Mr. Tidd went along with us when we took possession of the Wicksville Trumpet. He headed straight for the room where the machinery was, Gibbon’s Decline and Fall sticking out of his pocket. Which one interested him first would have him for the morning—so Mark began to talk printing-press right off. Mr. Tidd went and looked it over and sniffed in a gentle, mild-mannered sort of way.

It wasn’t much of a press, I expect. You worked it with a big crank, like turning a coffee-grinder. We boys had seen it done lots of times, for we’d hung around the printing-office more or less, and sometimes we’d helped fold papers and such things. So we had some experience. Some was about all we had, though. We knew as much about running a newspaper as a man that’s picked a sliver out of his finger knows about surgery.

Mr. Tidd shucked off his coat and started prodding around in the insides of the press.

Mark motioned to us and we sneaked out into the office.

“Now,” says Mark, “we c-c-commence. I’m editor and you f-fellows are everything else.”

“What else is there?” says I. “I want to pick out a good job.”

“You can be assistant b-business manager,” says Mark.

“Assistant?” says I. “Who’s the real thing?”

“Me,” says Mark.

“Huh!” says I.

“You’re a reporter, too,” says he. “You and Plunk and T-Tallow.”

“What’s my job?” says Tallow.

“You’re a-a-assistant foreman of the pressroom,” says Mark.

“Huh! Who’s foreman?”

“Me,” says Mark.

“What job have you got that I can be assistant to?” says Plunk.

“You’re assistant circulation manager,” says he.

“All we got to do is be those things you’ve said, and reporters besides?” says I.

“That, and hustle for ads., and help run the press, and fold papers, and learn to set type, and clean up, and help l-l-lick folks that come in to l-lick the editor, and run the job press, and collect money, and get subscribers, and d-d-drum up printin’ jobs. When you hain’t got anythin’ else to d-do, you can be l-lookin’ for news.”

“Too much loafin’ about this to suit me,” says Tallow.

“Say,” says Plunk, “how does a newspaper make money, anyhow?”

“It d-don’t,” says Mark. “Anyhow old Rogers always said so; but it t-tries to make money by gettin’ folks to subscribe, and by havin’ f-folks advertise, and by doin’ printin’ jobs—like tickets for the Congregational Young Ladies’ Auxiliary Annual Chicken-Pie Supper.”

“How many subscribers did the Trumpet have when it busted?” says I.

“Hunderd and t-twenty-six,” says Mark. “And listen to this, you f-fellows, we’ve got to have a thousand.”

“Huh!” says I. “You’ll have to git a few dozen fam’lies to move in first.”

“Yes,” says Plunk, “and about that type-settin’—who’s goin’ to teach it to us?”

Mark scratched his head at that. Who was going to teach us how to do it? But that was a worry that didn’t last long. We found a bridge to cross that difficulty and the name of it was Tecumseh Androcles Spat. He came in through the door that very minute.

He looked like Abraham Lincoln in his shirtsleeves. Tall he was, and bony, and he hadn’t any coat on, and he did have one of those old flat-brimmed silk hats.

He looked at us a moment and then says:

“Do I find myself standing in the editorial sanctum of one of those bulwarks of liberty and free speech—the local newspaper?”

“Right on the edge of it,” says Mark.

“Where then, may I ask, is that great and good man, the editor?”

Mark sort of puffed out his chest and looked important.

“I am the editor,” says he.

The tall man looked sort of taken back, but just the same he took off his hat with a sweep.

“I greet you sir,” he said. “You see before you no less a person than Tecumseh Androcles Spat. From my earliest youth the smell of printer’s ink has been in my nose. My services have been sought, obtained, and finally dispensed with in no less than one hundred and seventy-four printing establishments. I desire to round out the number and make it a full century and three-quarters. Therefore, I apply to you for employment.”

“Can you set type?” says Mark, beginning to look cheerful.

“Stick type? Can Tecumseh Androcles Spat stick type? My young friend, my first tooth was cut on a quoin; I learned my letters at the case; at the immature age of seven—an infant prodigy, with all modesty I say it—I could set the most complicated display. To-day, in my maturity, you perceive me unrivaled in my profession. I am the Compleat Printer.”

