SALE OPEN NOW!
Four for ten cents! That was a quarter of a cent less than we had to pay Spillane & Company for them!
CHAPTER XI
“There,” says I, “goes thirty-nine dollars and a half.”
Tallow and Binney were pretty discouraged, too, and Mark looked more downhearted than I ever saw him. Mr. Jehoshaphat P. Skip had about knocked us all off our feet.
“We’ll have to go on with the sale,” I says. “Maybe we can get rid of some—and that’ll save us a dollar or so, anyhow.”
Mark didn’t say a word. I saw him fumbling around in his pocket after his jackknife—and that meant business. He had done a lot of thinking since we started to run the Bazar, but this was the first time he had wanted to whittle. That was about the last help he depended on. When everything else failed Mark Tidd whittled.
He went back behind the counter with a piece of box and started littering up the floor. We stayed away from him and waited. It was fifteen minutes, maybe, before we saw his head coming up into sight. He didn’t look happy and his eyes didn’t twinkle. But he did look determined. We fellows have been in some tight places with Mark, and have met some pretty mean men, but Jehoshaphat P. Skip was the first one to get Mark mad clean through and through.
“Well?” says I, as he came around the end of the counter.
“This man Skip,” says he, “hasn’t had time to get in a fresh s-s-stock of Mason jars.”