"What's floatin' over you fellers?" he asked, sharply. "Ain't been gettin' into trouble, have you?"
"We're all right; but there's somethin' mighty wrong 'bout you, Joe. Say, did you do anything crooked when you sold that stand to Sim Jepson?"
"Crooked? Why, how could I? He'd been workin' for me at a dollar a week, an' when I hadn't any more money, he took the stand for what I owed him. If you call it crooked to sell out a business for a dollar an' twenty cents, when it cost pretty nigh eight times as much, you're off your base."
"Then what have you been doin'?" Tim Morgan asked.
By this time Joe began to understand that something serious had caused this early visit, and he began to grow alarmed, without knowing why it should disturb him.
"I don't want you to make any noise 'round here, 'cause Plums an' me have got a kid what we picked up in the street last night, an' she's asleep. It won't do to wake her 'less you want to hear the tallest kind of screechin'. But I've got to know what's givin' you fellers the chills; so out with it, but be as quiet as you can."
Dan Fernald looked at his comrades as if hoping one of them would act as spokesman; but since both remained silent, he began by saying:
"See here, Joe, you know we're your friends, an' are willin' to do all we can to help you out of a scrape?"
"Yes," Master Potter replied, growing yet more alarmed because of Dan's solemn manner.
"If you'd come right to us in the first place, we'd helped you, no matter how much money was wanted."