Page:Penrod by Booth Tarkington (1914).djvu/85

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CHAPTER X

UNCLE JOHN

MISS SPENCE gasped. So did the pupils. The whole room filled with a swelling, conglomerate "O-o-o-o-h!"

As for Penrod himself, the walls reeled with the shock. He sat with his mouth open, a mere lump of stupefaction. For the appalling words that he had hurled at the teacher were as inexplicable to him as to any other who heard them.

Nothing is more treacherous than the human mind; nothing else so loves to play the Iscariot. Even when patiently bullied into a semblance of order and

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