"Try me."
"Would you—would you kick me out," he said, agitated and breathless, "if you knew that my dad had committed a forgery, if you knew that he had died in prison?"
"Why, no," I said calmly, "I suspect you were not responsible for that."
A sigh of relief escaped him. "You are kind!—But that's only the beginning," he went on. "But I feel I can tell you now. I'm in an awful hole. I suppose you will think I'm a weak character for not trying to get out of it more, and I am weak, but I didn't know what to do!"
"Tell me all about it," I said.
And he did; all about Lorina and Foxy and Jumbo as he knew them. They didn't trust him far. He knew nothing of their actual operations, but his honest young heart told him they were crooks. Lorina held him under a spell of terror. He had not up to this time been able to conceive of the idea of escaping her. There are those who would blame the boy, I have no doubt, but I am not one of them. I have seen too often that a mind which may afterwards become strong and self-reliant is at Ralph's age fatally subservient to older minds. Those who would blame him should remember that until he met the doctor and me he had not a disinterested friend in the world. They must grant that he instantly reacted to kindness and decent feelings.
"How did you first get into this mess?" I asked, strongly curious.
"I'd have to tell you my whole life to explain that."
"Fire away."
I will give you Ralph's story somewhat abridged.