Both men looked sort of sheepish, and like they wished they was where they weren’t.
“Go on, Pawl,” said Uncle Ike, “step up and lam him one.”
Pawl backed off like the place he was standing was too hot for his feet.
“Um!” says Uncle Ike. “Well, you start it, Giddings. Somebody put a chip on Pawl’s shoulder. Giddings’ll knock it off.”
“I won’t have no chip on my shoulder,” says Pawl.
“I see somebody goin’ into my store,” says Giddings. “I got to hurry over there.”
“Both of you better hurry back,” says Uncle Ike. “I’m what you might call a man with experience and wisdom. For more years ’n I like to think about I’ve been a-drivin’ this ’bus, and the seat of a ’bus is the place to git experience. Nothin’ like it. Greatest teacher in the world. I calc’late there’s few things I hain’t capable of discussin’ if I was asked. I’m capable of offerin’ both of you belligerents advice right here and now, and this is it: You go on back to your stores and tend to business, which don’t mean puttin’ sand in the sugar, or sellin’ cold-storage eggs with a yarn that the hen is still cacklin’ that laid ’em. Jest try bein’ square with your customers, and with each other, if you kin go so far, and you won’t git made sich an idiotic spectacle of as you be now. Nobody’s profited by this here rumpus but Mark Tidd. Advertisin’! Huh! Now run along, you fellers, and advertise all over again, but advertise yourselves, and advertise honest. Try it once, and see if you don’t git a substantial profit out of it. Jest tell the plain truth in Mark’s paper, and stick to what you advertise. Bein’ as you’re who you are, ’tain’t reasonable to expect wonders of you, but you can give a sort of flickerin’ imitation of business men.... G’dap, bosses. Mooch along there.” And Uncle Ike rattled off up the street, contented with himself and almost tickled to death that he’d got a chance to jaw somebody.
As for us fellows, we went to selling papers as hard as we could, and would you believe it, before noon we were cleaned out. Yes, sir, we’d sold every single solitary one.
“Don’t get s-s-set up,” says Mark. “Tain’t goin’ to be as easy all the t-t-time. Folks is buyin’ to-day out of curiosity. Next week we’ll have harder sleddin’.”
“Bet we don’t,” says Plunk. “Bet it’ll be easier to run this old paper than it is to slide down-hill. I don’t see anythin’ hard about it.”