“And l-look here. Here’s where he knelt down. Here’s his toe and here’s his knee. See how far apart they are. Whoever left the mark was some shorter ’n Binney. And the club. Right here you can see the mark of it with his hand gripped around its middle. Knob on one end, hain’t there?”
Mark grinned at me malicious-like and I guess I looked sheepish. That was what I got for making fun of him. I might have known he wasn’t guessing.
“How’d you know his eyes were black and that he didn’t part his hair?” says Binney.
“I don’t know that, but I’m willin’ to b-bet a cooky I’m right.”
“Well,” says Plunk, “if he’s smaller’n Binney I dun’no’s I’m so all-fired afraid as I was a spell back.”
“Maybe,” says Mark, “he’s one of those savage African dwarfs and he’s got his war-club. How about that, eh? Like to meet one of those dwarfs, Plunk?”
Plunk looked blank for a minute, but this time he got it through his head that Mark was joking, and said ha-ha sort of weak and doubtful-like.
“Tallow,” says Mark, “the f-fact that a fish is gone don’t prove anything but that a fish is gone. Remember that. It may come in handy.”
“And you remember,” says I, “that every time you see a summer hotel advertised it doesn’t mean that the hotel is still running.” It was the best I could think of just then, and if I do say it I think it was pretty fair. Mark thought so too, I guess, for he says:
“You’ve got me there, Tallow, so we’ll call it quits.”