F. Hopkinson Smith

“ Weeks passed before Marny saw either one of the old people again. He watched for them, his door ajar, listening to every sound: but if they passed up and down the stairs, they did so when he was out or asleep. He had noticed, too, that all was still overhead, except a light tread which he knew must be the faded sister's. The heavier footfall, however, was silent.
One morning the janitor opened Marny's door without knocking and closed it softly behind him. He seemed laboring under some excitement. ”

“ The faded old lady looked up at Marny and pointed to the masterpiece.
"It breaks our heart to send it away—but there is nothing else to do. It will bring, too, a great price; nothing else we possess will bring as much. Then we will have no more poverty, and someone may buy it who will love it, and so my brother will get his reward."
Marny swept his eye around. The furniture was of the shabbiest; pictures and sketches tacked to the wall, but experiments in "Old Sunshine's" pet theories. Nothing else would bring anything. And the masterpiece! ”

“ The good-natured touch of flattery made no impression on the old man.
"No," he answered, replacing his hat and keeping on his way down-stairs; "I am not a master. I am a man groping in the dark, following a light that beckons me on. It will not help you; it will hurt you. I will come for you; I have promised, remember. Neither my sister nor I ever breaks a promise. Good-morning!" And again the shabby hat was lifted.
Marny stood outside his own door listening to the old man's steps growing fainter until they reached the street ”

“ He tries so hard. He is honest, but his work is hopeless."
"Like the man on the first floor, he uses the calcium light to show his pictures by?"
"No, no! Mr. Marny is a gentleman, not a cheat. He thinks, and would learn—he told me so. But he cannot see. Ah! not to see, Louise! Did you grind the new blue, dear? Yes—and quite smooth."
He had taken off his coat now, carefully, the lining being out of one sleeve. The sister hung it on a nail behind the door, and the painter picked up his palette and stood looking at a large canvas on an easel. ”

“ The cans had got mixed, Marny's pint having been laid at the old man's door and the old man's gill at Marny's, and the rectifying of the mistake—"Old Sunshine" did the rectifying—laid the basis of the acquaintance.
Everybody, of course, in the Studio Building knew him and his old sister by sight, but only one or two well enough to speak to him; none of them to speak to the poor, faded old woman, who would climb the stairs so many times a day, always stopping for her breath at the landing, and always with some little package—a pinch of tea. ”

“ It is not a meal; it is a religion. You are in a fog, and the sun bursts through—you are in a tunnel and are swept out into green fields—you grope in the dark and an angel leads you to the light. You do not 'like' things then—you thank God on your knees. Louise has done nothing but cry."
These words came in shortened sentences divided by the mounting of each step, the two hurrying up the stairs, "Old Sunshine" ahead, Marny following.
The sister was waiting for them at the open door. ”

“ The next day he kept his studio door open and his ear unbuttoned, and when the old man's steps approached his door on his return from his morning walk—the only time he ever went out—Marny threw it wide and stepped in front of him. ”

“ Botts, who had the next studio to Marny, solved the mystery.
"He's crazy over a color scheme; gone daft on purples and yellows. I haven't seen it—nobody has except his old sister. He keeps it covered up, but he's got a 50x60 that he's worked on for years. Claims to have discovered a palette that will make a man use smoked glasses when his picture is hung on the line. That's why he's called 'Old Sunshine.'"
Marny made no reply, none that would encourage Botts in his flippant view of the old painter. He himself had been studying that same problem all his life ”

“ Then the agent would be received with a courteous bow and handed to a chair—a wreck of a chair, with the legs unsteady and the back wobbly, while the tenant would open an old desk, take a china pot from one of the cubby-holes, empty it of the contents and begin to count out the money, smiling graciously all the time. ”

“ I have just heard about it. Let me come in, please; I want to help you. You are all alone."
Her grasp slackened, and Marny stepped in. The room was in some confusion. The bed where her brother had been ill was still in disorder, the screen, that had concealed it, pushed to one side. On a table by his easel were the remains of a meal. The masterpiece still stared out from its place. The sister walked to a lounge and sat down.
"Tell me the truth," Marny said, seating himself beside her. "Have you any money?" ”