# The Horn of Fame

Extracted from Cosmopolitan, Oct 1916, pp. 44–48, 106, 108, 110. Accompanying illustrations may be omitted. A “Penrod” story.
Penrod fell into step and accompanied the musicians down the street, keeping as close as possible to the little man with the big horn
The Horn of Fame
Penrod Buys An Antique
He staggered to the wheelbarrow, sat, and blew—and yet the funnel uttered nothing
ONE day, a new ambition entered into Penrod Schofield; it was heralded by a flourish of trumpets and set up a great noise within his being.
On his way home from Sunday-school, he had paused at a corner to listen to a brass band, which was returning from a funeral, playing a medley of airs from “The Merry Widow,” and, as the musicians came down the street, walking so gracefully, the sun picked out the gold braid upon their uniforms and splashed fire from their polished instruments. Penrod marked the shapes of the great bass horns, the suave sculpture of their brazen coils, and the grand, sensational flare of their mouths. And he saw plainly that these noble things, to be mastered, needed no more than some breath blown into them during the fingering of a few simple keys. Then obediently they gave forth those vast but dulcet sounds which stirred his spirit as no other sounds could stir it quite.
The leader of the band, walking ahead, was a pleasing figure, nothing more. Penrod supposed him to be a mere decoration, and had never sympathized with Sam Williams deep feeling about drum-majors. The cornets, the trombones, the smaller horns were rather interesting, of course, and the drums had charm, especially the bass drum, which must be partially supported by a youth in front; but, immeasurably above all these, what fascinated Penrod was the little man with the monster horn. There Penrod's widening eyes remained transfixed upon the horn so dazzling, with its broad spaces of brassy high lights, and so overwhelming, with its mouth as wide as a tub, that there was something almost threatening about it.
The little elderly band-musician walked manfully as he blew his great horn; and, in that pompous engine of sound, the boy beheld a spectacle of huge forces under human control. To Penrod, the horn meant power, and the musician meant mastery over power, though, of course, Penrod did not know that this was how he really felt about the matter.
Grandiloquent sketches were passing and interchanging before his mind's eye—Penrod, in proud raiment, marching down the staring street, his shoulders swaying professionally, the roar of the horn he bore submerging all other sounds; Penrod on horseback, blowing the enormous horn, and leading wild hordes to battle, while Marjorie Jones looked on from the sidewalk; Penrod astounding his mother and father and sister by suddenly serenading them in the library. “Why, Penrod, where did you learn to play like this?”
These were vague and shimmering glories of vision rather than definite plans for his life-work, yet he did, with all his will, determine to own and play upon some roaring instrument of brass. And, after all, this was no new desire of his; it was only an old one inflamed to take a new form. Nor was music the root of it, for the identical desire is often uproarious among them that hate music. What stirred in Penrod was new neither in him nor in the world, but old—old as old Adam, old as the childishness of man. All children have it, of course; they are all anxious to Make a Noise in the World.
While the band approached, Penrod marked the time with his feet; then he fell into step and accompanied the musicians down the street, keeping as near as possible to the little man with the big horn. There were four or five other boys, strangers, also marching with the band, but these were light spirits, their flushed faces and prancing legs proving that they were merely in a state of emotional reaction to music. Penrod, on the contrary, was grave. He kept his eyes upon the big horn, and, now and then, he gave an imitation of it. His fingers moved upon invisible keys near the median line of his abdomen; his cheeks puffed out, and, from far down in his throat, he produced strange sounds: “Taw-p'taw-p'taw! Taw-p'taw-p'taw! PAW!”
The other boys turned back when the musicians ceased to play, but Penrod marched on, still keeping close to what so inspired him. He stayed with the band till the last member of it disappeared up a staircase in an office-building down at the business-end of the street, and, even after that, he lingered a while, looking at the staircase.
