“He’s gone off and forgot all about us,” I told Mark.
“Not him,” says Mark. “He jest hain’t got around to do what he wanted to, that’s all. We’ll be hearin’ from him perty quick. D-d-don’t you worry.”
Well, it wasn’t any of my funeral, so I didn’t argue with him!
CHAPTER XXII
Next morning Mark got a telegram from Zadok Biggs. It’s quite a thing for a boy to get a real telegram, and he was puffed up over it considerable, showing it to me and Plunk and Binney as if it was a diamond stole out of an idol’s eye, or some such precious thing as that. It said:
Marcus Aurelius Fortunatus Tidd,—Coming. Hold the fort. Shoo ’em away. News. Friend for life.
Zadok Biggs.
We couldn’t make much out of it except that he was coming, so we waited for him to turn up, which he did late that afternoon. He drove up the alley whistling “Marching through Georgia,” and left his red wagon back of Mr. Tidd’s barn-workshop while he turned Rosinante loose in the back yard to eat the grass and Mrs. Tidd’s vegetable garden. We hustled out to meet him.
“Ah!” says he. “My friend, Marcus Aurelius, and his friends awaiting me, so to speak, with eagerness, eh? I telegraphed. Couldn’t wait.” He was fairly jumping up and down with excitement, and his long, lean face was almost glittering, he was so happy. “I said I would look after the business matters. I, Zadok Biggs, said so. And I have looked after them. I have news for you.”
“W-won’t you c-c-come in?” Mark asked, when he got a chance.