"I know you now!" interrupted Bert. "You're Frank Kennedy, and I was with my father, calling on Mr. Mason, when I saw you. Freddie was with me then. Don't you remember, Freddie?" asked Bert. "This is the boy we saw—the boy we saw getting a—"
And Bert stopped. He did not want to say "shaking," for it was when Frank Kennedy was being severely shaken by Mr. Mason, on account of the bad twenty dollar bill, that the strange boy had last been seen by the Bobbsey lads. And on that occasion Frank had run away.
"Oh, now I know you!" cried Freddie, laughing.
"Yes, I am the boy you saw getting a shaking, for something that wasn't my fault!" exclaimed Frank, and his voice was hard and bitter. "I made up my mind I wouldn't stand Mr. Mason's cruel treatment any longer, so I ran away. I did see you two boys that time I got a shaking," Frank admitted. "You were in an automobile then," he went on, "and Mr. Bobbsey was with you." He looked around as though in search of the twins' father.
"Mr. Bobbsey had to go back to Lakeport on business," explained Mrs.
Bobbsey. "We came over from Meadow Brook to the circus here to-day.
And I remember Mr. Bobbsey speaking of you. So you ran away?"
"Yes'm, I ran away. I couldn't stand it in that lumber office any longer the way Mr. Mason treated me. It wasn't fair. And I'm never going back again, either. I don't like him, and he doesn't like me. I'll never let him be my guardian again."
"Poor boy!" murmured Mrs. Bobbsey. "You must have had a hard time. Did you come with this circus as soon as you ran away?"
"No'm, I had a pretty bad spell first along. When I ran away I had only the clothes I wore, and only a little money. It was my own!" he said, quickly, lest they think he might have taken it from Mr. Mason's lumber office. But one look at Frank's face showed that he was honest.
"What did you do?" asked Uncle Daniel.
"Well, I walked as far as I could the first night," Frank said, going on with his story. "Then I crawled in a barn to sleep."