"Why, that IS curious!" she exclaimed.
She jumped up.

"Penrod!" But Penrod was no longer in the room.
"What's the matter ?" Mr.Schofield inquired.
"Penrod!" said Mrs.Schofield breathlessly.

"HE bought an old horn--like one in old hunting-pictures--yesterday! He bought it with some money Uncle Joe gave him! He bought it from Roddy Bitts!" "Where'd he go ?" Together they rushed to the back porch.
Penrod had removed the lid of the cistern; he was kneeling beside it, and the fact that the diameter of the opening into the cistern was one inch less than the diameter of the coil of Louis the Fifteenth's hunting-horn was all that had just saved Louis the Fifteenth's hunting-horn from joining the drowned trousers of Herman.
Such was Penrod's instinct, and thus loyally he had followed it.
...

He was dragged into the library, expecting anything whatever.

The dreadful phrases of the newspaper item rang through his head like the gongs of delirium: "Police headquarters!" "Work of a negro!" "King of France!" "Valued at about twelve hundred and fifty dollars!" Eighty-five dollars had dismayed him; twelve hundred and fifty was unthinkable.