it was easy to find mr. macmillan. everybody seemed to know him. his office was up over the bank. when we got there he was in, but at first he didn’t recognize us.
“d-don’t you remember the boys you m-met while you was f-f-fishin’ a week ago?”
“of course,” says he. “of course i do. sit right down and tell me what i can do for you.”
“this is mister hieronymous alphabet bell,” says mark. “he’s b-binney jenks’s uncle.”
“glad to know you, mr. bell,” says mr. macmillan. “i hope you’re well.”
uncle answered him in poetry:
“i got my health; i got my breath,
but i’m clost to bein’ s’prised to death.”
mr. macmillan’s face twitched like he wanted to laugh, but he didn’t. he was as polite as could be.
“what’s the cause of the surprise, mr. bell?”
“you tell him,” says uncle to mark. “i hain’t got so’s i can speak yet.”
mark told all about it, while mr. macmillan’s eyes got bigger and bigger and more and more astonished.
“you don’t mean to tell me you boys worked all this out just from seeing a letter, and that you outwitted those two men? it doesn’t come within the bounds of possibility.”
“everything i s-said,” says mark, sort of dignified, “we did.”
“i beg your pardon,” says mr. macmillan. “i didn’t doubt your word, of course. but it’s so remarkable. you are remarkable boys.”
i shook my head. “mark’s a remarkable boy,” says i. “all i did was come along.”
mr. macmillan shook his head. “you both deserve a lot of credit. as for me, i’m proud i know you. now let’s get down to business. what are you going to do about it all?”
“we d-d-don’t know,” says mark. “that’s why we came to you.”
mr. macmillan turned and looked at his desk. for fifteen minutes he thought it over, and then he says, “i guess we better have a talk with jiggins & co. can you find them?”
“i guess so,” i says. “i’ll go and see.”
i hustled right over to the hotel, and there, in the office, sat jiggins and collins, looking pretty glum, i can tell you. i went straight up to them.
“mr. macmillan wants to know if you’ll please come up to his office,” says i.
jiggins began to sing his funny little tune. “tum-a-diddle, dum-a-diddle, dum-a-diddle-dee,” and so on. then he smiled sort of sickly.
“well, binney,” says he, “you beat, after all, didn’t you?”
“mark tidd comes pretty close to beatin’ every time,” i says.
“yes,” says jiggins, “i expect he does. looks like he would. wonderful boy. knew he was wonderful all the time. liked him. still like him. always will like him. no hard feelings. not a one. don’t hold a thing up against him.”
“that’s good,” says i, “because mark and i don’t hold no grudge against you and mr. collins. you wasn’t doin’ right, but maybe that wasn’t your fault. maybe you wasn’t taught jest proper. you’re the pleasantest villains i ever knew.”
at that both collins and jiggins laughed. “first time i ever thought of myself as a villain,” says collins.
“who’s mr. macmillan?” says jiggins.
“he’s our lawyer.”
“oh,” says jiggins, and he laughed again, but this time it was a pale sort of laugh. “you don’t let grass grow under your feet.”
“not when we’re fussin’ with you, mr. jiggins,” says i, meaning a compliment.
he took it that way, and smiled like he was pleased.
“will you come?” i asked him.
“to be sure. why not? nothing else to do. got to bargain now. cost more money. ugh! hate to think how much.”
we went right up to mr. macmillan’s office, and i introduced collins and jiggins to him.
“who are you acting for?” asked mr. macmillan.
“the united states copper company,” says jiggins.
“have you authority to make an agreement on this matter?”
“yes,” says jiggins.
“well,” says mr. macmillan, “i’ve thought this over, and i guess a royalty on tonnage will be the best plan for mr. bell.”
“what’s a royalty on t-t-tonnage?” asked mark.
“it means that the company will pay mr. bell a certain amount for every ton of copper it takes out of his mine.”
mark nodded his head.
“that would be most satisfactory to us,” says jiggins.
then they went to arguing and dickering and talking and talking for hours, it seemed. then mr. macmillan called in his stenographer and dictated an agreement to her. the agreement read that the company was to pay to uncle hieronymous or his heirs three thousand dollars every year for fifty years. they were to pay that much at the very least. that was what mr. macmillan called a minimum. mark saved up that word. but uncle might get more. if the company took out so much copper that the royalties came to more than three thousand dollars a year, uncle would get whatever it was. he might get nothing but the three thousand dollars every year, and then, again, he might get ten or twenty times as much.
uncle hieronymous sat like he was dreaming. every once in a while he’d break out with some sort of an exclamation like “shucks!” or “ginger!” or “i swanny!”
the agreement was written after a while.
“you send this to be signed by the proper officers of your company,” says mr. macmillan. “when it comes back with the three thousand dollars for the first year mr. bell will sign, too. then the matter will be settled.”
well, jiggins sent the contract to his company, and they signed it and sent back the money. that fixed it so uncle hieronymous was rich. think of it! three thousand dollars every year, and maybe more! he couldn’t get used to it, and kept saying he didn’t know what to do with it and it would be a burden to him. mark told him he’d find ways to use it and he needn’t worry.
how proud he was of mark and me! he never stopped talking about us and what we did and making poems about it. one of the poems i remember. it said:
“oh, binney jenks and marcus tidd,
it beats the dickens what you did!”
now, isn’t that a dandy compliment?
well, when everything was settled we said good-by to mr. macmillan and to collins and jiggins. they had got over their disappointment and were quite pleasant again. they came down to the depot to see us off, and jiggins gave both of us a jack-knife. they were dandies, too, with a corkscrew, a hammer, a saw, a glass-cutter, a file, and lots of other tools in them.
we shook hands all around, and somehow i was sorry to see the last of them. they were the pleasantest enemies in the world. then the train started off, and we were on our way to baldwin again.
my! but tallow and plunk were glad to see us, and martha and mary were so tickled to see uncle hieronymous they almost scared him to death. he hired a man to go and drive alfred back from the farm where he’d left him.
we boys stayed with him a whole month, and i want to tell you we had the best time ever. it was a lot better than it would have been, because all the while we were so glad we had helped to make uncle hieronymous rich.
at last we had to start for home, and uncle drove us to the train behind alfred. he was most crying when he said good-by, but he promised to come and see us a long time next winter. the last thing he said was a poem.
“i do admire marcus tidd.
he surely is the smartest kid.”
and tallow and plunk and i agreed with him. don’t you think so, too?
