"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.
"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.
Believing that Dan was being searched for by the attorneys simply because of what he had done in the affair, Joe considered the amateur detective had such a claim upon him as could not be resisted; yet, at the same time, he was determined not to add a fourth member to aunt Dorcas's family.
"Dan, you go an' tell her all I said,—tell her the whole truth if you want to,—an' most likely she'll let you stay; but I can't ask her to open up a reg'lar 'sylum for us fellers. Course I'm bound to do anything you say, seein's you got into this trouble through me; but I won't 'gree to sponge a livin' off the best woman that ever lived, when there's three others doin' the same thing."