Yours truly,
Marcus Aurelius Fortunatus Tidd.
Mark read it over and then says: “I thought I’d better sign my whole n-n-name when I was writing to a man like that. It l-looks better than just Mark Tidd.”
“It looks longer, anyhow,” says I. “Now what’ll we do with the letter? Throw it overboard in a bottle?”
“Not quite; but we’ll put it in an envelope with a stamp on it, and if a c-c-chance comes we’ll either d-d-deliver it or mail it.”
“Here’s hopin’,” says I, “that the chance comes pretty quick.”
CHAPTER XVII
“Tallow,” says Mark, “have you got the n-n-nerve to swim this lake in the dark?”
“I’d do it in daytime,” says I. “It can’t be half a mile across, and I could make that like rollin’ off a log. But night’s a different thing.”
I went out and took a look at the lake. It began to look wider to me. That’s always the way with things. If you’re not going to jump across a hole the hole don’t look wide, but just you step up to it ready to jump and it seems to stretch out about twice as big as it was before.