Penrod Read online

  CHAPTER V THE PAGEANT OF THE TABLE ROUND

  "Penrod!" Mrs. Lora Rewbush stood in the doorway, indignantly gazingupon a Child Sir Lancelot mantled to the heels. "Do you know that youhave kept an audience of five hundred people waiting for ten minutes?"She, also, detained the five hundred while she spake further.

  "Well," said Penrod contentedly, as he followed her toward the buzzingstage, "I was just sitting there thinking."

  Two minutes later the curtain rose on a medieval castle hall richly donein the new stage-craft made in Germany and consisting of pink and bluecheesecloth. The Child King Arthur and the Child Queen Guinevere weredisclosed upon thrones, with the Child Elaine and many other celebritiesin attendance; while about fifteen Child Knights were seated at adining-room table round, which was covered with a large Oriental rug,and displayed (for the knights' refreshment) a banquet service of silverloving-cups and trophies, borrowed from the Country Club and some localautomobile manufacturers.

  In addition to this splendour, potted plants and palms have seldom beenmore lavishly used in any castle on the stage or off.

  The footlights were aided by a "spot-light" from the rear of the hall;and the children were revealed in a blaze of glory.

  A hushed, multitudinous "O-OH" of admiration came from the decorous anddelighted audience. Then the children sang feebly:

  "Chuldrun of the Tabul Round, Lit-tul knights and ladies we. Let our voy-siz all resound Faith and hope and charitee!"

  The Child King Arthur rose, extended his sceptre with the decisivegesture of a semaphore, and spake:

  "Each littul knight and lady born Has noble deeds TO perform In THEE child-world of shivullree, No matter how small his share may be. Let each advance and tell in turn What claim has each to knighthood earn."

  The Child Sir Mordred, the villain of this piece, rose in his placeat the table round, and piped the only lines ever written by Mrs. LoraRewbush which Penrod Schofield could have pronounced without loathing.Georgie Bassett, a really angelic boy, had been selected for the role ofMordred. His perfect conduct had earned for him the sardonic sobriquet,"The Little Gentleman," among his boy acquaintances. (Naturally he hadno friends.) Hence the other boys supposed that he had been selected forthe wicked Mordred as a reward of virtue. He declaimed serenely:

  "I hight Sir Mordred the Child, and I teach Lessons of selfishest evil, and reach Out into darkness. Thoughtless, unkind, And ruthless is Mordred, and unrefined."

  The Child Mordred was properly rebuked and denied the accolade, though,like the others, he seemed to have assumed the title already. He madea plotter's exit. Whereupon Maurice Levy rose, bowed, announced that hehighted the Child Sir Galahad, and continued with perfect sang-froid:

  "I am the purest of the pure. I have but kindest thoughts each day. I give my riches to the poor, And follow in the Master's way."

  This elicited tokens of approval from the Child King Arthur, and he badeMaurice "stand forth" and come near the throne, a command obeyed withthe easy grace of conscious merit.

  It was Penrod's turn. He stepped back from his chair, the table betweenhim and the audience, and began in a high, breathless monotone:

  "I hight Sir Lancelot du Lake, the Child, Gentul-hearted, meek, and mild. What though I'm BUT a littul child, Gentul-heartud, meek, and mild, I do my share though but--though but----"

  Penrod paused and gulped. The voice of Mrs. Lora Rewbush was heard fromthe wings, prompting irritably, and the Child. Sir Lancelot repeated:

  "I do my share though but--though but a tot, I pray you knight Sir Lancelot!"

  This also met the royal favour, and Penrod was bidden to join SirGalahad at the throne. As he crossed the stage, Mrs. Schofield whisperedto Margaret:

  "That boy! He's unpinned his mantle and fixed it to cover his wholecostume. After we worked so hard to make it becoming!"

  "Never mind; he'll have to take the cape off in a minute," returnedMargaret. She leaned forward suddenly, narrowing her eyes to seebetter. "What IS that thing hanging about his left ankle?" she whispereduneasily. "How queer! He must have got tangled in something."

  "Where?" asked Mrs. Schofield, in alarm.

  "His left foot. It makes him stumble. Don't you see? It looks--it lookslike an elephant's foot!"

