"I don't s'pose it's any use for me to keep on tellin' you I've been straight ever since I started out sellin' papers," Joe said, sadly. "It's true all the same, though, an' you can't find a feller what'll say I ever did him out of one cent." "That's all in my eye, 'cause here's the advertisement what proves different. All I want to know is, how am _I_ goin' to get out of the scrape?" "I wish I could tell you." "If you did, I s'pose you'd say, 'Get over to the city, an' let them do what they want to with you; but don't hang 'round me,' same's you did yesterday." "Dan, I never believed the lawyers would know you had come away with us, 'cause it didn't seem reasonable, an' it's terrible to have you countin' on livin' with aunt Dorcas, when she is feedin' two of us already." "What's the reason _you_ couldn't step out an' let _me_ have the snap for a spell? _I_ ain't been stealin' money! _I_ wasn't advertised for, till I took up _your_ case! No, that don't suit you; but _I_ must be the one to starve, an' sneak 'round anywhere I can, while _you're_ bein' filled up with custard pie, an' sleepin' on a bed so soft that Plums thought it was feathers. You make me tired, you do!" "See here, Dan, I'm willing to do anything you say, now that you're really in the scrape with us. Go to aunt Dorcas an' tell her I couldn't come back. Perhaps she'll take you in my place." "Perhaps she will, an' perhaps she won't. I s'pose you've been coddlin' the old woman up so she thinks there's nobody in the world but Joe Potter; an' I wouldn't want to bet a great deal of money that you haven't been tellin' her I'm a chump, an' all that kind of stuff, so she wouldn't look at me if I should go there." "I never told her so much as your name--" "Where are you goin'?" Dan interrupted, suspiciously. "To get the princess; aunt Dorcas said I might bring her there." "So! You felt awful bad about lettin' your aunt Dorcas feed three when _I_ was 'round starvin', yet you can make it three by luggin' in your bloomin' princess." "Havin' a little baby in the house is different from a big boy like you, Dan. There's no use for us to stand here chinnin' about it. I'm ready to say I'm sorry for the way I talked to you yesterday, an' I'll 'gree never to go back to aunt Dorcas's. Now, what more can I do?" "But I want you to go back," Dan replied, angrily. "What for?" "I'm no chump, Joe Potter, an' I know what kind of a stew would be served up to me if I went there alone. I want you to go an' introduce me to the family." "It's a dead sure thing, Dan, we can't all live there. You know Plums won't work any more'n he has to, an' we're jest spongin' right off of a poor woman what ain't got enough for herself." "It ain't any worse for me than it is for you." Joe was in a pitiable frame of mind.