Then Penrod intended to say to this boy, after church, “Well, that's exackly what your mother did to me, and if you don't like it, you better look out!”
And the real Penrod in the sawdust box clenched his fists. “Come ahead, then!” he muttered. “You talk too much!” Whereupon, the Penrod of his dream gave Margaret's puny son a contemptuous thrashing under the eyes of his mother, who besought in vain for mercy. This plan was finally dropped, not because of any lingering nepotism within Penrod, but because his injury called for action less belated.
One after another, he thought of impossible things; one after another, he thought of things merely inane and futile, for he was trying to do something beyond his power. Penrod was never brilliant, or even successful, save by inspiration.
At four o'clock he came into the house, still nebulous, and as he passed the open door of the library he heard a man's voice, not his father's.
“To me,” said this voice, “the finest lines in all literature are those in Tennyson's 'Maud'—
“'Had it lain for a century dead, My dust would hear her and beat, And blossom in purple and red, There somewhere around near her feet.'
“I think I have quoted correctly,” continued the voice nervously, “but, at any rate, what I wished to—ah—say was that I often think of those ah—words; but I never think of them without thinking of—of—of YOU. I—ah—”
The nervous voice paused, and Penrod took an oblique survey of the room, himself unobserved. Margaret was seated in an easy chair and her face was turned away from Penrod, so that her expression of the moment remained unknown to him. Facing her, and leaning toward her with perceptible emotion, was Mr. Claude Blakely—a young man with whom Penrod had no acquaintance, though he had seen him, was aware of his identity, and had heard speech between Mrs. Schofield and Margaret which indicated that Mr. Blakely had formed the habit of calling frequently at the house. This was a brilliantly handsome young man; indeed, his face was so beautiful that even Penrod was able to perceive something about it which might be explicably pleasing—at least to women. And Penrod remembered that, on the last evening before Mr. Robert Williams's departure for college, Margaret had been peevish because Penrod had genially spent the greater portion of the evening with Robert and herself upon the porch. Margaret made it clear, later, that she strongly preferred to conduct her conversations with friends unassisted—and as Penrod listened to the faltering words of Mr. Claude Blakely, he felt instinctively that, in a certain contingency, Margaret's indignation would be even more severe to-day than on the former occasion.
Mr. Blakely coughed faintly and was able to continue.
“I mean to say that when I say that what Tennyson says—ah—seems to—to apply to—to a feeling about you—”