“And are you having any trouble? You always have trouble, do you not? You always meet with opposition—unjust opposition?”
Then Mark told him all about it, and Zadok was as mad as a sparrow that a cat chases away from a pile of crumbs.
“My name, Zadok,” he said, “means ‘just.’ It describes me. I am just by name and just by nature. Such things as this fill me with wrath. (Most men would say ‘make me mad.’) What are you doing to this man Wiggamore?”
“The question is what is he doing to us,” says I.
“No, no,” says Zadok. “Ask Marcus Aurelius if it is. When a man plans to do you harm you do not wait until he does it. No, indeed. Instead, you plan yourself how to avert the calamity. Is that not so, Marcus? And you lay schemes to get the better of that man?”
“That’s right,” says Mark.
“Zadok will help you. Not that Marcus Tidd needs help, but the brain and the experience of Zadok Biggs are at your disposal. Zadok will look about and Zadok will set his vast intelligence to work. Then an opportunity may present itself. Opportunities are marvelous things, and you are quick to grasp them. A hint, and you see your chance. Be patient, be watchful, and Zadok will give the hint.”
With that he went into the house to see Mr. Tidd and Mark’s mother and we went to work.
That afternoon a man came up into the mill and we saw him go over and talk to Silas Doolittle. After a while both of them came over to us, and Silas said the man was a Mr. Dwight that was in the woodenware business in the city and an old customer of his.
“I sold him most of my bowls, and he handled a good sight of drumsticks and dumb-bells and tenpins for me. Seems like I never had very good luck sellin’ such things, and Mr. Dwight he used to come over every little while, jest like he’s done to-day, and kind of take things off my hands.”