“Spragg,” says he, “would git along b-better if he done more thinkin’ and less t-talkin’.”
“Where’s Rock?” says I.
“Down to the hotel,” says Mark, with a funny look in his eye. “I don’t calc’late we’ll see Rock ’fore night.”
“That’s funny,” says I.
“’Tain’t so funny as you m-might think,” says he.
Tallow was keeping count of subscriptions, and every little while he’d come and tell us how many was in.
“Lit’ry Circlers is two ahead,” says he, about four o’clock. The contest was goin’ to close at five, so it looked like the Circlers had it. But in come Mrs. Bobbin with three more, and put the Culturers jest one ahead. That was all till the clock was ’most ready to strike, when in come Mrs. Strubber with one. One!
Mark and I looked at each other, and then we looked at Tallow and Plunk. It was a tie. Them women had got four hunderd and forty-six subscriptions for each club—and the fat was in the fire. Anything else could have happened and made a little trouble, maybe, but to have this thing end up in a tie was to bring on a regular war.
“Mark,” says I, “I guess I got to go out of town for a couple of days—over to Uncle Oscar’s.”
He grinned.