Page:Penrod by Booth Tarkington (1914).djvu/219

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BROTHERS OF ANGELS
205

neighbourhood—far away! For a while I don't think it would be actually safe for——"

"Margaret, will you please——"

"It's all on account of that dollar you gave Penrod this morning," she wailed. "First, he bought that horrible concertina that made papa so furious——"

"But Penrod didn't tell that I——"

"Oh, wait!" she cried lamentably. "Listen! He didn't tell at lunch, but he got home about dinner-time in the most——well! I've seen pale people before, but nothing like Penrod. Nobody could imagine it—not unless they'd seen him! And he looked so strange, and kept making such unnatural faces, and at first all he would say was that he'd eaten a little piece of apple and thought it must have had some microbes on it. But he got sicker and sicker, and we put him to bed—and then we all thought he was going to die—and, of course, no little piece of apple would have—well, and he kept getting worse—and then he said he'd had a dollar. He said he'd spent it for the concertina, and watermelon, and chocolate-creams, and licorice sticks, and lemon-drops, and peanuts, and jaw-breakers, and sardines, and raspberry lemonade, and pickles, and popcorn, and ice-cream, and cider,