mark was pretty quiet walking along, thinking hard what to do, or whether he had better do anything; but finally he seemed to make up his mind and hurried off faster than i ever saw him walk before. and it was a warm day, too. we turned into his yard, and as we went through the gate he jerked his thumb toward the back yard.
“you w-w-wait there,” he stuttered. “i may want you.” then he went in the front door.
as we walked by we looked through the window and saw the stranger sitting in the parlor talking to mr. tidd, and he was nodding and smiling and being very polite; or, anyhow, it seemed that way to me. i always was sort of curious, so i stopped close to the window and listened, while plunk and binney went on around the house. i guess it isn’t very nice to listen that way, but i never thought of that until it was all over.
mr. tidd was talking.
“yes, sir,” he was saying, “the world don’t hold another book like this. the title says it’s the decline and fall of the roman empire, but it’s about more than that. why, it’s about everything. it don’t matter what happens, you can find the answer to it in gibbon.... yes, sir, the decline and fall is the greatest book of ’em all.”
“i agree with you entirely, mr. tidd, entirely. it has been some time since i read the book, sir, but i have been promising myself that pleasure—and profit—for several months. i shall read it again, sir, as soon as i get home.”
“you will never regret it,” said mr. tidd, and patted the book in his lap.
somehow the stranger’s face seemed familiar to me, but for a while i couldn’t place him. then all of a sudden it came to me: he was the man we saw on the depot platform who asked about turbines. i almost yelled out loud to mark.
i listened again and heard the stranger say:
“i’m in the engineering business, mr. tidd, and that’s why i came to see you. i heard you were working on some sort of a machine, and, as my company always wants to keep in touch with the latest developments of mechanics and engineering, i dropped in to have a chat with you.”
“yes, yes,” said mr. tidd; but it was plain he was thinking about something else.
“it happens often,” said the stranger, “that men like yourself, who have valuable ideas, lack the money to carry them out. very frequently my company, if the idea seems all right, advances the money to carry on experiments.”
“money,” said mr. tidd, vaguely. “oh yes, money. i don’t need money. no. i have all the money i need.”
the stranger looked disappointed, but he didn’t say anything about it.
“you’re fortunate,” he told mr. tidd, “but maybe there’s something else i could do for you.”
“not as i know of. don’t seem like i needed a thing, but i’m much obliged, much obliged.”
“what is the nature of the work you are doing?” asked the man. i didn’t think he liked to come right out with the question that way, but probably he couldn’t invent any other way to get at it.
“it’s a turbine,” said mr. tidd, right off, and his eyes began to shine. “it’s a practical turbine for locomotives and automobiles and power-plants and what not. why, sir, this engine of mine will stand on a base no bigger than a cook-stove and develop two hundred horse-power; and it will be reversible. i have a new principle, sir, for the application of steam; a new principle, it is—” he stopped suddenly, shook his head, and said, with a patient sort of smile, “my folks don’t like to have me talk too much about it.”
“of course,” agreed the stranger, who had been leaning forward and edging farther toward the front of his chair, with interest. “of course. it is never wise to discuss such things too freely. how far has your work progressed?”
“not far, not far. in the experimental stages. i have something to show for my work—nothing to boast of, but enough. enough to make me sure.”
“i should be very interested to look over your workshop,” suggested the stranger. “i always like to see how a thorough machinist has things arranged.”
at that i ducked and ran around the house, and just a moment later mark came tiptoeing out of the kitchen door. he held up his finger for us to be still and then motioned for us to follow him to the barn.
in the barn he grabbed up a lot of drawings and stuffed them into my hands.
“here. take these and hide back of the f-f-fence.”
then he gave binney and plunk some funny-looking pieces of steel to carry, and snatched some other things himself, and we all sneaked out through the back gate and crouched down behind the fence out of sight.
“father’s goin’ to s-show him the shop,” whispered mark. “i guess the feller was fixin’ to git a squint at these things. if he was it’s all right, and if he wasn’t no harm’s done.”
in about two shakes of a lamb’s tail mr. tidd and the stranger came out of the shop and went inside. we had our ears to the wall and could hear how mr. tidd was being taffied by the man, and we could tell by the way he answered back that he was getting to like the stranger more and more every minute. butter wouldn’t melt in that man’s mouth. he was as full of compliments as an old grist-mill is of rats.
after a while we heard mr. tidd say:
“i dunno’s there’d be any objection to your lookin’ at my drawin’s and patterns and stuff. ’twon’t do no harm, i calc’late.”
the man didn’t say anything, and pretended he wasn’t paying attention. we could hear mr. tidd moving around, and then he stopped still, and i knew he was scratching his head, though i couldn’t see him, because he always scratches his head when he can’t figure out just what’s going on.
“i swan,” he said, kind of vague and wondering, “i’d ’a’ bet i left them things right here; i’d ’a’ bet a cookie. but they ain’t here—not a sign of ’em. now, ain’t that the beatenist? i must ’a’ carted ’em off some place without thinkin’. um! hum!... where’n tunket could it ’a’ been?”
“what seems to be the matter?” asked the stranger, and his voice sounded anxious to me. it did to mark, too, because he nudged me.
“i’ve up and mislaid my drawin’s and things,” said mr. tidd, sounding like he was apologizing. “ain’t that the dumbest thing! i’m always a-layin’ things around and forgettin’ ’em.”
“surely they must be in the shop some place,” suggested the stranger.
again we could hear mr. tidd rummaging around, but it wasn’t any use. “no,” he said, “no, they ain’t here. i wonder if i could ’a’ left ’em down to the grocery.”
“what would you be doing with them at the grocery?”
“nothin’ that i know of, but i might have tucked ’em under my arm and gone just the same. like’s not i did. wa-all, i’m sorry i can’t show ’em to you, but maybe they’ll turn up to-morrow.”
“i’ve got to leave on the late train,” said the stranger.
“too bad,” said mr. tidd, his mind still wondering where his things were. “too bad.” and with that he forgot all about the stranger and went out of the barn and off up the street talking to himself and scratching his head. the stranger looked after him and bit his lips; then he grinned like the joke was on him, and he went, too.
“well,” i asked mark, “what now?”
“we’ll put ’em right back,” he said, grinning, “and dad won’t know but what he just overlooked ’em.”
we fixed everything like it was, and then we went down-town to see what we could find out about the stranger.
he was in the hotel when we got there, and it was easy to get out of bert sawyer all he knew about him. his name was henry c. batten, and he lived in pittsburg. he was a traveling man for the international engineering company, bert thought, and later we found out it was so, because he left one of his cards in his room and bert found it.
we sat on the hotel steps until uncle ike bond’s bus rattled up to carry folks to the late train. the stranger squeezed through the door and sat down in a corner, looking as if he wasn’t pleased with things in general. uncle ike winked at mark.
“how’d you make out?” he whispered.
mark went up close and told him all about it, and uncle ike like to have fallen off the seat laughing.
“what’d i tell you?” he chuckled to nobody in particular. “ain’t he a slick one? ain’t he? slicker’n greased pole i call him, eh?”
then he gathered up the lines, but stooped over again to whisper, “if ever this thing gits where you need help from uncle ike bond just up and say so in his hearin’, and we’ll see what a eddication got on top of a bus is good for.”
i didn’t see what good he could ever do anybody, but that just shows how you can be mistaken in folks.
