Bob Chester's Grit/Chapter 3
CHAPTER III
FREE AGAIN
While Bob's champion, unknown to the boy, was interesting himself in his cause, Bob was sitting on a little iron bunk his cell contained, staring about him as though unable to comprehend the situation.
After a few, minutes he heard footsteps approaching down the corridor, and then he was suddenly aroused from his reverie by a voice exclaiming:
"Well, kid, you came near making a goodsized bit of money."
"I don't call a dollar a very large sum," retorted Bob.
"A dollar? What do you mean?" exclaimed one of the two men whom Bob beheld standing outside the cell door, staring at him through the bars. "You had seven hundred and fifty dollars of that countryman's money, didn't you?"
"I saw seven hundred and fifty dollars of his money put in the envelope, but all I was to get for holding the envelope until those bad men returned was to be one dollar—and they didn't even come back to pay me, and now I haven't delivered the groceries, and Mr. Dardus will be very angry."
"Oh, ho! So you are Len Dardus' kid, are you?" queried the other of Bob's inquisitors.
"I'm not his kid, but he is my guardian," corrected the lad in a voice so full of reproach that the two men could not refrain from smiling.
"Then you don't like Dardus?" smiled the one who had addressed him first.
"I think he is unreasonable," returned Bob.
"Yes, and none too honest," commented the other.
With the various methods known only to the police detectives of the large metropolitan police forces, the two men put Bob through a grilling examination, trying in every possible way to scare him into admitting either a knowledge of who the swindlers were, or of direct complicity in the confidence game, but without being able to shake his story, even in the slightest detail.
Loath as the police officials were to admit Bob's innocence, his straightforward answers and manly manner finally convinced them that he was, as he had said, entirely guiltless, and they withdrew.
As they returned to the outer room of the police station, the sergeant looked at them questioningly.
"That boy had nothing to do with the swindle," announced one of the men who had been examining Bob.
"That's what," confirmed the other. "If there ever was an honest boy in New York, that poor little chap back in the cell is one. If you take my advice, sergeant, you will let him go, and you will change the entry on your police book from 'Arrested and Held for Complicity,' to 'Held for Examination'."
"What's the matter with all you guys, anyway?" snarled the sergeant, as he saw that the weight of opinion was against him. "Has the boy hypnotized you? It's enough to convict him that he should be working for Len Dardus."
"That isn't his fault," returned the officer who had advised the sergeant to change the entry in his book. "His mother and father died when he was three years old, and his father provided in his will that Dardus should be his guardian, though from what the boy has told us, he hasn't had any too happy a time of it, poor little shaver."
"Now don't go turning on the sympathy," growled the sergeant. "I don't care whether the boy is guilty or not. All I know is that we have got to make a case against him. It would never do to have it said that two sharpers could rob a countryman in broad daylight in our precinct. Haven't our reports to headquarters said, and haven't the papers said, that our precinct has been free from all such crimes for more than six months, and this is one of the rawest swindles that has been worked for a long time. So you two get busy and fix up your case if you want to stay in this precinct. If you don't, I'll tell the captain and the inspector, and you will be sorry."
Without response, the two officers, who believed in Bob's innocence, turned on their heels, and started toward the door of the police station.
"Hey, you two! Go down to the court. I am going to send this boy right down, and mind you remember what I told you," shouted the sergeant. And, suiting his action to his words, he gave orders for Bob to be brought from his cell and taken to the police court.
Just as Bob appeared in the outer room of the station house, Foster entered.
As he saw the boy whose cause he had espoused, the reporter exclaimed:
"So you have decided to release him, have you, sergeant?"
"Release nothing," growled the official. "He's on his way to court," and then, as he had read from the expression on Foster's face that his mission to interview Len Dardus had not been altogether satisfactory, he continued: "You found I was pretty near right about old Dardus, didn't you?"
"He surely isn't a very agreeable person," answered the reporter, "and I quite agree with you that if there was money enough in the undertaking, he would never stop to question whether or not it was against the law. But I tell you one thing, sergeant, you are dead wrong about the boy. The old man actually hates him."
"Then it would be an easy way for him to get rid of the kid by getting him into just this kind of a mess."
"Maybe you're right," assented Foster, as this theory was announced, "still I don't believe you are. I am more convinced than ever that the boy had nothing to do with the swindle, and I don't think old Dardus did, either."
"Well, it won't help matters to keep arguing about it here. We'll let the judge decide. McCarty, call a patrol wagon, and take the kid to court."
"Oh, I say I you are surely not going to make that kid ride in the patrol wagon?" protested one of the other newspaper men. "That would be rubbing it in too hard."
Emphatically the others added their protest, and in the face of such opposition, the sergeant countermanded his order for the police wagon, and instead instructed Patrolman McCarty to take the boy to court, which was less than two blocks away.
Surrounded by the reporters, Bob and the patrolman walked down the street, closely followed by the countryman, whose desire to make money without working for it had led to the loss of the seven hundred and fifty dollars.
Arrived at the building in which the court was located, Bob was led away to the detention room, to await the calling of his case, while the reporters and Simpkins made their way direct to the court room.
In due course the case was reached.
When the presiding magistrate caught sight of Bob's sad face, the stern expression on his own countenance relaxed, and he bestowed upon the trembling boy a glance full of encouragement.
