That was Mark Tidd all over. If he made up his mind he was after a thing he stuck to it till he got it, or till it was put where it was a sure thing he couldn’t touch it. It wasn’t so much that he wanted the thing, whatever it was; it was that he was bound to do what he set out to do. He might figure and work a week to get some old thing, and then turn right around and give it to you. It was just the being able to get it that interested him.
So he didn’t say a word back to the man that joked him—that is, not a word that was smart. He just says, “We hain’t got any orphans or l-lunatics on hand this m-mornin’, but we’d like mighty well to see that printin’ feller.”
He was so all-fired polite about it that somebody spoke up and says, “There’s a couple of ’em you’ll have to deal with, sonny. Feller named Brown and another feller named Wiggins, and they hain’t what you could call friends, neither. You hain’t like to find ’em roostin’ in the same bush. Both of them’s inside somewheres. If you find a feller skinnier ’n a beanpole and along about nine feet high, with red hair on top of him, why, that’s Wiggins. If you run ag’in’ a feller equal skinny and equal tall without no hair at all, why, that’s Brown. You can’t mistake either of ’em.”
“Much obliged,” says Mark, and in we went.
We poked around quite a spell, going one place and another, but we didn’t see any tall, thin men, till we got onto the second floor and walked up to some doors that were standing open, and looked in. It was a court-room. We knew that right off because there was a high place built up for the judge in front, and a pen for the jury and lots of seats. Nothing was going on at all, and we were coming out again when we heard a sort of murmur like folks were talking low and confidential.
“’S-s-sh!” says Mark, who was always cautious till he found out where he stood. Then he craned his neck, and ’way back in the shadows were two men, one standing and the other sitting, and the standing man was so tall and thin he could have got a job in a circus. The sitting man was thin, with a bunch of carroty hair.
“Brown and Wiggins,” says Mark, drawing back quick.
“Come on in, then,” says I.
“Nix,” says he. “L-let’s think.... Man said they wasn’t friends, didn’t he, and that we wasn’t likely to f-f-find ’em together?”
“Yes,” says I.