I guess you know Zadok Biggs, the little tin-peddler who was always whistling. If you don’t you ought to know him, because he knows more than almost anybody else in the world, I guess. That’s because he has traveled around a lot on his red wagon, and talked to almost everybody in Michigan. Besides, I think he had quite a lot of brains to start with. He says so, anyhow, and he told us that the only reason he wasn’t a judge in the United States Supreme Court was because he was so little. You see, he started out with the idea of being a big man, and he is pretty good-sized when he sits down, but as soon as he stands up he’s only about four feet. That is a handicap for a judge. Still, Mark Tidd says it is more important what a judge has in his head than in the legs of his pants, and maybe he’s right.
Zadok came into town next day and drove right up to Tidds’. He thinks Mark is the greatest boy in the world, on account of his name. Zadok is funny about names. He collects them like some boys do stamps or birds’ eggs, and he says Mark’s name, Marcus Aurelius Fortunatus Tidd, is the best one of the lot.
“Well, well, well!” he said. “What’s this I am informed? (Most folks would say ‘told.’) Runnin’ a mill, eh? Now can you beat that? Indeed you cannot. But what would one expect of a boy with a name like Marcus Aurelius Fortunatus Tidd? Nothing less. A boy with such a name is bound to be remarkable. What success, Marcus, what success?”
“We’re goin’ p-p-pretty good,” says Mark.
“To be sure. Certainly. You are, as I understand, fabricating (‘manufacturing’ is the usual word) articles from wood.”
“Yes.”
“Wooden chopping-bowls, perhaps.”
“Yes.”
“A good product. A fine thing to make. The market is good now. I am obliged to pay much more for them than I did. I hope your prices have gone up.”
“They have,” says Mark.