Marcos

I dropped in there while Marco, the son of Marco, was haggling with a shopkeeper over a quarter of a pound of salt, and asked for change for a twenty-dollar gold piece.

Marco was very proud of having such a man for a friend.

Marco's joy was exuberant -- but only for a mo- ment; then he grew thoughtful, then sad; and when he heard me tell Dowley I should have Dickon, the boss mason, and Smug, the boss wheelwright, out there, too, the coal-dust on his face turned to chalk, and he lost his grip.

I could see myself rise a foot at a time in Marco's estimation, and when I fetched out those last words I was become a very tower for style and altitude.

The raiment of Marco and his wife was of coarse tow-linen and linsey-woolsey respectively, and resembled township maps, it being made up pretty exclusively of patches which had been added, township by township, in the course of five or six years, until hardly a hand's-breadth of the original garments was surviving and present.

"And Marco, there's another thing which you must permit -- out of kindness for Jones -- because you wouldn't want to offend him.

You ought to cure that, Marco; it isn't good form, you know, and it will grow on you if you don't check it.

It tickled Marco to the marrow to hear about such an odd character; but it also prepared him for acci- dents; and in my experience when you travel with a king who is letting on to be something else and can't remember it more than about half the time, you can't take too many precautions.

So I got rid of Marco, by sending him off to invite the mason and the wheelwright, which left the field free to me.