  The Child Sir Lancelot and the Child Sir Galahad clasped hands beforetheir Child King. Penrod was conscious of a great uplift; in a moment hewould have to throw aside his mantle, but even so he was protected andsheltered in the human garment of a man. His stage-fright had passed,for the audience was but an indistinguishable blur of darkness beyondthe dazzling lights. His most repulsive speech (that in which heproclaimed himself a "tot") was over and done with; and now at last thesmall, moist hand of the Child Sir Galahad lay within his own. Craftilyhis brown fingers stole from Maurice's palm to the wrist. The two boysdeclaimed in concert:

  "We are two chuldrun of the Tabul Round Strewing kindness all a-round. With love and good deeds striving ever for the best, May our littul efforts e'er be blest. Two littul hearts we offer. See United in love, faith, hope, and char--OW!"

  The conclusion of the duet was marred. The Child Sir Galahad suddenlystiffened, and, uttering an irrepressible shriek of anguish, gave abrief exhibition of the contortionist's art. ("HE'S TWISTIN' MY WRIST!DERN YOU, LEGGO!")

  The voice of Mrs. Lora Rewbush was again heard from the wings; itsounded bloodthirsty. Penrod released his victim; and the Child KingArthur, somewhat disconcerted, extended his sceptre and, with theassistance of the enraged prompter, said:

  "Sweet child-friends of the Tabul Round, In brotherly love and kindness abound, Sir Lancelot, you have spoken well, Sir Galahad, too, as clear as bell. So now pray doff your mantles gay. You shall be knighted this very day."

  And Penrod doffed his mantle.

  Simultaneously, a thick and vasty gasp came from the audience, asfrom five hundred bathers in a wholly unexpected surf. This gasp waspunctuated irregularly, over the auditorium, by imperfectly subduedscreams both of dismay and incredulous joy, and by two dismal shrieks.Altogether it was an extraordinary sound, a sound never to be forgottenby any one who heard it. It was almost as unforgettable as the sightwhich caused it; the word "sight" being here used in its vernacularsense, for Penrod, standing unmantled and revealed in all the medievaland artistic glory of the janitor's blue overalls, falls within itsmeaning.

  The janitor was a heavy man, and his overalls, upon Penrod, were merelyoceanic. The boy was at once swaddled and lost within their bluegulfs and vast saggings; and the left leg, too hastily rolled up, haddescended with a distinctively elephantine effect, as Margaret hadobserved. Certainly, the Child Sir Lancelot was at least a sight.

  It is probable that a great many in that hall must have had, even then,a consciousness that they were looking on at History in the Making.A supreme act is recognizable at sight: it bears the birthmark ofimmortality. But Penrod, that marvellous boy, had begun to declaim, evenwith the gesture of flinging off his mantle for the accolade:

  "I first, the Child Sir Lancelot du Lake, Will volunteer to knighthood take, And kneeling here before your throne I vow to----"

  He finished his speech unheard. The audience had recovered breath, buthad lost self-control, and there ensued something later described by aparticipant as a sort of cultured riot.

  The actors in the "pageant" were not so dumfounded by Penrod's costumeas might have been expected. A few precocious geniuses perceivedthat the overalls were the Child Lancelot's own comment on maternalintentions; and these were profoundly impressed: they regarded him withthe grisly admiration of young and ambitious criminals for a jail-mateabout to be distinguished by hanging. But most of the children simplytook it to be the case (a little strange, but not startling) thatPenrod's mother had dressed him like that--which is pathetic. They triedto go on with the "pageant."

  They ma
de a brief, manful effort. But the irrepressible outbursts fromthe audience bewildered them; every time Sir Lancelot du Lake the Childopened his mouth, the great, shadowy house fell into an uproar, and thechildren into confusion. Strong women and brave girls in the audiencewent out into the lobby, shrieking and clinging to one another. Othersremained, rocking in their seats, helpless and spent. The neighbourhoodof Mrs. Schofield and Margaret became, tactfully, a desert. Friends ofthe author went behind the scenes and encountered a hitherto unknownphase of Mrs. Lora Rewbush; they said, afterward, that she hardly seemedto know what she was doing. She begged to be left alone somewhere withPenrod Schofield, for just a little while.

  They led her away.