Finally, however, he set his face toward home, whither he marched in a procession, the visible part of which consisted of himself alone. All the way, the rhythmic movements of his head kept time with his marching feet and, also, with a slight rise and fall of his fingers at about the median line of his abdomen. And pedestrians who encountered him in this preoccupation were not surprised to hear, as he passed, a few explosive little vocalizations: “Taw-p'taw-p'taw! TAW! Taw-aw-HAW!”
These were the outward symptoms of no fleeting impulse but of steadfast desire; therefore they were persistent. The likeness of the great bass horn remained upon the retina of his mind's eye, losing nothing of its brazen enormity with the passing of hours, nor abating, in his mind's ear, one whit of its fascinating blatancy. Penrod might have forgotten almost anything else more readily; for such a horn has this double compulsion: people can not possibly keep themselves from looking at its possessor—and they certainly have GOT to listen to him!
Penrod was preoccupied at dinner and during the evening, now and then causing his father some irritation by croaking, “Taw-p'taw-p'taw!” while the latter was talking. And when bedtime came for the son of the house, he mounted the stairs in a rhythmic manner, and p'tawed himself through the upper hall as far as his own chamber.
Even after he had gone to bed, there came a revival of these manifestations. His mother had put out his light for him and had returned to the library down-stairs; three-quarters of an hour had elapsed since then, and Penrod's sister Margaret was in her room, next to his, when a continuous low croaking (which she was just able to bear) suddenly broke out into loud, triumphal blattings:
“TAW-p'taw-p'taw-aw-HAW! P'taw-WAW-aw! Aw-PAW!”
“Penrod,” Margaret called, “stop that! I'm trying to write letters. If you don't quit and go to sleep, I'll call papa up, and you'll see!”
The noise ceased, or, rather, it tapered down to a desultory faint croaking which finally died out; but there can be little doubt that Penrod's last waking thoughts were of instrumental music. And in the morning, when he woke to face the gloomy days scholastic tasks, something unusual and eager dawned in his face with the return of memory. “Taw-p'taw!” he began. “PAW!”
All day, in school and out, his mind was busy with computations—not such as are prescribed by mathematical pedants but estimates of how much old rags and old iron would sell for enough money to buy a horn. Happily, the next day, at lunch, he was able to dismiss this problem from his mind—he learned that his uncle Joe would be passing through town on his way from Nevada the following afternoon, and all the Schofield family were to go to the station to see him. Penrod would be excused from school.
At this news, his cheeks became pink, and, for a moment, he was breathless. Uncle Joe and Penrod did not meet often, but when they did, uncle Joe invariably gave Penrod money. Moreover, he always managed to do it privately, so that, later, there was no bothersome supervision. Last time, he had given Penrod a silver dollar.
At thirty-five minutes after two, Wednesday afternoon, uncle Joe's train came into the station, and uncle Joe got out and shouted among his relatives. At eighteen minutes of three, he was waving to them from the platform of the last car, having just slipped a two-dollar bill into Penrod's breast-pocket. And at seven minutes after three, Penrod opened the door of the largest “music store” in town.
A tall, exquisite, fair man, evidently a musical earl, stood before him, leaning whimsically upon a counter. The sight abashed Penrod not a bit—his remarkable financial condition even made him rather peremptory.
“See here,” he said brusquely: “I want to look at that big horn in the window.”
“Very well,” said the earl; “look at it.” And he leaned more luxuriously upon the counter.
“I meant—” Penrod began, but paused, somewhat daunted, while an unnamed fear brought greater mildness into his voice as he continued, “I meant—I—how much is that big horn?”
“How much?” the earl repeated.
“I mean,” said Penrod, “how much is it worth?”
“I don't know,” the earl returned. “Its price is eighty-five dollars.”
“See here,” he said brusquely: “I want to look at that big horn in the window.” “Very well,” said the earl; “look at it”
“Eighty-fi——” Penrod began mechanically, but was forced to pause and swallow a little air that obstructed his throat as the difference between eighty-five and two became more and more startling. He had entered the store rich; in the last ten seconds he had become poverty-stricken. Eighty-five dollars was the same as eighty-five millions.
“Shall I put it aside for you,” asked the salesman-earl, “while you look around the other stores to see if there's anything you like better?”
