“Um!” says Mr. Sturgis. “Um!... Young man, have you chosen a profession? Have you, if I may put it so, chosen the walk of life you will follow?”
“Why,” says Mark, “don’t b’lieve I have. I’ve got to g-go to college first.”
“I advise you, my young friend, to consider the law. I do. Should you decide to enter this most dignified and pleasant profession and return to Wicksville to practise, I shall be glad, exceedingly glad, to have you in my office—with a view to partnership at an early date. You are young, my friend, but years soon pass. How old might you be?”
“Almost s-s-sixteen,” says Mark.
“In six or seven years you will be ready.... Think it over.”
“Thank you, sir,” says Mark. “I’ll think about it, but I guess, so far’s I can see, I sort of l-like business. I calc’late to go into business, buyin’ and sellin’. I hain’t sure, yet, but that’s how I’ve been figgerin’.”
We talked a minute more with Mr. Sturgis, and then went back to the store. It was time, for it was Saturday and things were beginning to liven up.
CHAPTER XIV
When I told Tallow and Binney how we’d harpooned Mr. Skip for two hundred dollars they were so tickled they almost jumped out of their shoes. Tallow wanted to go over and stand in front of the Five-and-Ten-Cent Store to gibe at Jehoshaphat, but Mark wouldn’t have it. He said Skip didn’t know who was at the bottom of the scheme, and wasn’t going to find out yet. Mark had his reasons, and, because he owned the scheme, so to speak, we did as he said.
Two hundred dollars! That made up for the hundred we had to send mother and gave us an extra hundred into the bargain—and about a million dollars’ worth of satisfaction. It beats all how you can make money if you happen to know how. Mark Tidd didn’t spend more than a couple of hours earning this—but I suppose he did two hundred dollars’ worth of thinking, or he wouldn’t have made a go of it. He says if you want to make money you’ve either got to do the money’s worth of work or the money’s worth of figuring. I expect he’s right.