We scrambled aboard and sat down in a couple of rickety kitchen chairs. The engineer watched us awhile, chewing away at nothing, and then, wrinkling up his face, says:
“What might your names be? I don’t rec’lect hearin’ ’em.”
“My name’s M-M-Mark Tidd, and his is Binney Jenks.”
“Huh! Mark Tidd! That hain’t no kind of a name. It’s jest a sort of a snort. There hain’t enough of it.”
“Well,” says I, “his whole name is Marcus Aurelius Fortunatus Tidd. I calc’late that’s plenty long.”
“Sam Hill!” says the engineer. “Sam Hill! Who ever heard the like! Honest, is that his name?”
“Honest Injun.”
“It ’u’d make me nervous. It’s the kind of a name you see in the papers. Somehow it brings to mind pieces in the newspapers about train-wrecks or trouble or somethin’. No, sir, I wouldn’t think it was safe to have a name like that.”
“What kind of a name do you l-l-like?” Mark asked.
“There’s my own. It hain’t a lucky name, so to speak, but it hain’t never been no detriment. My name,” says he, “is Wednesday Hogtoter.”