"We've been sort of neglectin' Rock," says I to Mark Tidd, that evening.
"We have been perty b-busy," says he, "but we better go out to see him
to-morrow."
"Fine," says I. "I liked his looks."
"Man With the Black Gloves is in t-town," says Mark.
"When did you see him?" says I.
"He drove in a couple of hours ago."
"Hum!" says I. "He's comin' for somethin'."
"Yes," says Mark, and wrinkled his fat face all up like he was puzzled.
"D'you know," says he, "that we don't even know his n-n-name?"
"That's right," says I.
"Nor where he hails from."
"Correct," says I.
"Let's see what we kin find out," says he.
So we went off to the hotel and asked questions, but we didn't find out
anything. Seems like the man never stayed there overnight and didn't
register. Nobody we could find had ever spoken to him, and nobody had
ever seen him before a week or so ago. He just _was_ and that's all we
could find out about him.
"T-try the livery stable," says Mark.
"What for?" says I.
"See if anybody there recognizes his horse," says Mark, impatient-like.
Now there was a real idea, and I wished I'd thought of it myself, but I
didn't. It took Mark for that. When he missed thinking of a thing it was
a pretty foggy day, I tell you.
Over at the livery we didn't get much satisfaction.
"He hain't never drove in with the same horse twict," says the barn-man.
"Sometimes it's a gray, and sometimes it's a bay, and last time it was a
black."
"Didn't recognize any of 'em?" says Mark.
"Nary," says the man.
And there we were, no better off than we'd been before. If those horses
had come from anywheres within ten or fifteen miles of Wicksville that
barn-man would have known them, so all we learned was that the Man With
the Black Gloves must have come farther than that.
"If we could only trace those horses," says Mark.
"Which way did he come from?" says I.
"Good for you, Binney," says Mark. "That'll help some, if we can
f-f-find out."
We asked around and found out the man drove in from the west. But there
was quite a lot of country west of us, as Mark pointed out, reaching
right out to the Pacific Ocean, which was a little matter of a couple of
thousand miles.
"'Tain't likely he drove from the Pacific," says I, "and 'tain't likely
he drove more 'n twenty-five or thirty mile."
"No," says he, "'tain't.... We might as well give _that_ up for
to-night. I expect Jethro and the Man With the Black Gloves are havin' a
m-m-meetin' somewheres."
"How about that puzzle?" says I. "The one about where the cat looks and
what color is a brick, and all that stuff."
"I hain't l-looked at it," says he. "Let's see what we can make of it."
He took it out of his pocket and we went to his house and sat down by a
lamp.
"'Where pussy looks she walks,' it goes," says Mark. "'Thirty and twenty
and ten and forty-six. Stop. Ninety degrees in the shade. In. Down.
Across. What color is a brick? Investigate. Believe what tells the
truth.' There she is," says he. "If you can see any sense to it, Binney,
you've got me beat."
"Let's take it by chunks," says I. "That first sentence, now. 'Where
pussy looks she walks.' What's there to that? Anything?"
"Huh!" says he. "Huh!" And then he went to tugging at his ear and
scowling. "If we knew what pussy he was talkin' about we might have some
idee."
"But we don't," says I.
"Binney," says he, sober as a judge, but with a twinkle in his little
eyes, "I calc'late you're right for once, though how you come to manage
it _I_ don't know. We sure don't know what cat's bein' d-d-discussed."
"Where she looks she walks," I says. "Oh, rats! it's crazy!"
"If," says Mark, "it means anythin' at all, it's givin' a direction.
See? If Mr. Wigglesworth left a message and this is it, why, maybe, just
for instance, he'd hid somethin'. Eh? And if he hid somethin', why, he
wanted somebody to f-f-find it, but he wanted that s-somebody to be the
right p-person."
"Yes," says I, "but who's the right person?"
"Rock," says he.
"How d'you know?" says I.
"B-because," says he, "it was Rock he gave the p-puzzle to."
"All right so far," says I. "But let's git back to pussy and what's
she's lookin' at. Most likely it's a bird. Cats is gen'rally lookin' at
birds."
