“He didn’t know himself,” says Lawyer Jones.
“Shucks!” says I, not meaning to be disrespectful.
“It’s the truth,” says Lawyer Jones. “Didn’t know who he was nor what for he was in Henry Wigglesworth’s house. Says his first name is Rock and that he didn’t ever have a last name. Just Rock. Says a man named Peterkin brought him here four days ago, and left him. Says Wigglesworth never spoke to him, but just come sneakin’ in one night after he was in bed, with a lamp in his hand, and stood looking down at him. The boy says he pretended he was asleep. That’s all there is to it, and I wish I had an idee what it all means.”
I looked at Mark Tidd. His little eyes were twinkling the way they do when he’s all wrought up and interested, and his lips were pressed together so they looked kind of white. You could see he was ’most eaten up with curiosity. But he didn’t ask any questions.
In a few minutes we went out and walked back to Mr. Tidd’s shop, where we all sat down to talk things over.
“R-reg’lar mystery,” says Mark.
“Can’t make no head or tail to it,” says Tallow.
And that’s what Wicksville in general decided—that they couldn’t make head nor tail to it. It gave everybody in town something to talk about and figure over.
When the Man With the Black Gloves came to town and Henry Wigglesworth’s will was found, folks puzzled more than ever.
But we boys had other fish to fry—except Mark. I guess he had the Wigglesworth mystery more in his mind than he did the Wicksville Trumpet. But after the next morning he had to think more about the Trumpet, for Lawyer Jones bid it in for us at the sheriff’s sale of three hundred and thirty-two dollars—and Mark Tidd was a real, live, untamed editor.