Carlie rushed to prevent the execution of this project; but he slipped and went swishing full length along the floor, creating a little surf before him as he slid, to the demoniac happiness of Sam and Maurice. They closed the door, however, and, as other boys rushed, shouting and splashing, into the flooded dressing-room, Carlie began to hammer upon the panels. Then the owners of shoes, striving to rescue them from the increasing waters, made discoveries.
The most dangerous time to give a large children's party is when there has not been one for a long period. The Rennsdale party had that misfortune, and its climax was the complete and convulsive madness of the gentlemen's dressing-room during those final moments supposed to be given to quiet preparations, on the part of guests, for departure.
In the upper hall and upon the stairway, panic-stricken little girls listened, wild-eyed, to the uproar that went on, while waiters and maid servants rushed with pails and towels into what was essentially the worst ward in Bedlam. Boys who had behaved properly all afternoon now gave way and joined the confraternity of lunatics. The floors of the house shook to tramplings, rushes, wrestlings, falls and collisions. The walls resounded to chorused bellowings and roars. There were pipings of pain and pipings of joy; there was whistling to pierce the drums of ears; there were hootings and howlings and bleatings and screechings, while over all bleated the heathen battle-cry incessantly: "GOTCHER BUMPUS! GOTCHER BUMPUS!" For the boys had been inspired by the unusual water to transform Penrod's game of "Gotcher bumpus" into an aquatic sport, and to induce one another, by means of superior force, dexterity, or stratagems, either to sit or to lie at full length in the flood, after the example of Carlie Chitten.
One of the aunts Rennsdale had taken what charge she could of the deafened and distracted maids and waiters who were working to stem the tide, while the other of the aunts Rennsdale stood with her niece and Miss Lowe at the foot of the stairs, trying to say good-night reassuringly to those of the terrified little girls who were able to tear themselves away. This latter aunt Rennsdale marked a dripping figure that came unobtrusively, and yet in a self-contained and gentlemanly manner, down the stairs.
"Carlie Chitten!" she cried. "You poor dear child, you're soaking! To think those outrageous little fiends wouldn't even spare YOU!" As she spoke, another departing male guest came from behind Carlie and placed in her hand a snakelike article--a thing that Miss Lowe seized and concealed with one sweeping gesture.
"It's some false hair somebody must of put in my overcoat pocket," said Roderick Magsworth Bitts. "Well, 'g-night. Thank you for a very nice time."
"Good-night, Miss Rennsdale," said Master Chitten demurely.
"Thank you for a--"
But Miss Rennsdale detained him. "Carrie," she said earnestly, "you're a dear boy, and I know you'll tell me something. It was all Penrod Schofield, wasn't it?"
"You mean he left the--"
"I mean," she said, in a low tone, not altogether devoid of ferocity. "I mean it was Penrod who left the faucets running, and Penrod who tied the boys' shoes together, and filled some of them with soap and mucilage, and put Miss Lowe's hair in Roddy Bitts's overcoat. No; look me in the eye, Carlie! They were all shouting that silly thing he started. Didn't he do it?"
Carlie cast down thoughtful eyes. "I wouldn't like to tell, Miss Rennsdale," he said. "I guess I better be going or I'll catch cold. Thank you for a very nice time."
"There!" said Miss Rennsdale vehemently, as Carlie went on his way. "What did I tell you? Carlie Chitten's too manly to say it, but I just KNOW it was that terrible Penrod Schofield."
Behind her, a low voice, unheard by all except the person to whom it spoke, repeated a part of this speech: "What did I tell you?"
This voice belonged to one Penrod Schofield.
Penrod and Marjorie had descended by another stairway, and he now considered it wiser to pass to the rear of the little party at the foot of the stairs. As he was still in his pumps, his choked shoes occupying his overcoat pockets, he experienced no difficulty in reaching the front door, and getting out of it unobserved, although the noise upstairs was greatly abated.
Marjorie, however, made her curtseys and farewells in a creditable manner.
"There!" Penrod said again, when she rejoined him in the darkness outside. "What did I tell you? Didn't I say I'd get the blame of it, no matter if the house went and fell down? I s'pose they think I put mucilage and soap in my own shoes."
Marjorie delayed at the gate until some eagerly talking little girls had passed out. The name "Penrod Schofield" was thick and scandalous among them.
"Well," said Marjorie, "_I_ wouldn't care, Penrod. 'Course, about soap and mucilage in YOUR shoes, anybody'd know some other boy must of put 'em there to get even for what you put in his."
Penrod gasped.
"But I DIDN'T!" he cried. "I didn't do ANYTHING! That ole Miss Rennsdale can say what she wants to, I didn't do--"
"Well, anyway, Penrod," said MarJorie, softly, "they can't ever PROVE it was you."
He felt himself suffocating in a coil against which no struggle availed.
"But I never DID it!" he wailed, helplessly. "I never did anything at all!"
She leaned toward him a little, and the lights from her waiting carriage illumined her dimly, but enough for him to see that her look was fond and proud, yet almost awed.
"Anyway, Penrod," she whispered, "_I_ don't believe there's any other boy in the whole world could of done HALF as much!"
And with that, she left him, and ran out to the carriage.
But Penrod remained by the gate to wait for Sam, and the burden of his sorrows was beginning to lift. In fact, he felt a great deal better, in spite of his having just discovered why Marjorie loved him.
