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 half an hour's previous efforts) explaining his honourable intentions. Mr. Schofield indicated that Roddy's condition was agitated, and that he was having a great deal of difficulty in making his position clear.
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 goin' to learn to play on sumpthing better'n any ole horn. It's lots better, because you can carry it around with you anywhere, and you couldn't a horn."
"What is it?" Sam asked, not too much pleased by Penrod's air of superiority and high content. "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."