"Where--where you goin', Penrod? You aren't goin' HOME, are you?"
"No; I'm not! What you take me for? You think I'm crazy?"
"Well, where CAN we go?"
How far Penrod's desperation actually would have led him is doubtful; but he made this statement: "I don't know where YOU'RE goin', but I'M goin' to walk straight out in the country till I come to a farmhouse and say my name's George and live there!"
"I'll do it, too," Sam whispered eagerly. "I'll say my name's Henry."
"Well, we better get started," said the executive Penrod. "We got to get away from here, anyway."
But when they came to ascend the steps leading to the "outside doors", they found that those doors had been closed and locked for the night.
"It's no use," Sam lamented, "and we can't bust 'em, cause I tried to, once before. Fanny always locks 'em about five o'clock--I forgot. We got to go up the stairway and try to sneak out through the house."
They tiptoed back, and up the inner stairs. They paused at the top, then breathlessly stepped out into a hall that was entirely dark. Sam touched Penrod's sleeve in warning and bent to listen at a door.
Immediately that door opened, revealing the bright library, where sat Penrod's mother and Sam's father.
It was Sam's mother who had opened the door. "Come into the library, boys," she said. "Mrs. Schofield is just telling us about it."