Penrod managed to secure it. With one hand free he fended the others off while he blew into the mouthpiece
“I guess—I guess not,” said Penrod, whose face had grown red. He swallowed again, scraped the floor with the side of his right shoe, scratched the back of his neck, and then, trying to make his manner casual and easy,
“Well, I can't stand around here all day,” he said. “I got to be gettin' on up the street.”
“Business, I suppose?”
Penrod, turning to the door, suspected jocularity, but he found himself without resource; he was nonplused.
“Sure you wont let me have that horn tied up in wrapping-paper in case you decide to take it?”
Penrod was almost positive that the spirit of this question was satirical, but he was unable to reply except by a feeble shake of the head—though, ten minutes later, as he plodded forlornly his homeward way, he looked over his shoulder and sent backward a few words of morose repartee.
“Oh, I am, am I?” he muttered, evidently concluding a conversation which he had continued mentally with the salesman. “Well, you're double anything you call me; so that makes you a smart Aleck twice! Ole double-smart Aleck!”
After that, he walked with the least bit more briskness, but not much. No wonder he felt discouraged; there are times when eighty-five dollars can be a blow to anybody. Penrod was so stunned that he actually forgot what was in his pocket. He passed two drug stores, and they had absolutely no meaning to him. He walked all the way without spending a cent.
At home, he spent a moment in the kitchen pantry while the cook was in the cellar; then he went out to the stable and began some really pathetic experiments. His materials were the small tin funnel which he had obtained in the pantry, and a short section of old garden hose. He inserted the funnel into one end of the garden hose, and made it fast by wrappings of cord. Then he arranged the hose in a double, circular coil, tied it so that it would remain coiled, and blew into the other end.
He blew and blew and blew; he set his lips tight together, as he had observed the little musician with the big horn set his, and blew and sputtered, and sputtered and blew—but nothing of the slightest importance happened in the orifice of the funnel. Still he blew. He began to be dizzy; his eyes watered; his expression became as horrible as a strangled persons. He but blew the more. He stamped his feet and blew. He staggered to the wheelbarrow, sat, and blew—and yet the funnel uttered nothing; it seemed merely to breathe hard.
It would not sound like a horn, and, when Penrod finally gave up, he had to admit piteously that it did not look like a horn. No boy over nine could have pretended that it was a horn.
He tossed the thing upon the floor, and leaned back in the wheelbarrow, inert.
“Yay, Penrod!”
Comrade Sam Williams appeared in the doorway, and, behind Sam, Master Roderick Magsworth Bitts, Junior, a fat lad and well-to-do.
“Yay, there!”
Penrod made no response. The two came in, and Sam picked up the poor contrivance Penrod had tossed upon the floor.
“Whats this ole dingus?” Sam asked.
The fact that the diameter of the opening into the cistern was one inch less than the diameter of the coil of Louis the Fifteenth's hunting- horn was all that had saved Louis the Fifteenth's hunting-horn from intentional drowning
“Nothin.”
“Well, what's it for?”
“Nothin',” said Penrod.
“What kind?”
“For music,” said Penrod simply.
Master Bitts laughed long and loud; he was derisive.
“Music!” he yipped. “I thought you meant a cow's horn! He says it's a music-horn, Sam—what you think o' that?”
Sam blew into the thing industriously.
“It won't work,” he announced.
“Course it won't!” Roddy Bitts shouted. “You can't make it go without you got a real horn. I'm goin' to get me a real horn some day before long, and then you'll see me goin' up and down here, playin' it like sixty. I'll——
“'Some day before long!'” Sam mocked. “Yes, we will! Why'n't you get it to-day, if you're goin' to?”
“I would,” said Roddy. “I'd go get the money from my father right now, only he wouldn't give it to me.”
Sam whooped, and Penrod, in spite of his great depression, uttered a few jibing sounds.
“I'd get my father to buy me a fire-engine and team o' horses,” Sam bellowed, “only he wouldn't!”
