"Well, you know he is like yourself: he is like a son to me. His mother placed him in my charge, and in a measure I am responsible for his conduct. Now, you know it would break her heart if he would go wrong or get into bad habits." "Oh, he's all right, Mrs. Johnson." "I wish I could feel so sure," she said. "I've been anxious about that boy for a long while. He is getting careless. He is spending all of his money and he stays out late at night." "Well, I stay out myself sometimes, Mrs. Johnson." "Yes," she said, "but I know where you are, and besides, you have never been out later than eleven o'clock. Why, one morning it was one o'clock when he got home, and you see tonight, it is already past eleven." "Well, I think you'll find it's all right," said Barry, soothingly. "But I must know that it's right," she persisted. "Won't you help me?" "I'd be glad to do anything I could for you." "Well, you can help if you want to." "How?" "By finding out where Joe Hart has been spending his nights." Barry raised his hand in protest. "Oh, Mrs. Johnson, I couldn't do anything like that." "Yes, you could," she replied, with a doggedness that some women can employ so effectively. "But I couldn't," he reiterated. "Joe 'd never forgive me." The tears left her eyes at this response and a look of anger replaced them. "Well," she said, angrily, "I can pry into his business and I am going to, and if you won't help me, I'll get somebody that will!" Barry went to bed that night feeling very uncomfortable. He had his own suspicions concerning Joe Hart, but he did not have the courage to give voice to them. Besides it distressed him very much to feel that he had incurred the displeasure of his motherly landlady. All the next day the incident bothered him, and more than once he found himself looking anxiously at Joe and wondering whether it would not be a good thing to ask his young friend to explain the cause of his unusual conduct. But he did not, and the feeling of his discomfort weighed heavily upon him every hour of the day. That night at dinner Barry noticed that Joe was very much preoccupied in his manner. He bolted his food and kept looking at the clock with an unnatural anxiety. "What's the matter, Joe?" asked Barry. "Have to go out?" "Yes." "Where?" Joe seemed confused for a moment and then said hastily: "Oh, it don't make any difference." A few minutes later Joe went to the door and looked out, and then came in again and began drumming on the table cloth. "What's the weather like?" asked Barry, in an attempt to make conversation. "Looks like rain," replied Joe, aimlessly. Barry could stand this no longer. He walked to his young friend and said in a determined voice: "Look here, Joe Hart, what do you mean? You say it looks like rain, and the sky's full of stars. You don't know what you're talking about. What's on your mind?"