"The boys will take care of you," he said, hurriedly, bending over the huge pot to inhale the odor, in order to know exactly how the berries were adapting themselves to the infusion, and, much to his surprise, Teddy found himself the one especial feature of the party.
All on the ground had evidently heard of his arrest, for each new arrival asked concerning the events of the evening, and, what was more to the purpose, so far as he was concerned, all seemed to think his troubles were only temporary.
"You'll come out of it all right," the manager of the largest sandwich booth said, confidently, as he entered with his hat on one side of his head and a cigar held in his mouth at an angle of forty-five degrees. "I heard of your uncle last year, when he tried to make trouble for a friend of mine in the spittoon game, an' you can bet your bottom dollar that the people here are not going to take much stock in what he says."
"It seems they did, so far as to issue a warrant for my arrest," Teddy replied, with a mirthless smile.
"But that won't amount to anything. I hear you have got John Reaves as a friend, an' he comes pretty near runnin' things to suit himself in Peach Bottom. He helped my friend out of the scrape your uncle put him into, an' folks say there's no love lost between him an' Nathan Hargreaves."
"I want to get out of my trouble simply on the ground that I am not guilty," Teddy replied. "If I am charged with aiding burglars, there's precious little consolation in being set free simply because people do not like the man who made the charge."
"Nobody believes you guilty, and for the matter of that I'm certain Hazelton had nothing to do with the job. His game ain't exactly square; but he don't go around breaking into stores."
Teddy was on the point of telling that Long Jim had been arrested because of the burglaries committed; but he remembered in time that this fact was as yet a secret, and remained silent.
The man who leased the only "Great African Dodger" was the next to arrive, and he also seemed to think it necessary to condole with the young fakir in his troubles, as did the remainder of the guests, and by the time all were assembled Teddy began to think his experience was only such as every other person in the tent had undergone at some time in his career.
"You see this is the way the matter stands," the whip man said, confidentially, while Mr. Sweet was bending all his energies to mixing the lemonade. "People think fakirs are the worst class of men in the world, whereas, if the matter was sifted right down, they'd find the class as a whole was honest because they couldn't afford to be otherwise. I'm not talking now about those who run strong games, like Hazelton; but ourselves who do a legitimate business. You've got canes an' knives to sell, while I deal in whips; now all we want is a fair show to dispose of our goods, an' we know everything must be done on the square, or there's bound to be trouble sooner or later, consequently we keep straight, an' take all the abuse which those who have come to swindle the folks deserve. Why, what, I ask you, would the managers of these fairs do if they couldn't get us to come up with our money for privileges? They couldn't pay expenses, an' that's the whole amount of the story. They run after us, an' yet when we come there's the same old howl about swindlers."