Great Grief lay on the bed smoking a pipe and waiting for fame. "Oh, go home, Purple. You resent something. It wasn't me, it was the calendar."
"Try and be serious a moment, Grief."
"You're a fool, Purple."
Penny spoke from where he was at work. "Well, if those Amazement Magazine people pay me when they said they would I'll have money then."
"So you will, dear," said Grief, satirically. "You'll have money to burn. Did the Amazement people ever pay you when they said they would? You're wonderfully important all of a sudden, it seems to me. You talk like an artist."
Wrinkles, too, smiled at little Pennoyer. "The Established Magazine people wanted Penny to hire models and make a try for them too. It will only cost him a big blue chip. By the time he has invested all the money he hasn't got and the rent is two weeks' overdue, he will be able to tell the landlord to wait seven months until the Monday morning after the publication. Go ahead, Penny."
It was the habit to make game of little Pennoyer. He was always having gorgeous opportunities, with no opportunity to take advantage of his opportunities.
Penny smiled at them, his tiny, tiny smile of courage.
"You're a confident little cuss," observed Grief, irrelevantly.
"Well, the world has no objection to your being confident also, Grief," said Purple.