“I don’t understand much about it,” said Mr. Tidd, looking kind of bewildered. “The lawyer did a pile of talking and wrote a lot of papers and things, but just what it all amounted to I’m blessed as I can see. He didn’t give me no patent. I came home before he was through.”
Zadok Biggs blinked. For quite a while Zadok kept staring and blinking at Mr. Tidd as though he didn’t know what to make of it. Sometimes he looked mad, sometimes he looked disappointed, and sometimes he looked just plain flabbergasted. Then, all of a sudden, his face looked relieved, and he let a twinkle come into his eye. He nudged Mark with his elbow.
“Genius,” says he, “that’s it. Your father’s a genius, Marcus Aurelius. For a minute I was disappointed. I admit it. I thought maybe giving you your name was just chance, but now I see how it was. It was another side to the genius that invented the turbine. Ah, ah! Your father, Marcus, is not clever on the financial side—not a good business man, is the plainer way to say it. And, Marcus, listen to me. Listen to Zadok Biggs. The turbine isn’t safe yet, and it won’t be safe after the patent issues. No, sir. But Zadok Biggs is your friend for life. I will assume the business responsibility.”
Mark didn’t quite follow him. All he understood clear was that the turbine was still in danger.
“How is it in danger?” he wanted to know.
“Your father will get cheated out of his rights yet. Many inventors have. What good, I ask you, is his invention until the turbines are manufactured and sold? That requires money. The man who contributes—gives—the money will cheat him. It would be as easy as—as cracking an egg with a sledge-hammer.”
Mark knew it, and it worried him a heap. No matter how close they watched his father, there was no telling when somebody might get hold of him and gouge his patent out of him while he sat with his eyes wide open looking on. There wasn’t anything in the Decline and Fall about patents or business, and outside of mechanics the Decline and Fall was about all the real experience Mr. Tidd had.
That afternoon Zadok Biggs drove away on his wagon. He never could stay very long in one place because, he said, he had a disease that he called the wandering foot, and it kept him moving. The last thing he said to Mark as he shook the lines on Rosinante’s back was; “Don’t let your pa do anything—anything about that turbine till you hear from me. I’ve written a letter. I, Zadok Biggs, have written an important letter. Until I get a communication in return—reply, you would say—don’t let him do a thing.”
Mark promised he’d look after things careful and we stood waving our hands to Zadok as long as his red wagon was in sight.
Every day after that we went to the post-office to see if there was a letter from him, but we didn’t hear a word. A whole week went by, and we didn’t get so much as a postal to tell us where he was.