"Be sure you don't have any trouble with Skip," Teddy cautioned his friend, and then the two separated, each intent on swelling the Company's funds to the greatest possible extent before night.
When noon came, and it was necessary for Teddy to replenish his stock, he failed to find his partner around the newspaper offices.
This absence of Carrots did not trouble him particularly, since Teddy was quite confident the boy was attending to his own business; and he felt positive it would not be safe for him to search very long after the missing partner, lest he should encounter the enemy.
Therefore it was that he returned to his labors without consultation with his business associate; and when it was so late that there could be no danger the occupants of the store would see him entering the dwelling in the corner of the yard, he again clambered over the fence.
Master Carrots was at home, and, as could be told from his face, labouring under the most intense excitement.
"I've done it!" he cried to Teddy before the latter had time to speak. "I've done it, an' we'll have to give up the pardnership business, 'cause this is the best chance I'll get."
"Done what?" Teddy asked in surprise.
"Got a place to work on a farm."
"Are you goin' to leave the city?" Teddy asked, anxiously.
"I'll have to, of course, if I do that. You see, it happened this way: Every feller I met this mornin' told me what Skip had threatened to do, an' I reckon he means business. He says we've both got to leave this town before he goes to work ag'in, an' what's more, he an' Sid Barker wouldn't let me stay 'round Printin' House Square at all. I had to take a sneak, or else stand the chance of gettin' 'rested for fightin', so I went down to Vesey Street Market. Trade wasn't so awful good there, an' I was kind er loafin' 'round when a farmer come up an' says, 'Hello, son. Don't know of any boy 'round here what wants to go out in the country, do you?' Well, you know, that struck me jest right. I said of course I knew a boy, an' I showed him right up, 'cause it was me, an' I hadn't far to go to find myself. Well, the farmer acted as if he was tickled 'most to death, an' he said as how I was the very kind of a feller he was lookin' for; that he'd give me a good home an' make it cheerful; besides, I'd have lots of fun runnin' in the fields."