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."