"This cat wouldn't be," says he. "It would be l-lookin' somewhere
definite, and it would keep l-lookin'. What would be the use sayin' it
at all if the cat wouldn't still be lookin' where Mr. Wigglesworth
wanted it to when we found her?"
"None," says I, "which makes the whole thing look crazier 'n ever. A cat
don't set around eyin' one spot permanent, even if it's a mouse-hole.
Cats move around," says I, "and hain't to be depended on."
"I'll bet you this cat is," says he.
"You've got some notion about it," says I.
"Not much of one," says he, "but I'm guessin', for the sake of argument,
that Mr. Wigglesworth wanted somebody to find the cat and s-start there
and go to walkin' where p-p-pussy looked. See? That would give the
direction to go. Go where she looked. If she l-looked south, walk south.
If she l-looked north, walk north."
"So far so good," says I. "Go on."
"The next looks easy. 'Stop,' it says. Well, 'stop' means to quit
w-walkin', don't it?"
"Yes," says I, "but you're leavin' out some-thin'."
"What?" says he.
"Why," says I, "the 'Thirty and twenty and ten and forty-six.'"
"To be sure," says he. He thought some more, and so did I.
"Maybe," says I, "them figures means letters of the alphabet. A would be
1, and B would be 2, and so on. Let's try it."
We did, but nothing came of it. It didn't make a word of sense.
"'Tain't that," says Mark, "but I'll tell you what I b-b-b'lieve it
_is_."
"What?" says I.
"Feet," says he.
"Whose feet?" says I.
"Feet," says he, sharp-like. "Measure. Twelve-inch feet."
"Oh," says I.
"Yes," says he, his cheeks flushing a little and his eyes getting all
shiny with excitement. "That must be it. It means to start where the cat
is and walk where she looks thirty and twenty and ten and forty-six
feet. How many's t-that?"
"Thirty and twenty's fifty, and ten is sixty and forty-six is a hunderd
and six," says I.
"Good enough," says he. "We're so far in no time at all. We f-find
pussy, makin' sure we got the _right_ pussy, and we take note of where
she's l-lookin' and we walk that way a hunderd and six f-feet.... Then
what do we do?" says he, with a grin.
"We stop," says I. "It says it on this paper, but it didn't need to.
We're stopped, anyhow, by what comes next."
"What does come next?"
"'Ninety degrees in the shade,'" says I.
"Perty hot," says he.
"Does it mean we got to look for a spot that's as warm as that?"
"Don't b'lieve it," says he. "No spot's n-ninety degrees in the shade
around here _always_. To be any good for what Mr. Wigglesworth's got in
mind, a spot would _always_ have to be ninety in the shade. Or else
there'd have to be somethin' to tell just when to look. See? If he's
given directions to find somethin', I think those directions are good
every d-day and every hour of the day."
"That's l-likely," says I. "If we only knew he _was_ givin' directions,"
says I, "we could git along better."
"As for me," says he, "I'm s-s-sure of it."
"That settles it, then," says I, gettin' a little sarcastic.
While we were arguing about it there was a clanging and banging out in
the yard like a dozen kids were knocking tin pans together, and we heard
somebody set up a holler.
"Hey! inside there! Hey! Marcus Aurelius Fortunatus Tidd, are you at
home?"
"It's Zadok," says I, and we ran to the door.
Sure enough, there was old Zadok Biggs, the tin peddler, who was such a
good friend of ours. Zadok was about half a man high and a man and a
half wide, with the soberest, most serious-looking face you ever saw. He
traveled all over the State in his red wagon, swapping tinware with
wimmen for old rags.
"Come in, Zadok," Mark called, and in he came.
"Ha!" says he. "My friend Marcus Aurelius. Remarkable boy, remarkable
name. Where's your ma and pa? Extraordinary folks. No ordinary ma and pa
would have picked out such a name. Live up to it," says Zadok Biggs.
"And there's Binney Jenks, too. Howdy, Binney?"
"Fine," says I, "and how's yourself?"
"Excellent," says he, "or, to put it in plain language, very well
indeed. What have you boys been accomplishing? Accomplishing is an
elegant word. I love to use it. Most folks would say'doing.'"
"We're runnin' a newspaper," says I. "At least Mark is, and the rest of
us are helping."
