“Either a boardin’-house or a leetle f-f-farmer’s hotel. I b-bet there’s an old hotel here s-s-somewheres where he would f-feel to home, one where there hain’t much s-s-style.”
We wandered around and found a couple of hotels that didn’t look too fine. In both of them we asked for Uncle Hieronymous, and both times the man behind the counter grinned when we mentioned the name.
“Say,” says the last one, “what’s that feller been doin’? Lots of folks lookin’ for him to-night.”
“Two fellers in here not twenty minnits ago askin’ for him.”
Mark and I looked at each other. It was dead certain Collins and Jiggins weren’t letting any grass grow under their feet.
“Yes,” says Mark, “and they m-m-might stumble onto us, too.”
I never thought of that. We might run bang into them any time, and then what would happen? Something would, that’s sure; but what? I didn’t want to find out.
“How’d you come to think of that?” he asked, snappish. I guess that tumble off the train had upset his disposition. I made up my mind I’d leave him alone till he felt better.
After a while he stopped still in the middle of the sidewalk and says, “Hang it!” You never saw such a disgusted look as he had on his face.
“For not askin’ who Uncle Hieronymous w-w-worked for.”
To be sure. Neither of us had thought of it. It would have been as easy as biting an apple to find him if we knew who his boss was, but we didn’t. Now there wasn’t any way of finding out. Mark felt pretty bad. He said he guessed he was getting feeble-minded and a lot of things like that. And he was mad, too. I was glad to see that, for when Marcus Aurelius Fortunatus Tidd gets mad you want to look out. From now on Jiggins & Co. would have to travel pretty fast to beat us.
About fifteen minutes later I saw Jiggins and Collins about a block ahead.
“F-follow ’em, of course. If they find Uncle Hieronymous we can b-bust in on ’em. If they go to b-bed we’ll be able to get some sleep, too.”
That was a fact. So long as we knew they were in bed it would be safe for us to take a rest, and if they were to find my uncle with us looking on it would be pretty funny if there wasn’t some way for us to warn him before he signed any papers and made over his mineral rights. It looked, as Mark said, like we occupied a pretty fine strategical position. He knows a lot of words like that, and you ought to hear him say them. On a good long word with “s’s” in it like “strategical,” he’ll hiss and stutter and splutter for five minutes. It’s better than listening to a phonograph.