“You can have a j-job,” says Mark, “but I dunno if you’ll ever get your wages.”

“No matter, no matter. I am accustomed to that. Give me but a corner to slumber in, food for my stomach, tobacco for my pipe, and my soul is at peace.”

“You’re hired,” says Mark.

“Where’s your coat?” says I.

“In useful service, my young friend. It hangs from crossed sticks in the midst of a garden patch a mile or more away. It was a lovely garden patch wherein grew peas, string-beans, luscious cabbages, fragrant onions. But it was being destroyed. The birds of the air descended upon it in thousands. I looked, I comprehended. What a pity, said I. So, to avert further depredations, I stripped my coat, hung it from crossed sticks, and stood it in the midst of the garden patch. The garden needed it worse than I. Each time I gaze upon my uncoated arms I say to myself, ‘Tecumseh Androcles Spat is doing his part to preserve the nation’s food.’”

“He talks like he was a lot educated,” says Plunk.

Tecumseh Androcles overheard him. “Educated. Ah, indeed. Have I not in my day set type for every page of Goober’s Grammar, Mills’s Spelling Book, to say nothing of histories, philosophies, dictionaries. But most important of all, almanacs. Young gentlemen, I have set no less than ten almanacs from beginning to end. What university, I ask you, can equip you with the facts contained in a family almanac?”

“You’ll n-n-need all you know around here,” Mark says, with a grin. “We just bought this p-paper at sheriff’s sale, and we’ve got the whole business to learn.”

“Good! Splendid! You’re in luck. Tecumseh Androcles Spat is the man to teach you. Where’ll I begin?”

“You might go out in the shop and l-look around. Sort of get the lay of the land,” says Mark.

He hung his silk hat on a hook and, in the most pompous, dignified way you ever saw, he stalked out into the press-room.

“Now for b-business,” says Mark. “First thing ’s to get some s-subscribers. Folks’ll take the Trumpet if they know it’s goin’ to amount to s-somethin’. We’ve got to tell ’em.”

“How?” says I.

“By talkin’ it, singin’ it, w-whistlin’ it and p-playin’ it on your mouth-organ,” says Mark, with a grin. “Also by printin’ it. We’ll get out some hand-bills—and some bigger bills to stick on fences and things. I’ll get up the bills. While I’m doin’ it you fellows go out and see what you can l-learn from Tecumseh Androcles.”

So Mark sat down to his desk and got a pencil and commenced scratching his head. The rest of us went out into the other room—and there was Mr. Tidd and Tecumseh Androcles in a regular old argument. Both of them had forgot all about working.

“’Tain’t so,” Mr. Tidd said, as loud and excited as he was capable of. “There hain’t no book got more solid and useful knowledge in it than Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. It’s better ’n the whole kit and bundle of the rest of the books in the nation.”

“My friend,” said Tecumseh, “your view is narrow, not to say biased. I have read the volumes you praise. Without doubt there is merit in them. Oh, without doubt. But as compared to that marvelous book, Izaak Walton’s Compleat Angler, it is the nickering of a match to the shining of the noonday sun.”

“Angler,” says Mr. Tidd, disgusted as could be.

“Yes, Angler,” says Tecumseh.

“Huh!” says Mr. Tidd.

“Do not snort at Izaak Walton,” roared Tecumseh. “I will not stand by to see it done.”

“Then don’t go belittlin’ Gibbon,” says Mr. Tidd.

“Have you read The Compleat Angler?” shouted Tecumseh.

“No,” says Mr. Tidd, more warlike than I thought he had it in him to be, “nor I hain’t read the Compleat Fly-catcher, nor the Compleat Cold-catcher, nor—?”

“Sir!” yelled Tecumseh, reaching as if to take off his coat and finding it was off. It sort of surprised him, I guess, but he got over it and shook his fist under Mr. Tidd’s nose. He quit talking educated and careful, too—just for that minute.

“Your Gibbon wasn’t nothin’ but a flea on Walton’s collar,” says he.

It looked like there was going to be a regular rumpus, so I sort of stepped up and says:

“How’s the printin’-press gettin’ along, Mr. Tidd?”

“Eh?” says he. “Printin’-press. What printin’-press?”

“This one,” says I.

