"Roddy," said Penrod, in a voice tremulous with hope, "Roddy, will you join our show?"
Roddy joined.
Even he could see that the offer implied his being starred as the paramount attraction of a new order of things. It was obvious that he had swelled out suddenly, in the estimation of the other boys, to that importance which he had been taught to believe his native gift and natural right. The sensation was pleasant. He had often been treated with effusion by grown-up callers and by acquaintances of his mothers and sisters; he had heard ladies speak of him as "charming" and "that delightful child," and little girls had sometimes shown him deference, but until this moment no boy had ever allowed him, for one moment, to presume even to equality. Now, in a trice, he was not only admitted to comradeship, but patently valued as something rare and sacred to be acclaimed and pedestalled. In fact, the very first thing that Schofield and Williams did was to find a box for him to stand upon.
The misgivings roused in Roderick"s bosom by the subsequent activities of the firm were not bothersome enough to make him forego his prominence as Exhibit A. He was not a "quick-minded" boy, and it was long (and much happened) before he thoroughly comprehended the causes of his new celebrity. He had a shadowy feeling that if the affair came to be heard of at home it might not be liked, but, intoxicated by the glamour and bustle which surround a public character, he made no protest. On the contrary, he entered whole-heartedly into the preparations for the new show. a.s.suming, with Sam"s a.s.sistance, a blue moustache and "side-burns," he helped in the painting of a new poster, which, supplanting the old one on the wall of the stable facing the cross-street, screamed b.l.o.o.d.y murder at the pa.s.sers in that rather populous thoroughfare.
SCHoFiELD & WiLLiAMS NEW BIG SHoW RoDERiCK MAGSWoRTH BiTTS JR ONLY LiViNG NEPHEW oF RENA MAGSWORTH THE FAMOS MUDERESS GoiNG To BE HUNG NEXT JULY KiLED EiGHT PEOPLE PUT ARSiNECK iN THiER MiLK ALSO SHERMAN HERMAN AND VERMAN THE MiCHiGAN RATS DOG PART ALLiGATOR DUKE THE GENUiNE InDiAN DoG ADMISSioN 1 CENT oR 20 PINS SAME AS BEFORE Do NoT MISS THIS CHANSE TO SEE RoDERICK ONLY LiViNG NEPHEW oF RENA MAGSWORTH THE GREAT FAMOS MUDERESS GoiNG To BE HUNG
CHAPTER XVII RETIRING FROM THE SHOW-BUSINESS
Megaphones were constructed out of heavy wrapping-paper, and Penrod, Sam, and Herman set out in different directions, delivering vocally the inflammatory proclamation of the poster to a large section of the residential quarter, and leaving Roderick Magsworth Bitts, Junior, with Verman in the loft, shielded from all deadhead eyes. Upon the return of the heralds, the Schofield and Williams Military Band played deafeningly, and an awakened public once more thronged to fill the coffers of the firm.
Prosperity smiled again. The very first audience after the acquisition of Roderick was larger than the largest of the morning. Master Bitts--the only exhibit placed upon a box--was a supercurio. All eyes fastened upon him and remained, hungrily feasting, throughout Penrod"s luminous oration.
But the glory of one light must ever be the dimming of another. We dwell in a vale of seesaws--and cobwebs spin fastest upon laurel. Verman, the tattooed wild boy, speaking only in his native foreign languages, Verman the gay, Verman the caperer, capered no more; he chuckled no more, he beckoned no more, nor tapped his chest, nor wreathed his idolatrous face in smiles. Gone, all gone, were his little artifices for attracting the general attention to himself; gone was every engaging mannerism which had endeared him to the mercurial public. He squatted against the wall and glowered at the new sensation. It was the old story--the old, old story of too much temperament: Verman was suffering from artistic jealousy.
The second audience contained a cash-paying adult, a spectacled young man whose poignant attention was very flattering. He remained after the lecture, and put a few questions to Roddy, which were answered rather confusedly upon promptings from Penrod. The young man went away without having stated the object of his interrogations, but it became quite plain, later in the day. This same object caused the spectacled young man to make several brief but stimulating calls directly after leaving the Schofield and Williams Big Show, and the consequences thereof loitered not by the wayside.
The Big Show was at high tide. Not only was the auditorium filled and throbbing; there was an indubitable line--by no means wholly juvenile--waiting for admission to the next pufformance. A group stood in the street examining the poster earnestly as it glowed in the long, slanting rays of the westward sun, and people in automobiles and other vehicles had halted wheel in the street to read the message so piquantly given to the world. These were the conditions when a crested victoria arrived at a gallop, and a large, chastely magnificent and highly flushed woman descended, and progressed across the yard with an air of violence.
At sight of her, the adults of the waiting line hastily disappeared, and most of the pausing vehicles moved instantly on their way. She was followed by a stricken man in livery.
The stairs to the auditorium were narrow and steep; Mrs. Roderick Magsworth Bitts was of a stout favour; and the voice of Penrod was audible during the ascent.