"Newspaper. Ha! Splendid! Molding public opinion. I, Zadok Biggs, might
have been a great editor, though nature fitted me to be a judge. What
newspaper?"
"The Wicksville _Trumpet_" says Mark.
"Splendid! Extraordinary! Are you making money? Do the folks appreciate
a good periodical--paper is the commoner term?"
"Some d-does and some doesn't," says Mark.
"Ha! Not going as well as would be wished. Talk it over with Zadok. Tell
Zadok your troubles. Maybe there will be a resultant benefit. Good
words, those. Another man would say that maybe good would come of it,
but Zadok Biggs has seen life and studied life, and he knows words.
Perhaps I will be able to point out an opportunity. Opportunities are my
specialty."
"You b-bet they are," says Mark, and I agreed with him, for Zadok had
helped us out more than once before.
"Opportunity!" says Zadok. "A fine word and means a fine thing. What is
an opportunity? Means something like a chance, only better. An
opportunity is something you take hold of and hang onto and it leads you
ahead. Always ahead. Opportunities never hold you back. Some folks say
there aren't opportunities, but they don't know. If they rode all over
the State on top of my wagon they would know. I know. I see 'em.
Everywhere I see opportunities, and I see folks missing them. Yes, sir,
missing opportunities that would make something of them. Why? Because
they're lazy, or because they want somebody to help them instead of
helping themselves, or because they haven't eyes to see. But I don't
take much stock in that. Anybody has eyes to see. What they lack is
ambition to git up and hustle. Am I right?"
"You are," says Mark.
"Marcus Aurelius Fortunatus Tidd does not let his opportunities slip. I
have seen him catch them by the tail. Oh, many times I have seen him,
and Binney, too, and Plunk and Tallow. Don't be impatient. While I talk
I think, I look about to see if there is an opportunity running at
large. An opportunity for boys running a newspaper. Ha!"
He stopped and scratched his head, and whistled "Marching Through
Georgia," and got up and walked out to the dining-room, where he yelled
at Mr. Tidd and Mark's mother, and talked to them awhile. Then he came
back and says:
"How does a paper make money? Subscribers, say I, and advertising. How
do you get subscribers? First by having a good paper they'll want to
read. I can trust you to do that. Mark Tidd would have no other kind.
Advertising? There may be advertising your experience has not made you
aware of. That you don't know about would be the vulgar way of
expressing it. And Zadok Biggs knows of such advertising. It pays. There
is money in it."
"Good," says Mark. "What is it?"
"County advertisin'," says Zadok. "Things the law requires the county to
have published in a newspaper. Like accounts and audits and proceedings
and such. Advertise for bids generally, and the paper that bids lowest
gets the work. For a year, mostly. And now's the time."
"Mostly goes to politicians, don't it?" says Mark.
"Yes," says Zadok, "but there's an opportunity for other folks--for Mark
Tidd and his friends. If I was them I'd go to the county-seat, and I'd
see the county authorities and I'd argue with 'em. Yes, sir, and I'll
bet I'd get that business. I'd surprise'em. That's what I'd do."
"When is the contract g-given out?" says Mark.
"Next week," says Zadok.
"Then," says Mark, "you can expect to see Binney and me h-headin' for
the county-seat about the day after to-morrow."
"Why not to-morrow?" says Zadok. "Opportunities don't perch long. You
got to get 'em before they flit."
So we told him we had to see Rock to-morrow and why and all about it,
and he agreed with us. "Let's see that cryptogram," says he. "You know
what cryptogram means, eh?"
"Yes," says Mark, and handed him the writing and told him what we had
made out of it. As far as we had gone he agreed with us, but couldn't go
any farther.
"About that Man With the Black Gloves," says he. "I'll keep an eye out
for him. Comes from the West, does he? I'll watch. Zadok goes many
places and sees many folks. Perhaps I will see him. Now," says he, "is
there a piece of apple pie and a glass of milk and a bed for me?"
"You bet," says Mark, so we all had a lunch that Mrs. Tidd got for us,
like she always does whenever anybody is there, and I went home. I
promised to be there bright and early to go out to Rock's with Mark.