“Um!” says he, rubbing his chin. “Calc’late I plum’ forgot it. What’s matter with it, Binney?”

“You was goin’ to find out,” says I.

“So I was.... So I was,” says he.

“And you,” says I to Tecumseh Androcles, “you quit botherin’ him. He’s busy. See if it hain’t catchin’.”

Well, sir, you should have seen Tecumseh go to work. He could work, too, and knew just what he was doing. He set every one of us doing something, and it didn’t seem like ten minutes, though it must have been an hour or so, when Mark came out with some paper in his hand.

“Here’s the hand-bill,” says he. “Tecumseh Androcles, can you s-s-set this up so’s it’ll look strikin’?”

“Give it to me, young man, and you shall see. Ah, you shall see.”

So Tecumseh went to work and in no time had the thing set up. He fixed it so it would go on the job press and then we began printing it. Just let me tell you it was a jim-dandy. This is how it went:

By that time it was noon. Tecumseh was the first one to notice it.

“It is my custom,” said he, “to eat at this time. As I understand it you are to supply me with nourishment.”

“That was the b-bargain,” says Mark. “Come on.”

He went out with Tecumseh, and the rest of us followed. We knew he didn’t have any money to buy a meal with, because he’d spent his last cent the day before, and we wondered what he was up to. He went straight to the Acme Restaurant.

“Where’s the boss?” he says to the girl at the counter.

“Kitchen,” says she.

“Call him out,” says he.

“Call him yourself,” says she. “Your voice is as strong as mine.”

So Mark yelled, and in a minute out came Mr. Schmidt, waddling like an old duck.

“Vat iss?” says he.

“I want to b-board this gentleman here,” says Mark, pointing to Tecumseh.

“Yass,” says Mr. Schmidt.

“But I hain’t got any m-money.”

“Den you don’t got any board,” says Mr. Schmidt——

“But I’ve g-got a business p-proposition to make you.”

“Make it quick, cakes iss in dat stove,” says Mr. Schmidt.

“We own the newspaper,” says Mark. “It’s going to be the g-greatest newspaper in the State. Everybody’s goin’ to read it. You’re goin’ to r-r-read it. Now, I want to make money for you.”

“Why?” says Mr. Schmidt.

“Because,” says Mark, “I like the way your cakes smell,” and then he went ahead quick, telling the old fellow how much more money he would make if he advertised in the Trumpet and told folks about his pies and his meats, and what he was going to serve for meals. Once or twice Mr. Schmidt tried to interrupt, but Mark never gave him a chance. He ended up: “Now, Mr. Schmidt, you board Tecumseh Androcles and give him three good meals a day, and we’ll advertise your place so every f-f-farmer that comes to town will want to eat here. I’ll write the ads. m-myself. I wouldn’t do that for everybody. We’ll give you a full column every w-w-week.”

“I don’t—” began Mr. Schmidt, but Mark was at him again, and pretty soon Mr. Schmidt waved his hands in the air and says: “Stop. Vill you stop? Eh? Cakes I haff in dat oven. Dey schpoil. I advertise. Sure. I do anyt’ing if you go away. T’ree meal a day. You advertise a column in your paper. Iss dat it?”

“Yes,” says Mark, and waved Tecumseh to a seat at a table. “Be sure you eat a c-c-column’s worth every week,” says he, and grinned at us.

That was our first stroke of business. I guess it was a good bargain. Once I saw Tecumseh eating, and I guess we didn’t get much the worst of it. No, I guess Mark Tidd didn’t get beaten very bad on that bargain.

We went outside and started for home. At the corner we nearly bumped into a stranger. He was a small man, with the blackest eyes you ever saw, and he scowled at us as if we hadn’t any right to be alive. One funny thing about him was that he had on black kid gloves.

“I don’t l-like that man’s looks,” says Mark, turning to stare after him. “Wouldn’t trust him with a red-hot stove, ’cause maybe his hands would be made of asbestos.”

“Did look mean,” says I. “Wonder who he was?”

“Dunno,” says Mark, “and don’t want to.”

But he was mistaken about that. Before long Mark Tidd did want to know who he was, and wanted to know it worse than he had ever wanted to know anything in his life.

And that’s how we saw the Man With the Black Gloves for the first time.