“And you’re going to stand for his keeping that stock in the warehouse when you could get rid of it at a fair price?” “I can’t help myself,” says Silas. “He’s boss. But, Dwight, if he wasn’t boss, and he said what he said this mornin’, I guess I wouldn’t sell. ’Cause why? ’Cause he knows what he’s talkin’ about whenever he opens his mouth.... I got to git out into the log-yard, Dwight. I’m kind of sorry this here happened, because I always figgered you was a kind of a friend of mine. It hain’t pleasant to know somebody you trusted has been cheatin’ you reg’lar.” Well, Dwight he turned around and went away from there pretty sudden, and he looked like he’d et something that disagreed with him. A man must feel pretty small and mean when somebody catches him trying to play a low-down trick. Zadok came into the office about the middle of the afternoon, and he was grinning like all-git-out. “Ha, Marcus Aurelius!” says he. “Opportunity spelled with a capital O. Opportunity is everywhere. Always one is under your nose. You have but to see and pluck it. (‘Pick’ is the commoner word.) I shall not tell you about the Opportunity I have seen, but I shall hint at it. A hint should be enough for you.” “F-fine!” says Mark. “Go right ahead and hint. If there’s anything I love it’s g-g-guessin’ riddles.” “Here’s one hint,” says Zadok. “Listen carefully: A dam is not valuable to a power company without a power-station.” Mark nodded. “You got to t-t-turn your water-power into electricity, of course,” says he. Zadok looked at us proudly. “There,” says he, “did I not tell you? Marcus Aurelius Fortunatus Tidd! In a second. He grasps the idea in a second.” “I grasped that one myself,” says Binney. “Yes,” says Zadok, “but, now you’ve grasped it, what do you contemplate doing with it? Eh? Tell me that?” “Why,” says Binney, “I don’t know!” “Do you, Mark?” said Tallow. “Not yet,” says Mark, “but I’m g-g-goin’ to study it. I’ll find out.” “To be sure. Certainly. That’s the thing. He’s going to find out, and you may be sure he will find out. Now for hint number two: If you’ve got to have a thing you can’t get along without it. There. How’s that for a hint? Can’t think of a better one, can you? I don’t believe you can. And the best part of it is that those hints are first cousins. They are blood relations.... That’s all the hints. If you discover their meaning, then you have this man Wiggamore at your mercy. But it will not be easy. It will require work and brains. Marcus Tidd has the brains and you all can work. Now about bowls. And drumsticks. And turned stock. You have a supply in the warehouse, I am told.” “Quite a lot,” says Tallow, whose job it is to keep tally of stock. “And you wish to sell them?” “To be sure.” “In that case, communicate with the address on this card. It is a good firm, a reliable firm, an honest firm.... Now I must be going. Good-by all.”