The Penalty | Page 7

ever
marry anybody. I've learned to know myself too well. And I've no
constancy, and I don't trust myself."
"That," said Wilmot with the faith of a fanatic in his god, "is because
you've never really cared."
"And besides," she said, "I have what I am pleased to call my career.
And 'Down to Gehenna and up to the throne he travels fastest who
travels alone.'"
"True," said Wilmot, "he arrives soonest, but all tired out, and the
house is empty, and there are no children in it, and only paid servants.
And it may be very showy to live for fame, but it isn't good enough.
When we turned that bust you began into mud pies, we did a wise thing.
We amused ourselves, and we said the last word on art as opposed to
life. The best thing in this world is to be children and to have
children--and the next best thing is nowhere."
"Would you," said Barbara, and her eyes twinkled a little, "really rather
be a parent than a Praxiteles?"
"It looks to me," said Wilmot sadly, "sometimes--in moments of
despondency--as if the honorable gentleman was never going to be
either. But then again," and he spoke in a strong voice, "I believe in my
heart that after you've done handling the book of life and admiring the
binding, you'll open it at chapter one, and read, 'Young Wilmot Allen--'"
"Lunch-time," said Barbara, and she rose from the comfortable chair

with sharp decision. "I vote for a thick steak, being famished. Is my
hair all mussy?"
"No," said Wilmot dejectedly. "I wish it was. And I wish it was my
fault--and yours."

IV
"I've done enough for you more than once," said the legless man;
"you're big enough and strong enough to work, but you're a born
loafer."
"I had a job." The speaker, a shabby, unshaven man with a beastly face,
whined dolefully. "And I done right; but I got the sack."
"What was the job and why were you sacked?"
"I got a job as a artist's model. I sits in a chair while the lady makes a
statue out of my face, and then she gives me money, and I goes and
spends it. The third day she gives me more money, and tells me I looks
too well fed and happy to suit her, and sends me away."
The legless man was astonished to learn that his heart was beating with
unaccustomed force and rapidity. "Who was the artist?"
"She's a lady name o' Ferris."
The legless man steeled his face to express nothing. "Ferris," he
commented briefly.
"Say," said the unshaven man, "what's all that about the devil falling
out of heaven and fetching up in hell?"
"Why?"
"That's how she says I looks. And she wants to make a statue of him,
just when he comes to and sits up, and looks up and sees how far he's

fell. She says my face has all the sorrers and horrors of the world in it."
"And then, you fool," said the legless man, "you spoiled her game by
high living. You ate and you drank till you looked like a paranoiac
bulldog asleep in the sun. Where was the lady's studio?"
"Seventeen McBurney Place."
"And she wants to do a Satan, does she?"
The unshaven man drew back from the expression of the legless man,
in whose face it was as if all the fires of hell had suddenly burst into
flame. The unshaven man covered the breast of his threadbare coat with
outstretched hands as if to shield himself from some suddenly bared
weapon. His eyes blinked, but did not falter.
"Say," he said presently, after drawing a deep breath, "if she could see
you once."
"If I don't know," said the legless man, "how Satan felt after the fall,
nobody does. The things I've been--the things I've seen--back
there--down here--the things I've lost--the things I've found! Hell's
Bell's, Johnson! what is it you want--food?--drink?--a woman?"
The unshaven man's eyes shone with an unholy light.
"What would you do for twenty-five dollars?"
The unshaven man said nothing. He looked everything.
"Do you know the McIver woman?"
"Fanny?"
The legless man granted. "Yes. Fanny. She'll look at you if you've got
money."
"She'd crawl through a sewer to find a dime."

"Quite so," the legless man commented dryly. "Well, it wouldn't matter
to me if she went on a tear and was found dead in her bed."
"It's worth fifty." Something in the unshaven man's voice suggested
that he had once been remotely connected with some sort of a business.
The legless man shook his head. "Judas Iscariot," he said, "betrayed the
Lord God for thirty. Fanny McIver's scalp isn't worth a cent over
twenty-five. You're just a broken-down drunk. It takes