“Listen, can't you?” cried Roddy. “I mean he would most any time, but not this month. I can't have any money for a month beginning last Saturday, because I got paint on one of our dogs, and he came in the house with it on him and got some on pretty near everything. If it hadn't a been for that——”
“Oh, yes!” said Sam. “'If it hadn't 'a' been for that. It's always sumpthing!”
“It is not!”
“Well, then, why'n't you go get a real horn?”
Roddy's face had flushed with irritation.
“Well, didn't I just tell you—” he began, but paused, while the renewal of some interesting recollection became visible in his expression. “Why, I could, if I wanted to,” he said more calmly. “It wouldn't be a new one, maybe. I guess it would be kind of an old one, but——”
“Oh, a toy horn!” said Sam. “I expect one you had when you were three years old, and your mother stuck it up in the attic to keep till you're dead or sumpthing!”
“It's not either any toy horn,” Roddy insisted; “it's a reg'lar horn for a band, and I could have it as easy as anything.”
The tone of this declaration was so sincere that it roused the lethargic Penrod.
“Roddy, is that true?” he sat up to inquire piercingly.
“Of course it is!” Master Bitts returned. “What you take me for? I could go get that horn this minute if I wanted to.”
“A real one—honest?”
“Well, didn't I say it was a real one?”
“Like in the band?”
“I said so, didn't I?”
“I guess you mean one of those little ones,” said Penrod.
“No, sir,” Roddy insisted stoutly; “it's a big one! It winds around in a big circle that would go all the way around a pretty fat man.”
“What store is it in?”
“It's not in any store, said Roddy. “It's at my uncle Ethelbert's. He's got this horn and three or four pianos and a couple o' harps and——”
“Does he keep a music store?”
“No. These harps and pianos and all such are old ones—awful old.”
“Oh,” said Sam, “he runs a second-hand store!”
“He does not!? Master Bitts returned angrily. “He doesn't do anything. He's just got 'em. He's got forty-one guitars!
“Yay!” Sam whooped, and jumped up. “Listen to Roddy Bitts makin' up lies!”
“You look out, Sam Williams!” said Roddy threateningly. “You look out how you call me names!”
“What name'd I call you?”
“You just the same as said I told lies. Thats just as good as callin' me a liar, isn't it?”
“No,” said Sam; “but I got a right to, if I want to. Haven't I, Penrod?”
“How?” Roddy demanded hotly. “How you got a right to?”
“Because you can't prove what you said.”
“Well,” said Roddy, “you'd be just as much of one if you cant prove what I said wasn't true.”
“No, sir! You either got to prove it or be a liar. Isn't that so, Penrod?”
“Yes, sir,” Penrod ruled; “that's the way it is, Roddy.”
“Well, then,” said Roddy, “come on over to my uncle Ethelbert's and I'll show you.”
“No,” said Sam; “I wouldn't walk over there just to find out sumpthing I already know isn't so. Outside of a music store, there isn't anybody in the world got forty-one guitars. I've heard lots o' people talk, but I never heard such a big l——”
“You shut up!” shouted Roddy. “You ole—” Penrod interposed.
“Why'n't you show us the horn, Roddy?” he asked. “You said you could get it. You show us the horn and we'll believe you. If you show us the horn, Sam'll haf to take it back—won't you, Sam?”
“Yes,” said Sam, and added: “He hasn't got any. He went and told a——”
Roddy's eyes were bright with rage.
“I haven't!” he cried. “You just wait here, and I'll show you!” And he ran furiously from the stable.
“Bet he won't come back,” said Sam.
“Well, he might, Penrod said more hopefully.
“Well, if he does and he hasn't got any horn, I got a right to call him anything I want to, and he's got to stand it. And if he doesn't come back, then I got a right to call him whatever I like next time I ketch him out.”
“I expect he'll have some kind of ole horn, maybe,” said Penrod.
“No,” the skeptical Sam insisted, “he won't.
