And just then in walks Wiggamore!
He gave one look at us and scowled. Then he marched right over to us and says, as savage as a mean watch-dog, “Git out of here!”
“Not to-day,” says Mark. “We’re here on business.”
“Git out before I throw you out,” says Wiggamore. He raised his voice so it was pretty loud, and Mark spoke back to him just a little louder, and afterward I found out he did it on purpose. He wanted to be heard, because he figured that was about the only way he would get into the board meeting.
“I’m here on b-b-business with President James,” he said, “and I’m going to stay. You won’t t-throw us out, Mr. Wiggamore, and you hadn’t better try. You looked for trouble, and we’re here with it, and we’re goin’ to see President James and don’t you forget it.” He lifted his voice a little louder and almost hollered, “President James is the m-man we got to see, and if he knew about the p-papers I got in my pocket he’d see us mighty quick.”
“Hush!” says Wiggamore. “Don’t yell so in here.”
Just then a door opened and a great big man with shoulders as broad as a house, and with white hair and a white mustache, and a face that looked like it was carved out of a rock, but that you kind of took a liking to right off, looked out. He looked cross. When I say you took a liking to him, I don’t mean that exactly. I mean you felt a kind of a respect for him. That’s the way he looked.
“Here, here!” says he. “What’s all this disturbance?”
“These boys,” says Wiggamore. “I can’t get rid of them.”
“So it seems, Wiggamore. What ails ’em?”