It was like he said, so we hunted some more, but there wasn’t a soul. Whoever had been there had vanished like he was a fog. “That’s the way magicians does,” says Mark. “He’s put on his invisible cap. Most likely he’s s-s-standin’ right here lookin’ at us this minute.” We stayed around awhile longer, because we hated to give up, but after a while we saw it wasn’t any use, so we went home. But we all felt kind of queer. It was a mighty funny thing—that magician disappearing like that—with no place to disappear to. CHAPTER XII Next morning we made a pretty careful search of the whole mill, but we didn’t find anybody, and nothing had been damaged. The only thing we could think of was that somebody must have been sent in there by Wiggamore to smash something up, but had been frightened away by us. The thing that had us guessing was where he vanished to. He had been in that place up-stairs when we went up, and he must have been there when we were. He didn’t go down the stairs, because Binney never left the top step and nobody passed him. I guess he was a magician, all right, whoever he was. It sort of worried us, but there didn’t seem to be anything we could do about it except keep our eyes open. Mark said right off, as soon as we got a minute to spare, that the thing for us to keep in mind was George Piggins. He said it wasn’t “Pike’s Peak or bust” with us, but “George Piggins or bust,” and he let on he didn’t look with no special pleasure on busting. I guess nobody else would that was any place around him. There was too much of him to bust. If he did it he’d be spread all over a couple of counties. “Well,” says I, “let’s start looking for George. I’ll begin by lookin’ in the jail and under my bed. If he hain’t neither of those places I’m hanged if I know where he can be.” “Plunk,” says Mark, “that come clost to bein’ f-f-funny. I ’most laughed right out.” “It was funny,” says I. “Trouble with you is you hain’t been brought up to see a joke.” “Maybe,” says he, “I can’t see a j-joke that _is_, but I’m perty average sure to see when one hain’t. And that one,” says he, “was a star m-member of the Hain’t family.” “All right,” says I, “you spring a joke and see how you make out.” “When I s-spring one,” says he, “it’ll be a joke, you can bet. I won’t just shoot off somethin’ on the chance somebody’ll laugh. I’ll study over it some, and kind of try it out in my mind, and maybe repeat it out loud to myself a couple of times to see how it sounds when I say it. That’s the way to do with jokes. Jokes is like dollars. A good dollar is worth a hundred cents, but a bad dollar is apt to get you s-s-shut up in jail. Or eggs,” says he. “You don’t have to crack a joke to tell if it’s bad, like you do an egg.” “I suppose,” says I, “_that_ was a joke?” “There’s folks would call it sich,” says he. “Aw, come on,” says Binney. “Quit your jawin’ like old wimmin at a knittin’-bee and git to work. What’s goin’ to be done?”