But Roddy did. Twenty minutes elapsed, and both the waiting boys had decided that they were legally entitled to call him whatever they thought fitting, when he burst in, puffing; and in his hands he bore a horn. It was a “real one, and of a kind that neither Penrod nor Sam had ever seen before, though they failed to realize this, because its shape was instantly familiar to them. No horn could have been simpler. It consisted merely of one circular coil of brass with a mouthpiece at one end for the musician, and a wide-flaring mouth of its own, for the noise, at the other. But it was obviously a second-hand horn; dents slightly marred it here and there, and its surface was dull, rather greenish. There were no keys, and a badly faded green cord and tassel hung from the coil. Even so shabby a horn as this electrified Penrod. It was not a stupendous horn, but it was a horn; and when a boy has been sighing for the moon, a piece of green cheese will satisfy him, for he can play that it is the moon.
“Gimme that horn!” Penrod shouted, as he dashed for it.
“Yay!” Sam cried, and sought to wrest it from him. Roddy joined in the scuffle, trying to retain the horn, but Penrod managed to secure it. With one free hand he fended the others off while he blew into the mouthpiece.
“Let me have it!” Sam urged. “You can't do anything with it. Lemme take it, Penrod!”
“No!” said Roddy. “Let me! My goodness! Ain't I got any right to blow my own horn?”
They pressed upon Penrod, who frantically fended and frantically blew. At last he remembered to compress his lips and force the air through the compression.
A magnificent snort from the proper end of the horn was his reward. He removed his lips from the mouthpiece and capered in pride.
“Hah!” he cried. “Hear that? I guess I can't play this good ole horn! Oh, no!”
During his capers, Sam captured the horn. But Sam had not made the best of his opportunities as an observer of bands. He thrust the mouthpiece deep into his mouth, and blew until his expression became one of agony.
“No, no!” Penrod exclaimed. “You haven't got the secret of blowin' a horn, Sam. It ain't makin' a sound. You lemme have that good ole horn back, Sam. Haven't you got sense enough to see I know how to play?”
Laying hands upon it, he jerked it away from Sam, who was a little piqued over the failure of his own efforts, especially as Penrod now produced a sonorous blat—quite a long one. Sam became cross.
“My goodness,” Roddy Bitts said peevishly, “ain't I ever goin' to get a turn at my own horn? You've had two turns, Penrod, and even Sam——”
Sam's petulance at once directed itself toward Roddy, partly because of the latter's tactless use of the word “even,” and the two engaged in controversy, while Penrod was left free to continue the experiments which so enraptured him.
“Your own horn!” Sam sneered. “I bet it isn't yours! Anyway, you can't prove it's yours, and that gives me a right to call you any——”
“You better not! It is, too, mine! just the same as mine!”
“No, sir,” said Sam; “I bet you got to take it back where you got it, and that's not anything like the same as yours; so I got a perfect right to call you whatev——”
“I do not haf to take it back where I got it, either!” Roddy cried.
“I bet they told you to bring it back,” said Sam tauntingly.
“They didn't, either! There wasn't anybody there.”
“Yay! Then you got to get it back before they know it's gone.”
“I don't either any such thing! I heard my uncle Ethelbert say Sunday he didn't want it. He said he wished somebody'd take that horn off his hands so's he could buy sumpthing else. Thats just exactly what he said. I heard him tell my mother. Well, when my own uncle says he wants to give a horn away, and he wishes he could get rid of it, I guess its just the same as mine, soon as I go and take it, isn't it?”
Sam was shaken, but he had set out to demonstrate those rights of his and did not mean to yield them.
“Yes; you'll have a nice time,” he said, “next time your uncle goes to play on that horn and can't find it. No, sir; I got a perfect ri——”
“My uncle don't play on it!” Roddy shrieked. “It's an ole wore-out horn nobody wants, and it's mine, I tell you! I can blow on it, or bust it, or kick it out in the alley and leave it there, if I want to!”
“No, you cant!”
Roddy stamped his foot.
“I can, too!” he shrieked. “You ole durn jackass, I can, too! I can, can, can, can——”
Penrod suddenly stopped his intermittent production of blats, and interposed.
