"I will talk with him myself," she said, after some thought.
"Don't do anything of the kind, for then he will be worse than ever, thinking he can frighten me into giving half of all I have made, and that I won't do, no matter how many warrants he gets out."
"But Teddy, don't you think——"
Mrs. Hargreaves was interrupted by a cry from a half-intoxicated man who halted directly in front of the young fakir, and shouted to some of his companions in the rear:
"Here he is! This is the sneak who helped take that jewelry swindler's money away. I saw him then, an' can swear to his face."
As a matter of course the tone as well as the words was sufficient to attract a crowd in this place where the throng was so dense that one could only make his way from one portion of the grounds to the other with the greatest difficulty, and for a moment, while Teddy stood unable to decide what should be said or done, every person looked at him threateningly.
"His partner has been arrested, an' we'll serve him in the same way," the man continued, as he advanced toward the boy.
"Why do you want to talk to me like that?" Teddy cried, looking around in vain for a friend. "There are plenty of people here who know me, for I live down at the Run, an' never swindled anybody."
"That's a lie!" the man replied, fiercely, seizing the boy by the collar.
"It's the truth!" Mrs. Hargreaves cried. "I'm his mother, and we have lived at the Run ever since he was born. Deacon Jones is our neighbor, and he can answer for the truth of it."