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The Penalty by Gouverneur Morris
page 55 of 331 (16%)
gutter in which he had reached to his present stunted stature, a child
half gone in pneumonia, he had told her that his name, his whole name,
was "Bubbles" and nothing but "Bubbles."

"Good morning, Miss Barbara," he said; "the plumber's bin and gone, and
the feller from the hardware store has swore hell be around before noon
to fix the new knobs in the doors."

"Good!" said Barbara. "Well done, Bubbles."

And she passed into the studio, wondering why a little face all knotting
with smiles, affection, and the pleasure of commands lovingly received
and well obeyed, should remind her of that other face, massive,
sardonic, lost, satanic, which had looked up into hers across the
battered tin cup on the top of a battered street-organ. She turned to a
little clay head that she had made recently and for which Bubbles had
sat; touched it here and there, stepped back from it, turned her own
head to the left, to the right, and even, such was the concentration of
her mood, showed between her red lips the tip of a still redder tongue.
But no matter what she did to test and undo her first impression there
persisted between the two faces a certain likeness, though in just what
this resemblance consisted she was unable to say.

"Bubbles," she said, "you were telling me about beggars the other day
and how much they make, and how rich some of them are. Did you ever run
across one that sells shoe-laces, plays a hand-organ, and hasn't got
any legs?"

"Sure," said he; "there's half a dozen in the city." And he named them.
"Burbage: he's the real thing, got his legs took off by a cannon-ball in
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