The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Penalty, by Gouverneur Morris,
Illustrated by Howard Chandler Christy

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Title: The Penalty

Author: Gouverneur Morris

Release Date: June 8, 2004 [eBook #12557]

Language: English

Character set encoding: US-ASCII

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THE PENALTY

By

Gouverneur Morris

Illustrated by Howard Chandler Christy

1913

[Illustration: "Are you in love with me now?" he
asked wistfully]

TO MARY BALDWIN

If I should lose from my life that part of it of which you are a part,
there would be but a skeleton left. Yet if you had played a larger part
in my life I should have been so spoiled that there would be no living
with me. And I'm spoiled enough, God knows!

In the Iliad you wrote for me, and I "drawed" for us both, 'twas Hector
fixed Achilles. When I sat at your right hand and your sharp, swift
knife went into the turkey, 'twas I that got the tit-bits and the
oyster. And all was right with the world _then_, I can tell you!

We have ridden together over old battlefields, and I have worn the
epaulettes and the swords in the attic, and listened to tales of the
great brother who died of the war, and whose bull-terrier Jerry chased
the cannon-balls at Gettysburg. Oh, the cutlass captured from the
Confederate ram, and the wooden canteen, and the Confederate money (in a
frame)! I was the hunter that used to handle the Colt (with the ships
engraved on the cylinder) that shot the buffalo from the rear platform
of the train, and was stolen by a genuine thief. Is Jeff Davis's bible
that he gave to the brother who with Major R. caused game chickens to
fight for the edification of his captivity still in your upper
bureau drawer?

Are the photographs that Ge