"RE-MEM-BUR, gentilmun and lay-deeze, each and all are now gazing upon Roderick Magsworth Bitts, Junior, the only living nephew of the great Rena Magsworth. She stuck ars"nic in the milk of eight separate and distinck people to put in their coffee and each and all of "em died. The great ars"nic murderess, Rena Magsworth, gentilmun and lay-deeze, and Roddy"s her only living nephew. She"s a relation of all the Bitts family, but he"s her one and only living nephew. RE-MEM-BUR! Next July she"s goin" to be hung, and, each and all, you now see before you----"
Penrod paused abruptly, seeing something before himself--the august and awful presence which filled the entryway. And his words (it should be related) froze upon his lips.
Before HERSELF, Mrs. Roderick Magsworth Bitts saw her son--her scion--wearing a moustache and sideburns of blue, and perched upon a box flanked by Sherman and Verman, the Michigan rats, the Indian dog Duke, Herman, and the dog part alligator.
Roddy, also, saw something before himself. It needed no prophet to read the countenance of the dread apparition in the entryway. His mouth opened--remained open--then filled to capacity with a calamitous sound of grief not unmingled with apprehension.
Penrod"s reason staggered under the crisis. For a horrible moment he saw Mrs. Roderick Magsworth Bitts approaching like some fatal mountain in avalanche. She seemed to grow larger and redder; lightnings played about her head; he had a vague consciousness of the audience spraying out in flight, of the squealings, tramplings and dispersals of a stricken field. The mountain was close upon him----
He stood by the open mouth of the hay-chute which went through the floor to the manger below. Penrod also went through the floor. He propelled himself into the chute and shot down, but not quite to the manger, for Mr. Samuel Williams had thoughtfully stepped into the chute a moment in advance of his partner. Penrod lit upon Sam.
Catastrophic noises resounded in the loft; volcanoes seemed to romp upon the stairway.
There ensued a period when only a shrill keening marked the pa.s.sing of Roderick as he was borne to the tumbril. Then all was silence.
... Sunset, striking through a western window, rouged the walls of the Schofields" library, where gathered a joint family council and court martial of four--Mrs. Schofield, Mr. Schofield, and Mr. and Mrs.
Williams, parents of Samuel of that ilk. Mr. Williams read aloud a conspicuous pa.s.sage from the last edition of the evening paper:
"Prominent people here believed close relations of woman sentenced to hang. Angry denial by Mrs. R. Magsworth Bitts. Relationship admitted by younger member of family. His statement confirmed by boy-friends----"
"Don"t!" said Mrs. Williams, addressing her husband vehemently. "We"ve all read it a dozen times. We"ve got plenty of trouble on our hands without hearing THAT again!"
Singularly enough, Mrs. Williams did not look troubled; she looked as if she were trying to look troubled. Mrs. Schofield wore a similar expression. So did Mr. Schofield. So did Mr. Williams.
"What did she say when she called YOU up?" Mrs. Schofield inquired breathlessly of Mrs. Williams.
"She could hardly speak at first, and then when she did talk, she talked so fast I couldn"t understand most of it, and----"
"It was just the same when she tried to talk to me," said Mrs.
Schofield, nodding.
"I never did hear any one in such a state before," continued Mrs.
Williams. "So furious----"
"Quite justly, of course," said Mrs. Schofield.
"Of course. And she said Penrod and Sam had enticed Roderick away from home--usually he"s not allowed to go outside the yard except with his tutor or a servant--and had told him to say that horrible creature was his aunt----"
"How in the world do you suppose Sam and Penrod ever thought of such a thing as THAT!" exclaimed Mrs. Schofield. "It must have been made up just for their "show." Della says there were just STREAMS going in and out all day. Of course it wouldn"t have happened, but this was the day Margaret and I spend every month in the country with Aunt Sarah, and I didn"t DREAM----"
"She said one thing I thought rather tactless," interrupted Mrs.
Williams. "Of course we must allow for her being dreadfully excited and wrought up, but I do think it wasn"t quite delicate in her, and she"s usually the very soul of delicacy. She said that Roderick had NEVER been allowed to a.s.sociate with--common boys----"
"Meaning Sam and Penrod," said Mrs. Schofield. "Yes, she said that to me, too."
"She said that the most awful thing about it," Mrs. Williams went on, "was that, though she"s going to prosecute the newspapers, many people would always believe the story, and----"
"Yes, I imagine they will," said Mrs. Schofield musingly. "Of course you and I and everybody who really knows the Bitts and Magsworth families understand the perfect absurdity of it; but I suppose there are ever so many who"ll believe it, no matter what the Bittses and Magsworths say."
"Hundreds and hundreds!" said Mrs. Williams. "I"m afraid it will be a great come-down for them."
"I"m afraid so," said Mrs. Schofield gently. "A very great one--yes, a very, very great one."
"Well," observed Mrs. Williams, after a thoughtful pause, "there"s only one thing to be done, and I suppose it had better be done right away."
She glanced toward the two gentlemen.
"Certainly," Mr. Schofield agreed. "But where ARE they?"
"Have you looked in the stable?" asked his wife.
"I searched it. They"ve probably started for the far West."
"Did you look in the sawdust-box?"
"No, I didn"t."
"Then that"s where they are."