Stephen Crane - Ultimate Collection: 200+ Novels, Short Stories & Poems - Stephen Crane

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trade, and when his opinions were not identical with the opinions of the art managers of the greater number of New York publications he went to see a friend who was a plumber, and the opinions of this man he was thereafter said to respect. He frequented a very neat restaurant on Twenty-third Street. It was known that on Saturday nights Wrinkles, Grief, and Pennoyer frequently quarreled with him.

      As Florinda ceased speaking Purple entered. "Hello, there, Splutter!" As he was neatly hanging up his coat, he said to the others, "Well, the rent will be due in four days."

      "Will it?" asked Pennoyer, astounded.

      "Certainly it will," responded Purple, with the air of a superior financial man.

      "My soul!" said Wrinkles.

      "Oh, shut up, Purple!" said Grief. "You make me weary, coming around here with your chin about rent. I was just getting happy."

      "Well, how are we going to pay it? That's the point," said Sanderson.

      Wrinkles sank deeper in his chair and played despondently on his guitar. Grief cast a look of rage at Sanderson, and then stared at the wall. Pennoyer said, "Well, we might borrow it from Billie Hawker."

      Florinda laughed then.

      "Oh," continued Pennoyer hastily, "if those Amazement people pay me when they said they would I'll have the money."

      "So you will," said Grief. "You will have money to burn. Did the Amazement people ever pay you when they said they would? You are wonderfully important all of a sudden, it seems to me. You talk like an artist."

      Wrinkles, too, smiled at Pennoyer. "The Eminent Magazine people wanted Penny to hire models and make a try for them, too. It would only cost him a stack of blues. By the time he has invested all his money he hasn't got, and the rent is three weeks overdue, he will be able to tell the landlord to wait seven months until the Monday morning after the day of publication. Go ahead, Penny."

      After a period of silence, Sanderson, in an obstinate manner, said, "Well, what's to be done? The rent has got to be paid."

      Wrinkles played more sad music. Grief frowned deeper. Pennoyer was evidently searching his mind for a plan.

      Florinda took the cigarette from between her lips that she might grin with greater freedom.

      "We might throw Purple out," said Grief, with an inspired air. "That would stop all this discussion."

      "You!" said Sanderson furiously. "You can't keep serious a minute. If you didn't have us to take care of you, you wouldn't even know when they threw you out into the street."

      "Wouldn't I?" said Grief.

      "Well, look here," interposed Florinda, "I'm going home unless you can be more interesting. I am dead sorry about the rent, but I can't help it, and——"

      "Here! Sit down! Hold on, Splutter!" they shouted. Grief turned to Sanderson: "Purple, you shut up!"

      Florinda curled again on the divan and lit another cigarette. The talk waged about the names of other and more successful painters, whose work they usually pronounced "rotten."

      CHAPTER XXI.

       Table of Contents

      Pennoyer, coming home one morning with two gigantic cakes to accompany the coffee at the breakfast in the den, saw a young man bounce from a horse car. He gave a shout. "Hello, there, Billie! Hello!"

      "Hello, Penny!" said Hawker. "What are you doing out so early?" It was somewhat after nine o'clock.

      "Out to get breakfast," said Pennoyer, waving the cakes. "Have a good time, old man?"

      "Great."

      "Do much work?"

      "No. Not so much. How are all the people?"

      "Oh, pretty good. Come in and see us eat breakfast," said Pennoyer, throwing open the door of the den. Wrinkles, in his shirt, was making coffee. Grief sat in a chair trying to loosen the grasp of sleep. "Why, Billie Hawker, b'ginger!" they cried.

      "How's the wolf, boys? At the door yet?"

      "'At the door yet?' He's halfway up the back stairs, and coming fast. He and the landlord will be here to-morrow. 'Mr. Landlord, allow me to present Mr. F. Wolf, of Hunger, N. J. Mr. Wolf—Mr. Landlord.'"

      "Bad as that?" said Hawker.

      "You bet it is! Easy Street is somewhere in heaven, for all we know. Have some breakfast?—coffee and cake, I mean."

      "No, thanks, boys. Had breakfast."

      Wrinkles added to the shirt, Grief aroused himself, and Pennoyer brought the coffee. Cheerfully throwing some drawings from the table to the floor, they thus made room for the breakfast, and grouped themselves with beaming smiles at the board.

      "Well, Billie, come back to the old gang again, eh? How did the country seem? Do much work?"

      "Not very much. A few things. How's everybody?"

      "Splutter was in last night. Looking out of sight. Seemed glad to hear that you were coming back soon."

      "Did she? Penny, did anybody call wanting me to do a ten-thousand-dollar portrait for them?"

      "No. That frame-maker, though, was here with a bill. I told him——"

      Afterward Hawker crossed the corridor and threw open the door of his own large studio. The great skylight, far above his head, shed its clear rays upon a scene which appeared to indicate that some one had very recently ceased work here and started for the country. A distant closet door was open, and the interior showed the effects of a sudden pillage.

      There was an unfinished "Girl in Apple Orchard" upon the tall Dutch easel, and sketches and studies were thick upon the floor. Hawker took a pipe and filled it from his friend the tan and gold jar. He cast himself into a chair and, taking an envelope from his pocket, emptied two violets from it to the palm of his hand and stared long at them. Upon the walls of the studio various labours of his life, in heavy gilt frames, contemplated him and the violets.

      At last Pennoyer burst impetuously in upon him. "Hi, Billie! come over and—— What's the matter?"

      Hawker had hastily placed the violets in the envelope and hurried it to his pocket. "Nothing," he answered.

      "Why, I thought—" said Pennoyer, "I thought you looked rather rattled. Didn't you have—I thought I saw something in your hand."

      "Nothing, I tell you!" cried Hawker.

      "Er—oh, I beg your pardon," said Pennoyer. "Why, I was going to tell you that Splutter is over in our place, and she wants to see you."

      "Wants to see me? What for?" demanded Hawker. "Why don't she come over here, then?"

      "I'm sure I don't know," replied Pennoyer. "She sent me to call you."

      "Well, do you think I'm going to—— Oh, well, I suppose she wants to be unpleasant, and knows she loses a certain mental position if she comes over here, but if she meets me in your place she can be as infernally disagreeable as she—— That's it, I'll bet."

      When they entered the den Florinda was gazing from the window. Her back was toward the door.

      At last she turned to them, holding herself very straight. "Well, Billie Hawker," she said grimly, "you don't seem very glad to see a fellow."

      "Why, heavens, did you think I was going to turn somersaults in the air?"

      "Well, you didn't come out when you heard me pass your door," said Florinda, with gloomy resentment.

      Hawker appeared to be ruffled and vexed. "Oh, great Scott!" he said, making a gesture of despair.

      Florinda returned to the window. In the ensuing conversation she took no part, save when there was an opportunity to harry some speech of Hawker's, which

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