“What then?” says Mark. “Them men,” says Silas. “What about ’em?” “They’ll come to work,” says Silas. “I seen all of them, but they got together and made up one of them unions or somethin’. Yes, sir, that’s what they done. Seems like they was afraid maybe they wouldn’t git paid. I argued with them and sassed them till my tongue was blistered, but ’twan’t no good. Best I could git out of ’em was that they’d work by the day and git paid every night. If they git paid the first night they’ll work the second day, if they git paid the second night they’ll work the third day, and so on. But no pay—no work.” “Um!” says Mark. “How many of ’em?” “Nine,” says Silas. “What wages?” “Mostly two dollars a day.” “Some more?” “A couple gits two and a quarter, and one, the sawyer, he gits two seventy-five.” “Twenty dollars’ll do it. Now, Silas, if you was g-goin’ to raise twenty dollars to-morrow, how’d you go at it?” “Me?” says Silas. “Me go at it? Woosh! How’d I go at whittlin’ out a locomotive engine with a penknife? Tell me that. Twenty dollars in a day! Say, young feller, there hain’t twenty dollars in Wicksville.” “There’s enough m-money,” says Mark. “The t-trouble is to git it.” “If that’s all that’s standin’ in our way,” says I, “just the trouble of gittin’ it, I don’t see no cause to worry.” I was a little sarcastic because it looked to me like we was busted before we started. Mark he looked at me kind of squintin’, but didn’t say a word. Pretty soon he says to Silas: “We got to-night and till the whistle blows to-morrow n-n-night.... And only twenty dollars to raise.” “That’s all,” says I. “Might’s well be twenty million.” That sort of riled Mark and he turned around and says to me, “I’ll b-bet you I git that twenty before f-f-four o’clock to-morrow.” “What’ll you bet?” says I. He figgered a minute. “If I win,” says he, “you take your baby s-s-sister’s doll and carriage and wheel it around town for an hour Saturday n-night singin’ ‘Bye, Baby Buntin’’ to it. If you win, I walk around town an hour Saturday night with a card on my b-b-back sayin’ whatever you want to p-print on it.” I might have known better, but I was sort of riled, and before I got time to do any thinking I up and told him it was a bet. And right there I begun to get sorry. If there’s one thing in the world Mark Tidd hates it’s to be made ridiculous. He just can’t bear to have folks poke fun at him. I ought to have known he had some kind of an idea or he wouldn’t have made a bet like that. Anyhow, I’d let myself in for it, and there wasn’t any getting out. “I’ll start thinkin’ up what to print on that card,” says I. He just grinned and turned to Silas Doolittle. “You tell those m-men,” he says, “that they kin have their money as s-soon as the whistle blows to-morrow night.” “Have you got it?” I says, suspicious in a minute. “No,” says he. “Know where you kin git it?” “No,” says he.