ther cigarette. The talk
waged about the names of other and more successful painters, whose work
they usually pronounced "rotten."

CHAPTER XXI.

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. Ha