The Child Sir Lancelot found himself in a large anteroom behind the
stage--a room crowded with excited children, all about equally medieval
and artistic. Penrod was less conspicuous than he thought himself, but
he was so preoccupied with his own shame, steeling his nerves to meet
the first inevitable taunting reference to his sister's stockings,
that he failed to perceive there were others present in much of his own
unmanned condition. Retiring to a corner, immediately upon his entrance,
he managed to unfasten the mantle at the shoulders, and, drawing it
round him, pinned it again at his throat so that it concealed the rest
of his costume. This permitted a temporary relief, but increased his
horror of the moment when, in pursuance of the action of the “pageant,”
the sheltering garment must be cast aside.
Some of the other child knights were also keeping their mantles close
about them. A few of the envied opulent swung brilliant fabrics
from their shoulders, airily, showing off hired splendours from a
professional costumer's stock, while one or two were insulting examples
of parental indulgence, particularly little Maurice Levy, the Child Sir
Galahad. This shrinking person went clamorously about, making it known
everywhere that the best tailor in town had been dazzled by a great
sum into constructing his costume. It consisted of blue velvet
knickerbockers, a white satin waistcoat, and a beautifully cut little
swallow-tailed coat with pearl buttons. The medieval and artistic
triumph was completed by a mantle of yellow velvet, and little white
boots, sporting gold tassels.
All this radiance paused in a brilliant career and addressed the Child
Sir Lancelot, gathering an immediately formed semicircular audience of
little girls. Woman was ever the trailer of magnificence.
“What YOU got on?” inquired Mr. Levy, after dispensing information.
“What you got on under that ole golf cape?”
Penrod looked upon him coldly. At other times his questioner would have
approached him with deference, even with apprehension. But to-day the
Child Sir Galahad was somewhat intoxicated with the power of his own
beauty.
“What YOU got on?” he repeated.
“Oh, nothin',” said Penrod, with an indifference assumed at great cost
to his nervous system.
The elate Maurice was inspired to set up as a wit. “Then you're nakid!”
he shouted exultantly. “Penrod Schofield says he hasn't got nothin' on
under that ole golf cape! He's nakid! He's nakid.”
The indelicate little girls giggled delightedly, and a javelin pierced
the inwards of Penrod when he saw that the Child Elaine, amber-curled
and beautiful Marjorie Jones, lifted golden laughter to the horrid jest.
Other boys and girls came flocking to the uproar. “He's nakid, he's
nakid!” shrieked the Child Sir Galahad. “Penrod Schofield's nakid! He's
NA-A-A-KID!”
“Hush, hush!” said Mrs. Lora Rewbush, pushing her way into the group.
“Remember, we are all little knights and ladies to-day. Little knights
and ladies of the Table Round would not make so much noise. Now
children, we must begin to take our places on the stage. Is everybody
here?”
Penrod made his escape under cover of this diversion: he slid behind
Mrs. Lora Rewbush, and being near a door, opened it unnoticed and went
out quickly, closing it behind him. He found himself in a narrow and
vacant hallway which led to a door marked “Janitor's Room.”
Burning with outrage, heart-sick at the sweet, cold-blooded laughter
of Marjorie Jones, Penrod rested his elbows upon a window-sill and
speculated upon the effects of a leap from the second story. One of the
reasons he gave it up was his desire to live on Maurice Levy's account:
already he was forming educational plans for the Child Sir Galahad.
A stout man in blue overalls passed through the hallway muttering to
himself petulantly. “I reckon they'll find that hall hot enough NOW!” he
said, conveying to Penrod an impression that some too feminine women had
sent him upon an unreasonable errand to the furnace. He went into the
Janitor's Room and, emerging a moment later, minus the overalls, passed
Penrod again with a bass rumble--“Dern 'em!” it seemed he said--and
made a gloomy exit by the door at the upper end of the hallway.
The conglomerate and delicate rustle of a large, mannerly audience was
heard as the janitor opened and closed the door; and stage-fright
seized the boy. The orchestra began an overture, and, at that, Penrod,
trembling violently, tiptoed down the hall into the Janitor's Room. It
was a cul-de-sac: There was no outlet save by the way he had come.
Despairingly he doffed his mantle and looked down upon himself for
a last sickening assurance that the stockings were as obviously and
disgracefully Margaret's as they had seemed in the mirror at home. For a
moment he was encouraged: perhaps he was no worse than some of the
other boys. Then he noticed that a safety-pin had opened; one of those
connecting the stockings with his trunks. He sat down to fasten it
and his eye fell for the first time with particular attention upon the
trunks. Until this instant he had been preoccupied with the stockings.
Slowly recognition dawned in his eyes.
The Schofields' house stood on a corner at the intersection of two
main-travelled streets; the fence was low, and the publicity obtained by
the washable portion of the family apparel, on Mondays, had often been
painful to Penrod; for boys have a peculiar sensitiveness in these
matters. A plain, matter-of-fact washerwoman' employed by Mrs.
Schofield, never left anything to the imagination of the passer-by; and
of all her calm display the scarlet flaunting of his father's winter
wear had most abashed Penrod. One day Marjorie Jones, all gold and
starch, had passed when the dreadful things were on the line: Penrod had
hidden himself, shuddering. The whole town, he was convinced, knew these
garments intimately and derisively.
And now, as he sat in the janitor's chair, the horrible and paralyzing
recognition came. He had not an instant's doubt that every fellow actor,
as well as every soul in the audience, would recognize what his mother
and sister had put upon him. For as the awful truth became plain to
himself it seemed blazoned to the world; and far, far louder than the
stockings, the trunks did fairly bellow the grisly secret: WHOSE they
were and WHAT they were!
Most people have suffered in a dream the experience of finding
themselves very inadequately clad in the midst of a crowd of
well-dressed people, and such dreamers' sensations are comparable to
Penrod's, though faintly, because Penrod was awake and in much too full
possession of the most active capacities for anguish.
A human male whose dress has been damaged, or reveals some vital lack,
suffers from a hideous and shameful loneliness which makes every
second absolutely unbearable until he is again as others of his sex and
species; and there is no act or sin whatever too desperate for him in
his struggle to attain that condition. Also, there is absolutely no
embarrassment possible to a woman which is comparable to that of a man
under corresponding circumstances and in this a boy is a man. Gazing
upon the ghastly trunks, the stricken Penrod felt that he was a degree
worse then nude; and a great horror of himself filled his soul.
“Penrod Schofield!”
The door into the hallway opened, and a voice demanded him. He could not
be seen from the hallway, but the hue and the cry was up; and he knew
he must be taken. It was only a question of seconds. He huddled in his
chair.
“Penrod Schofield!” cried Mrs. Lora Rewbush angrily.
The distracted boy rose and, as he did so, a long pin sank deep into his
back. He extracted it frenziedly, which brought to his ears a protracted
and sonorous ripping, too easily located by a final gesture of horror.
“Penrod Schofield!” Mrs. Lora Rewbush had come out into the hallway.
And now, in this extremity, when all seemed lost indeed, particularly
including honour, the dilating eye of the outlaw fell upon the blue
overalls which the janitor had left hanging upon a peg.
Inspiration and action were almost simultaneous.