“Good evenin’,” says I, make-believe polite.
“Git up,” says I. “They’ll be comin’ in a second.”
He groaned again and got onto his feet. I took him by the arm and dragged him off the right of way into the dark. Not far away we found a street and started up it, hoping it would bring us out some place we wanted to be.
“Now,” says Mark, “to f-f-find Uncle Hieronymous.”
That was more difficult than we had any idea of.
There we were in a town we never saw before, with no place to go and no idea what to do next. Ludington seemed to us like a pretty big town after Wicksville, but we didn’t let that frighten us.
“I’m g-g-goin’ to git the gravel out of my ears,” says Mark. “You can do whatever you want to.”
That _was_ a pretty good idea. The gravel I got wasn’t in my ears; mostly it was down my neck. I was full of it. I don’t suppose the railroad company ever missed what I took away, and I didn’t see any reason why I should carry it back, so I left a nice little pile of it on the sidewalk.
“And I,” I says, cross-like, “wish you’d quit thinkin’ about how uncomfortable you are and start to thinkin’ about Uncle Hieronymous.”
“Binney,” says he, “d-d-don’t get het up. Think a minnit. Jiggins and Collins never saw Uncle Hieronymous, did they? Then they wouldn’t know him if they met him. And they d-don’t know where to look. They’ll never find him to-night. There hain’t such an awful hurry that I c-c-can’t get the gravel out of my hair.”
“I’ll bet they’re lookin’ for him right now.”
Mark sighed. “There hain’t any use in it,” says he, “but I s’pose I g-g-got to humor you. Come on.”
We went straight ahead till we came to a wide street with electric lights on it. Down to the right you could see stores and business buildings, so we turned that way, and a walk of three or four blocks took us downtown.
“Now,” says Mark, “where do we b-b-begin lookin’ for him?”
“Hotel,” says I, pointing across the street to one.
Mark looked. “No use askin’ there,” he says. “Uncle Hieronymous wouldn’t stay there.”
“Two reasons,” says he. “In the f-f-first place, he wouldn’t take any comfort eatin’ his meals there, and, in the s-second place, it costs too much. Uncle Hieronymous wouldn’t eat in any b-big dinin’-room with f-f-fifty folks lookin’ on.”