"Did you really go into the dude's house?"
"Yes, an' what's more, we eat dinner there! Say, boys, McGowan's restaurant ain't in it alongside of what we struck up at the princess's house. There was more stuff on the table than this crowd could have got away with,—an' talk 'bout silver dishes! I never had any such time before, an' I thought aunt Dorcas run a pretty fine place!"
"Where's Joe Potter?"
"Up there, actin' like he owned the town."
"Do you mean that he's stoppin' with the dude all this time?" Jerry asked, incredulously.
"Yes, an' that ain't the worst of it. He's likely to hang 'round the place quite a spell. Say, there was a thousand dollars reward to whoever found the princess, an' her father says Joe was to have it!"
"What? A thousand dollars? Go off, Plums; you're dreamin'."
"You'll find out whether I am or not, when you see Joe. Say, I s'pose you think he'll come 'round sellin' papers again, don't you? Well, he won't. He's goin' to work down on Wall Street, for the princess's father; an' him an' me are to live with aunt Dorcas from now out. He'll come into town every mornin', an' I'll hang 'round the place livin' high, with nothin' to do but tend to things."
"What kind of a stiff are you puttin' up on us, Plums?" Tim Morgan asked, sternly.
"It's all straight as a string. When we got up to the princess's house, she jest went wild at seein' Joe, an', if you'll believe it, she set on his knee more'n half the time I stayed there. Her father made us tell all we'd done from the minute Joe found the kid, an' then he said a thousand dollars was promised to the feller what would find her. Of course we didn't s'pose he'd pay the money after givin' us a ride in his team, an' settin' up the dinner; but he stuck to it like a little man. Aunt Dorcas is to take care of the wealth, an' seein's how she told him where we fellers was, he's to give her what the advertisement promised, an' that's a hundred dollars apiece for the three of us. When all this was fixed, the princess's father offered Joe a job, an' he's to have six dollars a week, with a raise every year if he minds his eye. They're out buyin' clothes now, an' I slipped down to see you fellers, 'cause we're goin' back to aunt Dorcas's house this evenin'."