But that wasn’t so easy. It began to look as though we would have to stay and take our medicine—whatever medicine the mean-looking, wizened-up old man intended to give us a dose of.
CHAPTER X
Mark crawled over to the little door and peered around. He pushed both his fat legs through and sat with his feet dangling, and I saw him begin to pinch his cheek between his thumb and finger.
“There,” I says to the other fellows. “He’s got to work now. Just you wait, and Marcus Aurelius Fortunatus Tidd’ll fix up some sort of scheme to make that dog wish he was off in the woods barkin’ at a woodchuck.”
Pretty soon Mark began to drag in his legs, which was considerable of a job, and his little eyes were twinkling, though the rest of his face was solemn and without any more expression than a round apple dumpling, which it looked like a whole lot.
“Fellers,” he says, “have you got a slingshot among you?”
Both Binney Jenks and I had, and good full pockets of bully round stones, too.
“Good,” says Mark. “We’ll give Mister Man a s-s-seance.”
“A what?”
“A s-seance—that’s a sort of ghost party, where spooks go prancin’ around. Wonder if he’s s-superstitious.”