Mark Tidd, Editor Part 6

"No," says I; "so you'd better take the noon train back to Eagle Center."

He laughed, disagreeable-like. "Not me," says he. "The _Clarion_'ll _own_ this town in two months. We'll give 'em a real paper that folks'll buy and depend on. You might as well shut up shop right off and save expense. Maybe we'd go so far as to give you a few dollars for the junk up at your office."

"Huh!" says I. "If you're lookin' for a row, I guess we can pervide it for you. And we'll start right off. Sorry I hain't got time to talk to you any more, but I've got somethin' to do. Yes, Mister Spragg, I'm movin' on now, and in ten minutes the Eagle Center _Clarion_'ll be startin' in to wish it hadn't ever tried to hog the whole State.

Good-by, mister. Better leave while you've got change enough left to pay your fare."

He said something to me that sounded like he was real mad, and I moved off considerable rapid, because I didn't know but what he'd take it into his head to get rough. Yes, I went away from there prompt, and hurried to the office. Mark was sitting at his desk, editing.

"Hey, Mark," says I, "we're up against it again. Seems like we're always runnin' up against it. Folks won't let us have peace."

"N-n-now what?" says he.

"Eagle Center _Clarion's_ goin' to print a special Wicksville edition,"

says I. "They've got an editor here, and he says he's goin' to put us out of business."

"Um!" says Mark, and turned around so his face was toward the window.

"S-s-special edition, eh?" Then he began tugging at his ear like he always does when there's a problem to figure out or some sort of difficult thing to overcome. "Well," says he in a minute, "I don't see how we can s-s-stop 'em. But we'll let 'em know they've got compet.i.tion, eh, Binney?"

"You bet," says I.

"Got to m-m-make our first paper a hummer," says he, "so folks'll talk about it and wonder what the d.i.c.kens we'll p-p-print _next_ week."

"Fine," says I. "How'll we get about it."

"Best way," says he, "is to take a chance of gettin' licked."

"Sounds good," says I.

"We'll p-p-print some _real_ news," says he, "and we'll have a c-c-couple of typographical errors that h-happen on purpose."

"Dunno what they be," says I, "but they sound int'restin'."

"They will be," says he. "I'll m-m-make 'em myself."

"Kind of discouragin' to have another paper crowdin' in here right at the start," says I.

"Shucks!" says he. "Just m-m-makes more work and more f-f-figgerin'.

'Tain't any fun to do a thing that's _easy_. Anybody can do an easy thing. Where the fun comes in is havin' to _f-f-fight_ for it."

"Maybe," says I, "but that's where the worry comes, too."

"Keep so b-busy you won't have time to worry," says he, "and first l-let's go find your Mister Spragg."

"Come on," says I, and off we went to the hotel.

Mr. Spragg was still leaning against the same hitching-post. If he wasn't going to do anything but hold up a post, I thought to myself, maybe we won't have such a hard time of it, after all.

"Mister Spragg," says I, "let me introduce the editor of the Wicksville _Trumpet_."

"Him?" says Mr. Spragg, staring at Mark.

"Him," says I.

Then Mr. Spragg did something he hadn't ought to have done-not if he was wise. He busted right out laughing in Mark's face.

"Him the editor!" says Mr. Spragg. "Oh, my goodness! Thought I was up against some kind of a man, but nothin' but an over-fed kid that's so fat he can't hardly waddle. Oh! Oh!"

I kept my eyes on Mark, but he didn't turn a hair. You would have thought he didn't even hear what Spragg said, for he just waited for the man to get through laughing, and then he said, quiet-like:

"Glad to meet you, Mister S-s-spragg."

"Go along, fatty," says Spragg, "and don't bother me."

"I d-d-don't want to bother you unless I _have_ to," says Mark, as calm and quiet as a china nest egg. "I figgered maybe you'd like to t-t-talk things over a bit."

"With _you_?" says Spragg, as scornful as anything. "No time to bother with kids."

"All right," says Mark, still polite as peas. "I j-just wanted to give you the chance, that was all. I don't b'lieve in sailin' into a f-feller till there's some reason for it, and if there's a chance to be f-friends and keep out hard feelin', I'm the one to do all I can."

"Don't be scairt of me, sonny. I hain't goin' to hurt you any-that is, outside of bustin' up that paper you're playin' with."

"Oh," says Mark, "you're aimin' to do that, eh? I didn't have any right to complain when you came in here with your p-p-paper. You had a right to if you wanted to. And you had a r-r-right to take away my subscribers and advertisers if you could get 'em-by fair, b-b-business-like means.

But you didn't have a right to come in here d-d-deliberately intendin'

to bust up our business. That hain't fair or honest."

He stopped and looked Mr. Spragg over from head to toes.

"Come to t-think of it," says he, "I don't b'lieve I like your l-looks.

You look like a bluffer to me, and your eyes are too close t-together for folks to be warranted in t-trustin' you far. So I sha'n't.... That's about all. I wanted to be d-d-decent about it, but I guess that hain't your way of doin'. So I'll issue a little warnin'. Go as far as you kin to get business. Go after my business as hard as you can m-m-manage-but do it fair and above-board and the way d-decent business men do. As l-long as you stick to the rules there won't be any trouble. But the f-first time I catch you t-t-tryin' to do anythin' underhand or shysterin' you'll think you sat down unexpected on to a nest of yaller-jackets. Jest f-f-fix that in your mind, Mister Spragg....

Good-by."

For a minute Spragg stood looking at Mark bug-eyed. He was 'most strangled with astonishment, I guess. We turned and walked off, and we'd gone fifty feet before he came to himself enough to say a word. Then he yelled:

"Hey, come back here! Hey, you! What you mean talkin' like that?" And he started after us. But just then Billy Green, the hotel clerk, came out.

"What's matter?" says he, and then he saw Mark and me. "Hain't been goin' up against Mark Tidd, have you?" says he to Spragg.

"That fat kid was sa.s.sin' me," says he.

"Thank your stars," says Billy, "that's all he done to you. Take my advice and forgit it."

Mark didn't miss a word of it, and I could see his ears getting pink with pleasure. He wasn't swell-headed, and I guess I've said so before, but he did like to hear nice things said about himself, and more than anything else he liked to know that folks figured he wasn't the sort you could take advantage of. Mark was different from most fellows. He'd rather have the sharpest brain in town than to win the most events in the Olympic Games. And you could tickle him more by praising something he'd _thought up_ than by praising something he'd just _done_.

Mark didn't say anything while we walked a couple of blocks, but a man with one eye, and that one under a patch, could have seen he was studying and studying.

"Well," says I, "what's the word?"

"Wisht he hadn't showed up so s-s-soon," says Mark, "I was perty busy before. I wanted t-t-time to think and study on somethin' else for a while. Now I'll have to think and s-s-study about how to stop Spragg from gettin' the best of us, and how to get the b-best of him. Only we've got to be _fair_."