"I'll have the law on you if you dare to strike me!" Dan cried, in accents of terror, and Joe replied, disdainfully:
"Don't be afraid, you bloomin' duffer. I ain't goin' to hurt you now, 'cause I feel too good. I'm only countin' on showin' what kind of a detective you are, an' tellin' what'll happen if you hang 'round here an hour longer."
"I'm goin' to New York an' have the perlice on your trail before dark to-night," Dan cried, speaking indistinctly because of Joe's grasp upon his throat.
"I'm willin' you should do that jest as soon's you get ready. It won't bother me a little bit, 'cause aunt Dorcas told the story this mornin', an' the man what put the advertisement in the papers has been out here. Now, you listen to me, Dan Fernald, and perhaps after this you'll give over your funny detective business. All them lawyers wanted of me was to find out where the princess was, an' if, instead of runnin' away, I'd flashed myself up on Pine Street, there wouldn't have been any trouble. I ought'er black both your eyes for tryin' to set fire to aunt Dorcas's barn; but somehow I can't do it, 'cause she don't like to have fellers fight. Now you can get into New York an' fetch your perlice."
Joe released his hold of Master Fernald; but the latter was so astonished by the information given, that he made no effort to rise.
"Is all that true, or are you foolin' me?" he asked, after a time.
"Say, the best thing you can do is to come up an' talk with aunt Dorcas. It would do you a heap of good, Dan, an', come to think of it, you've got to go."
Master Fernald was not as eager to visit the cottage now as he had been, for he understood that Joe was speaking the truth, and the prospect of meeting the little woman, after all he had said and attempted to do, was not pleasing.
"Don't let up on him," Plums cried, vindictively. "He's to blame for this whole racket, an' ought'er be served out a good deal worse'n aunt Dorcas will serve him."
Dan struggled manfully, but all to no purpose. His late friends were determined he should visit the woman he had intended to wrong, and half dragged, half carried him up the lane, until they were met by aunt Dorcas herself, who sternly asked why they were ill-treating a boy smaller than themselves.