“I know how you can prove it, Roddy,” he said, briskly. “Theres one way anybody can always prove sumpthing belongs to them, so that nobody'd have a right to call them what they wanted to. You can prove it's yours easy!”
“How?”
“Well,” said Penrod, “if you give it away.”
“What you mean?”
“Well, look here,” Penrod began brightly: “You can't give anything away that doesn't belong to you, can you?”
“No.”
“So then,” the resourceful boy continued, “f'r instance, if you give this ole horn to me, that'd prove it was yours, and Sam'd haf to say it was, and he wouldn't have any right to——”
“I won't do it,” said Roddy sourly. “I don't want to give you that horn. What I want to give you anything at all for?”
Penrod sighed, as if the task of reaching Roddy's mind with reason were too heavy for him.
“Well, if you don't want to prove it, and rather let us have the right to call you anything we want to—well, all right, then,” he said.
“You look out what you call me!” Roddy cried, only the more incensed, in spite of the pains Penrod was taking with him. “I don't haf to prove it. It's mine!”
“What kind o proof is that?” Sam Williams demanded severely. “You got to prove it, and you can't do it!”
Roddy began a reply, but his agitation was so great that what he said had not attained coherency when Penrod again intervened. He had just remembered something important.
“Oh, I know, Roddy!” he exclaimed. “If you sell it, that'd prove it was yours almost as good as givin' it away. What'll you take for it?”
“I don't want to sell it,” said Roddy sulkily.
“Yay! Yay! YAY!” shouted the taunting Sam Williams, whose every word and sound had now become almost unbearable to Master Bitts. Sam was usually so good-natured that the only explanation of his conduct must lie in the fact that Roddy constitutionally got on his nerves. “He knows he can't prove it! He's a goner, and now we can begin callin' him anything we can think of! I choose to call him one first, Penrod. Roddy, you're a——”
“Wait!” shouted Penrod, for he really believed Roddy's claims to be both moral and legal. When an uncle who does not even play upon an old second-hand horn wishes to get rid of that horn, and even complains of having it on his hands, it seems reasonable to consider that the horn becomes the property of a nephew who has gone to the trouble of carrying the undesired thing out of the house.
Penrod determined to deal fairly. The difference between this horn and the one in the music-store window seemed to him just about the difference between two and eighty-five. He drew forth the green bill from his pocket.
“Roddy,” he said, “I'll give you two dollars for that horn.”
Sam Williams mouth fell open; he was silenced indeed—but for a moment. The confused and badgered Roddy was incredulous; he had not dreamed that Penrod possessed such a sum.
“Lemme take a look at that money,” he said.
If at first there had been in Roddy's mind a little doubt about his present rights of ownership, he had talked himself out of it. Also, his financial supplies for the month were cut off on account of the careless dog. Finally, he thought that the horn was worth about fifty cents.
“I'll do it, Penrod!” he said, with decision. Thereupon Penrod shouted aloud, prancing up and down the carriage-house with the horn. Roddy was happy, too, and mingled his voice with Penrod's.
“Hi! hi! hi!” shouted Roddy Bitts. “I'm goin' to buy me an air-gun down at Fox's hardware store!”
And he departed, galloping.
He returned the following afternoon. School was over, and Penrod and Sam were again in the stable. Penrod was “practicing” upon the horn, with Sam for an unenthusiastic spectator and auditor. Master Bitts' brow was heavy; he looked uneasy.
“Penrod,” he began, “I got to——”
Penrod removed the horn briefly from his lips.
“Don't come bangin' around here and interrup' me all the time,” he said severely. “I got to practise.” And he again pressed the mouthpiece to his lips.
“Look here, Penrod,” said Roddy: “I got to have that horn back.”
Penrod lowered the horn quickly enough.
“What you talkin' about?” he demanded. “What you want to come bangin' around here for and——”
“I came around here for that horn,” Master Bitts returned, and his manner was both dogged and apprehensive, the apprehension being more prevalent when he looked at Sam. “I got to have that horn.”
