"I reckon they'll find that hall hot enough NOW!" he said, conveying to Penrod an impression that some too feminine women had sent him upon an unreasonable errand to the furnace.

He went into the Janitor's Room and, emerging a moment later, minus the overalls, passed Penrod again with a bass rumble--"Dern 'em!" it seemed he said--and made a gloomy exit by the door at the upper end of the hallway.
The conglomerate and delicate rustle of a large, mannerly audience was heard as the janitor opened and closed the door; and stage-fright seized the boy.

The orchestra began an overture, and, at that, Penrod, trembling violently, tiptoed down the hall into the Janitor's Room.

It was a cul-de-sac: There was no outlet save by the way he had come.
Despairingly he doffed his mantle and looked down upon himself for a last sickening assurance that the stockings were as obviously and disgracefully Margaret's as they had seemed in the mirror at home.

For a moment he was encouraged: perhaps he was no worse than some of the other boys.