put the boy up to playing the part he did."

"I don't know anything about Dardus," announced the reporter who had
taken up the cudgel in Bob's behalf, "and I don't care. If he is mixed
up in questionable dealings, that doesn't mean that the boy is
necessarily a party to them. You can't tell me that a chap, with a face
as honest as that boy has, is a criminal."

"When you've been doing police stations longer, Foster, you will learn
that you can't judge criminals by their faces," snarled the sergeant,
and as the other reporters heard this caustic comment, they laughed
uproariously.

"Laugh if you want to," returned Bob's champion, "but I am going to
prove the boy's innocence of any complicity in the swindle."

And without more ado, the reporter left the police station.

Although the representatives of the other papers had sided in with the
police official who announced his belief in Bob's guilt, they
nevertheless experienced a feeling of uneasiness, lest Foster might
after all be right, and they were holding consultation as to the
advisability of investigating the story more thoroughly, when the
sergeant exclaimed:

"Don't let that fellow worry you. I've known Len Dardus for years. He's
as crooked as they make them, and he never had an honest man work for
him that I know of."

As the acceptance of the police official's theory would save them the