dire.  Still he laughed and chatted with apparent merriment, but he knew how hollow was his laughter and what mockery was in his cheer.  When the melon was eaten business took its regular order.

[Illustration:  When Mr. Pennington’s eyes fell on Bud, he leaned on a show-case and laughed till he shook all over.]

“Say, Bud, how you goin’ to get home?” asked Abe.

Bud grinned as he looked at his rags.

“Gee,” said Mealy, “I’m glad it ain’t me.”

“Aw, shucks,” returned Bud, and he thought of the stricken Ananias in the Sunday-school lesson leaf as he spoke; “run right through like I always do.  What I got to be ’fraid of?”

“Yes, Mr. Bud, you can laugh, but you know you’ll catch it when you get home.”

This shaft from Jimmy Sears put in words the terror in Bud’s heart.  But he replied:  “I’ll bet you I don’t.”