Mark Tidd, Editor Part 39

"I knew you would, Binney," says he, which ended that. I was elected to stay, hungry or no hungry, so I settled down and made believe I was eating an apple pie. But that didn't do much good. It just made me hungrier.

"Wish we could c-c-communicate with our faithful friends, the Knights Tallow and Plunk," says he.

"We can try," says I.

"There's a ladder l-leadin' to a trap door in the roof," says Mark.

"Let's go up it and see what there is to see."

The ladder went up over in a front corner, and I scrambled up it first.

Mark came right behind me. I unhooked the trap door cautious and shoved it up; then I poked my head through. There was a flat place about six feet square with a railing around it, and I knew we were on top of a sort of little tower on the front of the house.

"Come on," says I, "but keep down. We can hide behind this railin'

here."

"'Tain't a railin'," says Mark, "it's a battlement."

That's the way with him. When he's playing a thing he _plays_ it, and sticks to details. Everything you say or do has got to be the way it would be if what you was doing was real instead of make-believe. He was the greatest make-believer I ever saw.

We crawled out on the roof, and looked around pretty careful, I can tell you. n.o.body was in sight for a while. Then we saw Rock in the yard, and after a while we saw Plunk and Tallow coming toward him. They stopped and talked with their heads close together.

"Our t-trusty friends," says Mark, "have found a way of t-talkin' to the young Duke."

"Yes," says I, "they're doin' it the usual way-with their mouths."

"We got to let them know we're h-h-here," says he.

"Yell at 'em," says I.

He just looked at me, and then got his slingshot out of his pocket and put a pebble in the leather. Then his eyes sort of twinkled, and he says, "If I hit where I aim, Plunk Smalley's g-g-goin' to git a s'prise."

Plunk's back was toward us, so I sort of guessed.

Mark aimed careful and let her fly. In a jiffy Plunk clapped his hand to the seat of his pants and let out a holler you could have heard in Illinoy. Then him and the others looked all around and Mark stuck up his head pretty slow, and then his hand, and waggled it.

Plunk and Tallow and Rock saw it, but they had sense enough not to waggle back. They knew Jethro might see them. So they just nodded their heads and made believe they was looking at something else.

"Now," says Mark, "we'll give 'em their orders."

"How?" says I.

"Write 'em," says he, "and chuck 'em over." He got out his pencil and wrote a note that said:

_Faithful Knights_:-The Knight Binney and me is safe. Our presence hain't known, and we got to talk with the prisoner Pekoe. In the tower where we're hid we found other secrets that is important to the young Duke. Tell him his father's alive, and is a great man, so the prisoner Pekoe says. We hain't going to escape till we see if we can get past the men-at-arms and the bad Knight Jethro, and hunt around in the dungeons under this castle to find out what the writing left by the Earl Wigglesworth leads to. You faithful knights stick around till you hear from us, but don't be seen. If we don't show up by midnight, you better wake up Lawyer Jones and tell him what has happened, and for him to come out with his men-at-arms to rescue us. If you hear three whistles inside go and bang like everything on the front door and holler fire. All in the young Duke's service,

_Mark Tidd, Knight_

Then he folded it and, making sure Jethro wasn't watching, let it flutter over the edge. It fell to the gra.s.s quite a ways off and pretty soon we saw the knights and the young Duke go over to it, and Tallow put his foot on it. After a while he sat down, and we saw him stuff it in his pocket. Then they all went over to the arbor and out of sight. We knew they were reading the note, and that they would stick just like Mark told them.

CHAPTER XX

About all we could do now until Jethro was safe in bed was to sit around and wish he'd go early. If I was going to pick out the worst job in the world, it would be a waiting job. I don't know why it is, but when you're waiting time goes along about a dozen times as slow as it does any other time. If it hadn't been for Mark Tidd and his make-believes I guess I'd have gone plumb crazy.

"Say," says I, after a while, "I know there's some sort of a mystery about Rock, but what d'you s'pect it is? From them photographs you was so glad to find I guessed maybe you figgered he was Mr. Wigglesworth's son."

"Shucks!" says he. "And you mustn't speak about the young Duke as Rock.

'Tain't respectful. Earl Wigglesworth's son! Shucks! Anybody could see that b-baby in the photographs was a girl. Besides, didn't this p-prisoner Pekoe say he was a son of the man called the Big Duke, that's off huntin' for the Holy Grail or s-s-somethin' in far countries?"

"Sure," says I, "so he did."

We didn't say anything for a spell, and then I asked: "If the young Duke hain't a son of Earl Wigglesworth's, why was he fetched here? What int'rest did the Earl Wigglesworth have in him, anyhow?"

"That," says Mark, "is exactly what we got to f-f-find out. Hain't you s-satisfied with havin' a dandy mystery? Want to spoil it by s-s-solvin'

it without any trouble? What good's a m-m-mystery unless it's mysterious?" says he.

That did sound reasonable.

"S'posin'," says Mark, "that the young Duke wasn't jest the Duke, but was ent.i.tled to be somethin' more. Maybe king or some job like that. And s'posin', while his father, the Big Duke, was off c-c-chasin' this Holy Grail, that enemies s-stole him away, and there wasn't any way to p-prove he was the rightful king. See? And s'posin' this Earl Wigglesworth he had somethin' to prove it by, but didn't dare to b-burn it up or any thin'. And when he come to die he r-r-repented his bad deeds. And then he wrote that p-p-paper showin' where the p-papers to prove the Duke was ent.i.tled to be king was hid. That's how I f-f-figger it. Now, we faithful retainers of the Duke has got to r-recover them papers and fix it so's the Duke comes into what's rightfully hisn.

Hain't that about it?"

"Shouldn't be s'prised," says I. "But seems to me like the Big Duke was mighty careless to go off chasin' that Grail, whatever _that_ is, and leave his son layin' around loose for anybody to steal."

"These here chivalrous knights," says Mark, "was always doin' them foolish things. If they hadn't," says he, "there wouldn't have been any s-s-stories. Seems l-like every knight was a l-little crazy. All I ever read about did things that was so silly you'd lick a p-puppy for not knowin' better than they did."

"What's this Grail you was talkin' about?"

"It's a cup," says Mark, "and I guess it's a magic cup or somethin', near's I kin judge. It's got a way of wanderin' around all by itself and hidin' away. Feller named Galahad up and f-found it once. His dad's name was Launcelot, and he was the biggest knight that ever was."

"What did this Galy-had do with it?" says I.

"Oh," says Mark, "I calc'late he just _f-found_ it-and let it go at t-t-that. Just like a knight. Spend a year l-lookin' for a thing, and when he f-finds it, instead of takin' it home to put on the what-not and show to folks, he jest says, 'I spy,' and gallops off again."

"Looks silly," says I.

"Was s-silly," says he.

"Say," says I, after thinking the thing over a while, "it just come into my head that us fellers was pokin' our heads into somethin' that didn't concern us. What we monkeyin' with this mystery for, anyhow?"

"Binney," says Mark, "you s'prise me. Hain't we newspaper men? Well!

Hain't it the b-business of newspaper men to git the news?"

"You bet," says I.

"And won't the answer to this m-mystery be the b-biggest news ever p-printed in a Wicksville paper?"