The Third Violet
Copyright© 2024 by Stephen Crane
Chapter 25
“I’ll get my check from the Gamin on Saturday,” said Grief. “They bought that string of comics.”
“Well, then, we’ll arrange the present funds to last until Saturday noon,” said Wrinkles. “That gives us quite a lot. We can have a table d’hôte on Friday night.”
However, the cashier of the Gamin office looked under his respectable brass wiring and said: “Very sorry, Mr.—er—Warwickson, but our pay-day is Monday. Come around any time after ten.”
“Oh, it doesn’t matter,” said Grief.
When he plunged into the den his visage flamed with rage. “Don’t get my check until Monday morning, any time after ten!” he yelled, and flung a portfolio of mottled green into the danger zone of the casts.
“Thunder!” said Pennoyer, sinking at once into a profound despair
“Monday morning, any time after ten,” murmured Wrinkles, in astonishment and sorrow.
While Grief marched to and fro threatening the furniture, Pennoyer and Wrinkles allowed their under jaws to fall, and remained as men smitten between the eyes by the god of calamity.
“Singular thing!” muttered Pennoyer at last. “You get so frightfully hungry as soon as you learn that there are no more meals coming.”
“Oh, well——” said Wrinkles. He took up his guitar.
Oh, some folks say dat a niggah won’ steal,
‘Way down yondeh in d’ cohn’-fiel’;
But Ah caught two in my cohn’-fiel’,
Way down yondeh in d’ cohn’-fiel’.
“Oh, let up!” said Grief, as if unwilling to be moved from his despair.
“Oh, let up!” said Pennoyer, as if he disliked the voice and the ballad.
In his studio, Hawker sat braced nervously forward on a little stool before his tall Dutch easel. Three sketches lay on the floor near him, and he glared at them constantly while painting at the large canvas on the easel.
He seemed engaged in some kind of a duel. His hair dishevelled, his eyes gleaming, he was in a deadly scuffle. In the sketches was the landscape of heavy blue, as if seen through powder-smoke, and all the skies burned red. There was in these notes a sinister quality of hopelessness, eloquent of a defeat, as if the scene represented the last hour on a field of disastrous battle. Hawker seemed attacking with this picture something fair and beautiful of his own life, a possession of his mind, and he did it fiercely, mercilessly, formidably. His arm moved with the energy of a strange wrath. He might have been thrusting with a sword.
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