He touched a thrilling chord on his guitar and leaned nearer.

"But you said you have missed me," he began.

"I----" The voice of Penrod drowned all other sounds.
"So-o-o rem-mem-bur, whi-i-ilst you're young, That the day-a-ys to you will come, When you're o-o-old and only in the way, Do not scoff at them BEE-cause----" "PENROD!" Miss Schofield stamped again.
"You DID say you'd missed me," said Mr.Robert Williams, seizing hurriedly upon the silence.

"Didn't you say----" A livelier tune rose upward.
"Oh, you talk about your fascinating beauties, Of your dem-O-zells, your belles, But the littil dame I met, while in the city, She's par excellaws the queen of all the swells.
She's sweeter far----" Margaret rose and jumped up and down repeatedly in a well-calculated area, whereupon the voice of Penrod cried chokedly, "QUIT that!" and there were subterranean coughings and sneezings.
"You want to choke a person to death ?" he inquired severely, appearing at the end of the porch, a cobweb upon his brow.

And, continuing, he put into practice a newly acquired phrase, "You better learn to be more considerick of other people's comfort." Slowly and grievedly he withdrew, passed to the sunny side of the house, reclined in the warm grass beside his wistful Duke, and presently sang again.
"She's sweeter far than the flower I named her after, And the memery of her smile it haunts me YET! When in after years the moon is soffly beamun' And at eve I smell the smell of mignonette I will re-CALL that----" "Pen-ROD!" Mr.Schofield appeared at an open window upstairs, a book in his hand.
"Stop it!" he commanded.