143

"THE PRINCESS SUFFERED AUNT DORCAS TO KISS HER" 167

"A DARK FORM LEAPED THROUGH THE OPEN WINDOW" 185

JOE AND DAN DISAGREE 207

"COME ON QUICK, PLUMS! DAN'S SET THE BARN A-FIRE!'" 215

"JOE, BELIEVING HIMSELF ALONE, BEGAN TO SOB AS IF HIS HEART
WERE BREAKING" 225

"THEN AUNT DORCAS AND HER FAMILY WERE READY FOR THE RIDE" 241

"'MCGOWAN'S RESTAURANT AIN'T IN IT ALONGSIDE OF WHAT
WE STRUCK UP AT THE PRINCESS'S HOUSE'" 245

TAILPIECE 249

THE PRINCESS AND JOE POTTER.

CHAPTER I.

A RUINED MERCHANT.

"Hello, Joe Potter! What you doin' up in this part of the town?"

The boy thus addressed halted suddenly, looked around with what was very
like an expression of fear on his face, and then, recognising the
speaker, replied, in a tone of relief:

"Oh, it's you, is it, Plums?"

"Of course it's me. Who else did you think it was? Say, what you doin'
'round here? Who's tendin' for you now?"

"Nobody."

"It don't seem as though this was the time of day when you could afford
to shut up shop."

"But that's what I have done."

"Got some 'portant business up here at the _de_pot, eh?"

Joe shook his head mournfully, stepped back a few paces that he might
lean against the building, and looked about him with a languid air,
much as if there was no longer anything pleasing for him in life.

Plums, or to give him his full name, George H. Plummer, gazed at his
friend in mild surprise.

Any other boy of Joe Potter's acquaintance would have been astonished at
the great change which had come over him; but Plums was not given to
excesses of any kind, save in the way of eating. That which would have
excited an ordinary lad only served to arouse Plums in a mild degree,
and perhaps it was this natural apathy which served to give Master
Plummer such an accumulation of flesh. He was what might be called a
very fat boy, and was never known to move with sufficient energy to
reduce his weight.

Sim Jepson stated that Plums sold newspapers in the vicinity of the
Grand Central Station because he lived only a couple of blocks away, and
therefore had sufficient time to walk to his place of business during
the forenoon.

"How he ever ear