第20章 CHAPTER VI. GEORGIE BECOMES A MEMBER(4)

"Well, we had everything ready for the 'nishiation before lunch," he said. "We wanted it all to be nice, because you said we had to have him, papa, and after lunch Penrod went to guard him--that's a new part in the rixual--and he brought him over, and we took him out to the shack and blindfolded him, and--well, he got kind of mad because we wanted him to lay down on his stummick and be tied up, and he said he wouldn't, because the floor was a little bit wet in there and he could feel it sort of squashy under his shoes, and he said his mother didn't want him ever to get dirty and he just wouldn't do it; and we all kept telling him he had to, or else how could there be any 'nishiation; and he kept gettin' madder and said he wanted to have the 'nishiation outdoors where it wasn't wet and he wasn't goin' to lay down on his stummick, anyway." Sam paused for wind, then got under way again: "Well, some of the boys were tryin' to get him to lay down on his stummick, and he kind of fell up against the door and it came open and he ran out in the yard. He was tryin' to get the blindfold off his eyes, but he couldn't because it was a towel in a pretty hard knot; and he went tearin' all around the backyard, and we didn't chase him, or anything. All we did was just watch him--and that's when he fell in the cellar. Well, it didn't hurt him any. It didn't hurt him at all; but he was muddier than what he would of been if he'd just had sense enough to lay down in the shack. Well, so we thought, long as he was down in the cellar anyway, we might as well have the rest of the 'nishiation down there. So we brought the things down and--and 'nishiated him--and that's all. That's every bit we did to him."

"Yes," Mr. Williams said sardonically; "I see. What were the details of the initiation?"

"Sir?"

"I want to know what else you did to him? What was the initiation?"

"It's--it's secret," Sam murmured piteously.

"Not any longer, I assure you! The society is a thing of the past and you'll find your friend Penrod's parents agree with me in that. Mrs. Bassett had already telephoned them when she called us up. You go on with your story!"

Sam sighed deeply, and yet it may have been a consolation to know that his present misery was not altogether without its counterpart. Through the falling dusk his spirit may have crossed the intervening distance to catch a glimpse of his friend suffering simultaneously and standing within the same peril. And if Sam's spirit did thus behold Penrod in jeopardy, it was a true vision.

"Go on!" Mr. Williams said.

"Well, there wasn't any fire in the furnace because it's too warm yet, and we weren't goin' to do anything'd HURT him, so we put him in there--"

"In the FURNACE?"

"It was cold," Sam protested. "There hadn't been any fire there since last spring. Course we told him there was fire in it. We HAD to do that," he continued earnestly, "because that was part of the 'nishiation. We only kept him in it a little while and kind of hammered on the outside a little and then we took him out and got him to lay down on his stummick, because he was all muddy anyway, where he fell down the cellar; and how could it matter to anybody that had any sense at all? Well, then we had the rixual, and--and--why, the teeny little paddlin' he got wouldn't hurt a flea! It was that little coloured boy lives in the alley did it--he isn't anyways near HALF Georgie's size but Georgie got mad and said he didn't want any ole nigger to paddle him. That's what he said, and it was his own foolishness, because Verman won't let ANYBODY call him 'nigger', and if Georgie was goin' to call him that he ought to had sense enough not to do it when he was layin' down that way and Verman all ready to be the paddler. And he needn't of been so mad at the rest of us, either, because it took us about twenty minutes to get the paddle away from Verman after that, and we had to lock Verman up in the laundry-room and not let him out till it was all over. Well, and then things were kind of spoiled, anyway; so we didn't do but just a little more--and that's all."

"Go on! What was the 'just a little more?'"

"Well--we got him to swaller a little teeny bit of asafidity that Penrod used to have to wear in a bag around his neck. It wasn't enough to even make a person sneeze--it wasn't much more'n a half a spoonful--it wasn't hardly a QUARTER of a spoonf--"

"Ha!" said Mr. Williams. "That accounts for the doctor. What else?"

"Well--we--we had some paint left over from our flag, and we put just a little teeny bit of it on his hair and--"

"Ha!" said Mr. Williams. "That accounts for the barber. What else?"

"That's all," Sam said, swallowing. "Then he got mad and went home."

Mr. Williams walked to the door, and sternly motioned to the culprit to precede him through it. But just before the pair passed from her sight, Mrs. Williams gave way to an uncontrollable impulse.

"Sam," she asked, "what does 'In-Or-In' stand for?"

The unfortunate boy had begun to sniffle.

"It--it means--Innapenent Order of Infadelaty," he moaned--and plodded onward to his doom.

Not his alone: at that very moment Master Roderick Magsworth Bitts, Junior, was suffering also, consequent upon telephoning on the part of Mrs. Bassett, though Roderick's punishment was administered less on the ground of Georgie's troubles and more on that of Roddy's having affiliated with an order consisting so largely of Herman and Verman. As for Maurice Levy, he was no whit less unhappy. He fared as ill.

Simultaneously, two ex-members of the In-Or-In were finding their lot fortunate. Something had prompted them to linger in the alley in the vicinity of the shack, and it was to this fated edifice that Mr. Williams, with demoniac justice, brought Sam for the deed he had in mind.

Herman and Verman listened--awe-stricken--to what went on within the shack. Then, before it was over, they crept away and down the alley toward their own home. This was directly across the alley from the Schofields' stable, and they were horrified at the sounds that issued from the interior of the stable store-room. It was the St. Bartholomew's Eve of that neighbourhood.

"Man, man!" said Herman, shaking his head. "Glad I ain' no white boy!"

Verman seemed gloomily to assent.