Sam, who had been sitting in the wheel-barrow, jumped up and began to dance triumphantly.
“Yay! It wasn't his, after all! Roddy Bitts told a big l——”
“I never, either!” Roddy almost wailed.
“Well, what you want the horn back for?” the terrible Sam demanded.
“Well, 'cause I want it. I got a right to want it if I want to, haven't I?”
Penrod's face had flushed with indignation.
“You look here, Sam,” he began hotly: “Didn't you hear Roddy say this was his horn?”
“He said it,” Sam declared. “He said it a million times.”
“Well, and didn't he sell this horn to me?”
“Yes, sir!”
“Didn't I pay him money for it?”
“Two dollars.”
“Well, and ain't it my horn now?”
“I bet you!”
“Yes, sir!” Penrod went on with vigor. “It's my horn now, whether it belonged to you or not, Roddy, because you sold it to me and I paid my good ole money for it. I guess a thing belongs to the person that paid their own money for it, doesn't it? I don't haf to give up my own propaty, even if you did come on over here and told a us big l——”
“I never!” shouted Roddy. “It was my horn, too, and I didn't tell any such a thing!” He paused, then, reverting to his former manner, said stubbornly: “I got to have that horn back. I got to!”
“Why'n't you tell us what for, then?” Sam insisted. Roddy's glance at this persecutor was one of anguish.
“I know my own biznuss,” he muttered.
And, while Sam jeered, Roddy turned to Penrod desperately.
“You gimme that horn back! I got to have it!”
But Penrod followed Sam's lead.
“Well, why can't you tell us what for?” he asked.
Perhaps if Sam had not been there, Roddy could have unbosomed himself. He had no doubt of his own virtue in this affair, and he was conscious that he had acted in good faith throughout—though, perhaps, a little impulsively. But he was in a predicament, and he knew that, if he became more explicit, Sam could establish with undeniable logic those rights about which he had been so odious the day before. Such triumph for Sam was not within Roddy's power to contemplate; he felt that he would rather die, or sumpthing.
“I got to have that horn!” he reiterated.
Penrod had no intention to humor this preposterous boy, and it was only out of curiosity that he asked,
“Well, if you want the horn back, where's the two dollars?”
“I spent it. I bought an air-gun for a dollar and sixty-five cents, and three sodies and some candy with the rest. I owe you the two dollars, Penrod. I'm willing to do that much.”
“Well, why don't you give him the air-gun,” asked the satirical Sam, “and owe him the rest?”
“I can't. Papa took the air-gun away from me because he didn't like sumpthing I did with it. I got to owe you the whole two dollars, Penrod.”
“Look here, Roddy,” said Penrod: “Don't you s'pose I'd rather keep this horn and blow on it than have you owe me two dollars?”
There was something about this simple question which convinced Roddy that his cause was lost. His hopes had been but faint from the beginning of the interview.
“Well—” said Roddy. For a time he scuffed the floor with his 'shoe. “Daw gone it!” he said, at last, and he departed morbidly.
Penrod had already begun to “practise” again, and Mr. Williams, after vain appeals to be permitted to practise in turn, sank into the wheelbarrow in a state of ennui, not remarkable under the circumstances. Then Penrod contrived—it may have been accidental—to produce at one blast two tones which varied in pitch.
“Listen, Sam!” he shouted. “How's that for high?”
The bored Sam made no response other than to rise languidly to his feet, stretch. and start for home. Left alone, Penrod's practise became less arduous; he needed the stimulus of an auditor. With the horn upon his lap he began to rub the greenish brass surface with a rag. He meant to make this good old two-dollar horn of his look like something. Presently, moved by a better idea, he left the horn in the stable and went into the house, soon afterward appearing before his mother in the library.
“Mamma,” he said, complainingly. “Della won't——”
But Mrs. Schofield checked him.
“Sh, Penrod; your father's reading the paper.” Penrod glanced at Mr. Schofield, who sat near the window, reading by the last light of the early sunset.
