"We've come after you."

"What for? I'm goin' to hang 'round here a spell till I can get enough
money ahead to go into business ag'in. Did you fellers think I'd be so
mean as to sell papers 'round City Hall after I'd sold out to Dan?"

"It ain't anything like that, Joe Potter," Master Fernald replied, so
gravely that the princess's guardian could not fail of being alarmed.

"What's floatin' over you fellers?" he asked, sharply. "Ain't been
gettin' into trouble, have you?"

"We're all right; but there's somethin' mighty wrong 'bout you, Joe.
Say, did you do anything crooked when you sold that stand to Sim
Jepson?"

"Crooked? Why, how could I? He'd been workin' for me at a dollar a week,
an' when I hadn't any more money, he took the stand for what I owed him.
If you call it crooked to sell out a business for a dollar an' twenty
cents, when it cost pretty nigh eight times as much, you're off your
base."

"Then what _have_ you been doin'?" Tim Morgan asked.

By this time Joe began to understand that something serious had caused
this early visit, and he began to grow alarmed, without knowing why it
should disturb him.

"I don't want you to make any noise 'round here, 'cause Plums an' me
have got a kid what we picked up in the street last night, an' she's
asleep. It won't do to wake her 'less you want to hear the tallest kind
of screechin'. But I've got to know what's givin' you fellers the
chills; so out with it, but be as quiet as you can."

Dan Fernald looked at his comrades as if hoping one of them would act as
spokesman; but since both remained silent, he began by saying:

"See here, Joe, you know we're your friends, an' are willin' to do all
we can to help you out of a scrape?"

"Yes," Master Potter replied, growing yet more alarmed because of Dan's
solemn manner.

"If you'd come right to us in the first place, we'd helped you, no
matter how much money was wanted."

"Look here, Dan, don't give me a stiff like this!" Joe cried,
imploringly. "If anything's wrong, out with it, 'stead of mumblin' 'bout
helpin' me. I've allers managed to help myself, and you fellers, too, a
good many times, so I don't know why you should stand 'round lookin'
like as if somethin' was chewin' you."

"If we wasn't your friends, Joe, you might give us a bluff like that,
an' even if we didn't take it, we'd make out as though we did. See
here," and unfolding a newspaper, Dan pointed to an advertisement, as he
added, "I saw this