ht the little man's leg. The little man fell squarely on
top of him, assisted by a slight push from Penelope.

Mark groaned heart-breakingly. In a moment there was a crowd. The little
man was getting up, bewildered, and automatically trying to dust off his
type K suit. Mark lay half on the curb, half off, squirming like a
broken-back snake. "My back," he moaned piteously. "Oh, my back."

The little man seemed paralyzed at the enormity of the thing he had
done. He stared at Mark and Mark squirmed harder and moaned louder. Then
Penelope hobbled up and pulled Mark's shirttail out of his trousers. The
iodine spot on his back looked yellow and purple, and there were gasps
from the crowd.

"He did it!" Mark said, glaring accusingly at the little man. "He
tripped me. He tripped me and broke my back!"

Penelope was putting on a good act too, crying and wringing her hands
and moaning. "My poor boy!" she said, over and over. A woman in the
crowd came up and made a very expressive raspberry in the little man's
face. The little man was not only bewildered; he was frightened. Mark
adjudged the time had come.

"Points for my broken back!" he cried. Penelope held out a slip to the
little man. He signed it dazedly, then he slipped out of the crowd,
while three men picked up Mark and laid him tenderly in Penelope's
reclining wheel-chair.

Mark could hardly contain himself. As soon as they were safely out of
sight he said excitedly, "Let me see the slip."

Penelope looked around. She kept pushing him but she handed over the
slip.

"Fifty thousand points!" Mark read under his breath. "Isn't that
wonderful!" He couldn't remember ever having felt so elated in his life.

Penelope was shaking her head wonderingly. "That was a good act," she
said. "I'd never have had the nerve to try that myself."

"Oh, that's nothing." Mark was enthusiastic. "As soon as I get fitted up
with a magnelite brace so it'll look good, I'm going to knock a piece
out of that curbing, and then if I can find out who's the registered
owner of it I'll hit him for twenty-five thousand."

* * * * *

Mark got the twenty-five thousand. The owner of the sidewalk was finally
convinced that Mark's broken back was worth a lot. From then on there
was no holding Mark. Pretending to act for the little man who had
originally knocked him down, he located the woman who had made a
raspberry in the little man's face and collected another two t