It was twelve o’clock before the boys reached the hotel.  Oscar, during the latter part of the walk, had been unusually silent.  He was thinking how he should manage to conceal his truancy, but he could not hit upon any satisfactory plan.  The more he reflected upon the matter, the more he was troubled and perplexed about it.  He might possibly hide his mis-spent forenoon from his parents, but how should he explain his absence to his teachers?  He could not tell.  He decided, however, to see his brothers before they should get home from school, and, if they had noticed his absence, to prevail upon them to say nothing about it.

“You ’ll be back again after dinner, Oscar?” said Alfred, as his friend started for home.

“Yes,” replied Oscar, with some hesitation; “I ’ll see you before school-time.”

“School-time?  You don’t intend to go to school this afternoon, do you?” inquired Alfred.

Oscar did not reply, but hastened homeward.  He soon found Ralph and George, but as neither of them spoke of his absence from school, he concluded that they were ignorant of it, and he therefore made no allusion to the subject.

After dinner, Oscar had about half an hour to spend with Alfred; for he felt so uneasy in his mind, that he had decided not to absent himself from school in the afternoon.  He had gone but a short distance when he met his comrade, who had started in pursuit of him.

“Well,” said Alfred, “we ’ve been taken in nicely, that’s a fact.”

“Taken in—­what do you mean?” inquired Oscar.

“Why, by those young scamps that we ’ve been showing around town.”

“I thought they told great stories,” said Oscar; “but what have you found out about them?”

“I ’ve found out that they are the greatest liars I ever came across—­or at least that the oldest fellow is,” replied Alfred; and he then went on to relate what transpired immediately after Oscar left them, on their return from Charlestown.  The landlord, it seems, requested the two strange boys to step into one of the parlors; and Alfred, not understanding the order, accompanied them.  They found two men seated there, the sight of whom seemed anything but pleasant to Joseph and Stephen.  These men were their fathers—­for the boys were not brothers, and Joseph’s account of their past life and future prospects was entirely false.  They had run away from home, and the money which they had so profusely spent, Joseph stole from his father.  The men, who had been put to much trouble in hunting up their wayward sons, did not greet them very cordially.  They looked stern and offended, but said little.  Joseph was obliged to deliver up his money to his father, and they immediately made preparations for returning home by the afternoon train.

“Well,” said Oscar, when Alfred had concluded his story, “I did n’t believe all that boy said, at the time, but I thought I would n’t say so.”