we've got to go to sleep."

"Why?"

"'Cause we ought'er keep awake jest to know how much swellin' we're
doin'. I stopped at a Chatham Street lodgin'-house one night, when I was
feelin' kind of rich, an' thought the bed there was great; but it wasn't
a marker 'longside of this one. I shouldn't wonder if there were
feathers in it."

Joe was quite as well pleased with the surroundings as was his
companion; but he said less on the subject because his mind was fully
occupied with thoughts of the princess,--sad thoughts they were, for he
was beginning to believe he had been wickedly selfish in taking her away
from the place where her parents might have been found, simply to save
himself from arrest.

He fell asleep, however, quite as soon as did the boy on whose
conscience there was no burden, and neither of the fugitives were
conscious of anything more until aroused by a gentle tapping on the
chamber door, to hear aunt Dorcas say:

"It's five o'clock, children, and time all honest people were out of
bed."

"We're gettin' up now," Joe cried, and he was on his feet in an instant;
but Master Plummer lazily turned himself in the rest-inviting bed, as he
muttered:

"I don't see how it makes a feller honest to get up in the night when
he's out in the country where he hasn't got to go for the mornin'
papers, an' I guess I'll stay here a spell longer."

"You won't do anything of the kind," and Joe pulled the fat boy out of
bed so quickly that he had no time for resistance.

It was seldom Plums lost his temper; but now he was on the verge of
doing so because of having been thus forcibly taken from the most
comfortable resting-place he had ever known.

"Now, don't get on your ear," Joe said, soothingly. "Aunt Dorcas has
told us to get up, an' that settles it. We're bound to do jest as she
says, 'cause all these things are hers. It won't pay to turn rusty,
Plums, else we may find ourselves fired out before breakfast, an' I
_would_ like to stay till to-morrow."

"Don't you want to stop any longer than that?" and Master Plummer began
hurriedly to dress himself.

"'Course I'd like to; but you see I've got to go back to the old German
lady's in the mornin'."

"What good will that do? It ain't likely you can bring the princess
here."

"I know that as well as you do; but I promised to be there in two days,
an' I'm goin', so we won't have any talk about it."

Five minutes later, aunt Dorcas's guests were in the kitchen,