"What's brought you fellers up to this part of the town so early?" Joe asked, in surprise, and Dan Fernald, who had under his arm a bundle of morning papers, said, in a mournful tone: "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 almost 'fore I got out of the _Herald_ office, an' didn't stop for anything but jest to pick up Tim an' Jerry before I come to find you." Joe looked at each of his friends in turn before taking the proffered paper, and then, after considerable difficulty because of the necessity of spelling out each word in turn, he read the following: