It attracted no attention from any pedestrian, and it was to be perceived only that a boy was proceeding up the street at a somewhat irregular gait.

Three or four years earlier, when Penrod was seven or eight, he would have shouted "Bing!" at the top of his voice; he would have galloped openly; all the world might have seen that he bestrode a charger.

But a change had come upon him with advancing years.
Although the grown people in sight were indeed to him as walking trees, his dramas were accomplished principally by suggestion and symbol.
His "Whoas" and "Bings" were delivered in a husky whisper, and his equestrianism was established by action mostly of the mind, the accompanying artistry of the feet being unintelligible to the passerby.
And yet, though he concealed from observation the stirring little scenes he thus enacted, a love of realism was increasing within him.

Early childhood is not fastidious about the accessories of its drama--a cane is vividly a gun which may instantly, as vividly, become a horse; but at Penrod's time of life the lath sword is no longer satisfactory.

Indeed, he now had a vague sense that weapons of wood were unworthy to the point of being contemptible and ridiculous, and he employed them only when he was alone and unseen.