“Well, I know it,” said Penrod, lowering his voice. “But I wish you'd tell Della to let me have the silver-polish——”
“Be quiet, Penrod, you can't have the silver-polish.”
“But, mamma——”
“Not another word. Can't you see you're interrupting your father? Go on, papa.” Mr. Schofield read aloud several despatches from abroad, and after each one of them Penrod began, in a low but pleading tone,
“Mamma, I want——
“Sh, Penrod!”
Mr. Schofield continued to read, and Penrod remained in the room, for he was determined to have the silver-polish.
“Heres something curious,” said Mr. Schofield, as his eye fell upon a paragraph among the “locals.”
“What?”
    “Valuable relic missing, Mr. Schofield read. It was reported at police headquarters to-day that a valuable object had been stolen from the collection of antique musical instruments owned by E. Magsworth Bitts, 724 Central Avenue. The police insist that it must have been an inside job, but Mr. Magsworth Bitts inclines to think it was the work of a negro, as only one article was removed and nothing else found to be disturbed. The object stolen was an ancient bunting-horn, dating from the eighteenth century and claimed to have belonged to Louis XV, King of France. It was valued at about twelve hundred and fifty dollars.”
Mrs. Schofield opened her mouth wide,
“Why, that is curious!” she exclaimed. She jumped up. “Penrod!”
But Penrod was no longer in the room.
“Whats the matter?” Mr. Schofield inquired.
“Penrod!” said Mrs. Schofield breathlessly. “He bought an old horn—like one in old hunting-pictures—yesterday! He bought it with some money uncle Joe gave him! He bought it from Roddy Bitts!”
“Where'd he go?”
Together they rushed to the back porch.
Penrod had removed the lid of the cistern; he was kneeling beside it, and the fact that the diameter of the opening into the cistern was one inch less than the diameter of the coil of Louis the Fifteenths hunting-horn was all that had saved Louis the Fifteenths hunting-horn from intentional drowning.
Such was Penrod's instinct, and thus loyally he had followed it.
He was dragged into the library, expecting anything whatever. The dreadful phrases of the newspaper item ran through his head like the gongs of delirium: “Police headquarters,” “Work of a negro,” “King of France,” “Valued at about twelve hundred and fifty dollars.”
Eighty-five dollars had dismayed him; twelve hundred and fifty was unthinkable. Nightmares were coming to life before his eyes.
But a light broke slowly; it came first to Mr. and Mrs. Schofield, and it was they who illuminated Penrod. Slowly, slowly, as they spoke more and more pleasantly to him, it began to dawn upon him that this trouble was all Roddy's.
And when Mr. Schofield went to take the horn to the house of Mr. Ethelbert Magsworth Bitts, Penrod sat quietly with his mother. Mr. Schofield was gone an hour and a half. Upon his solemn return, he reported that Roddy's father had been summoned by telephone to bring his son to the house of uncle Ethelbert. Mr. Bitts had forthwith appeared with Roddy, and, when Mr. Schofield came away, Roddy was still (after an hour's previous efforts) explaining his honorable intentions.
Penrod's imagination paused outside the threshold of that room in Mr. Ethelbert Magsworth Bitts house, and awe fell upon him when he thought of it. Roddy seemed to have disappeared within a shrouding mist where Penrod's mind refused to follow him.
“Well, he got back his ole horn,” said Sam, after school, the next afternoon. “I knew we had a perfect right to call him whatever we wanted to. I bet you hated to give up that good ole horn, Penrod.”
But Penrod was serene. He was even a little superior.
“Pshaw!” he said. “I'm going to learn to play on sumpthing better'n any ole horn. It's lots better, because you can carry it around with you anywhere.”
“What is it?” Sam asked. “You mean a jew's-harp?”
“I guess not! I mean a flute with all silver on it and everything. My father's goin' to buy me one.
“I bet he isn't!”
“He is, too,” said Penrod; “soon as I'm twenty-one years old.”
The next Penrod story will be Walter-John.
This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published before January 1, 1929.
The longest-living author of this work died in 1946, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 77 years or less. This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works.
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