Noting this, Foster, who had been watching the judge intently, was inspired with the hope that the boy would be quickly discharged. But his pleasure was only momentary, for, as the magistrate read the charge, his face became even more austere than usual.
"Well, Chester, what have you to say for yourself?" demanded the judge, directing a glance at the boy, as though he would pierce his very soul. "Are you guilty, or not guilty?"
The strangeness of the scene and lack of 
"WELL CHESTER, WHAT HAVE YOU TO SAY FOR YOURSELF?"
familiarity with the procedure of a court caused Bob to remain silent.
Again the magistrate repeated his question, but still Bob made no reply.
"I think he wants to plead guilty," interposed one of the plain-clothes men whom the sergeant had ordered to make a case against the boy. "Perhaps if you offered to give him a light sentence if he would tell us who the two men are who got away with the money, he would do so."
"How about that?" demanded the magistrate, again directing his gaze at the boy.
But before Bob had a chance to reply, Foster exclaimed:
"He does not want to plead guilty, your honor. This whole business in dragging this boy to court is an outrage. He had no more knowledge of the fact that those men intended to, or were, swindling this man from the country, than you have."
The tone in which the reporter spoke was one that could not fail to be impressive, and after a moment's hesitation, the magistrate, who knew Foster as a reporter and admired him for his manly fearlessness, asked:
"What do you know about the case?"
"I protest, your honor, that this man should not be allowed to interfere with the case," said one of the plain-clothes officers. "He was not a witness of the transaction. I think it would be more proper to hear Simpkins' version of the affair."
"When I wish your advice, officer, I will ask for it," snapped the magistrate, and turning again to Foster, he said:
"Tell me all you know about this business."
"Thank you, your honor, I will:
"I happened to be in the police station when the boy was brought in. He told a straightforward story about having been on the way to deliver some groceries, when he was hailed by one of three men, who asked him a few questions, and then offered him a dollar if he would hold an envelope, which was supposed to contain twelve hundred and fifty dollars, for a few minutes. The thought of earning such a sum of money so easily evidently caused the boy to forget all discretion. But as the minutes went by and the two men did not reappear, the boy grew restless, and finally suggested that he hand the envelope to Officer McCarty here, and that he be allowed to go about his errand of delivering the groceries. Then"
Interrupting, the magistrate turned to Simpkins, and demanded suddenly:
"Is that true?"
The question was so unexpected that the countryman was surprised into answering truthfully, and replied:
"Yes, sir."
Realizing that the turn of affairs was making them appear ridiculous, the officer who had suggested that Bob be allowed to plead guilty, and receive a light sentence, if he would divulge the name of the two swindlers, hurriedly exclaimed:
"But the boy has a bad record, your honor."
"That is not so, your honor," retorted Foster hotly. "When I found that the sergeant was determined to hold the boy, I went to the man for whom he works his name is Len Dardus and made inquiries about him. Mr. Dardus is his guardian, and though it was evident that he had no love for the boy, the worst he could say about him was that he took a half hour to deliver an order that should have been delivered in twenty minutes. As to his associating with bad companions, that is not so, for his guardian said he was never out at night, always preferring to read."
"If the boy is such a paragon of virtue, why didn't his guardian come to court himself and try to help the boy, instead of leaving it to a reporter?" sneered the officer who was trying so hard to make a case against Bob.
"I tried to get him to come," exclaimed Foster, "but he refused on the ground that he could not leave his store."
"You reporters are certainly good ones at putting up a plausible story," retorted the officer contemptuously.
Striking his desk a sharp rap with his gavel, the magistrate exclaimed:
"When I want to hear from you, sir, I will let you know. You would make a far better impression if you and the sergeant and every other available man connected with the precinct were out searching for the two swindlers, instead of trying to send a poor, almost friendless, lad to prison. If you arrested half as many criminals as you do innocent men, it wouldn't take long to rid this city of crime."
So stinging was this rebuke that the reporters were busy writing down the words of the judge, and before they had finished, the magistrate said:
"Does your guardian treat you well, Bob?"
"Why, sir, I suppose so, sir; but he scolds me a lot. He seems to think that every time he sends me out to deliver an order, that I should come back within a quarter of an hour, no matter whether I have to go one block or twenty."
"How much does he pay you?"
"Two dollars a week, sir."
"What do you read at night?"
"About farming and ranching out West, sir."
"Then you want to go out West?"
"Yes, sir. I'm going just as soon as I have money enough. I have saved ten dollars already towards going."
"Huh! What becomes of your charge that the boy has evil associates, Mr. Officer?" snapped the magistrate, as he heard Bob's reply. "Any boy who earns two dollars a week, and has managed to save ten, surely can't have any bad habits.
"Bob, you are discharged. The disgrace to which you have been subjected of being arrested and brought to court is an outrage, and I wish there was some way that you could obtain redress from the officers who subjected you to it, but unfortunately there is not."
Reaching into his pocket, the magistrate drew forth some bills, from which he selected one of the denomination of five dollars, and handed it to Bob.
"Put this with your ten dollars," he continued. "It will help some toward getting you out West, and now you go back to Mr. Dardus, and tell him that Judge Bristol said that your arrest was an outrage. Clerk, call the next case."
If Bob had been bewildered by the circumstances that had led to his being brought to court, he was still more so with the sudden turn in events that had resulted in his release, and it was not until one of the court attachés good-naturedly advised him to leave the court room as soon as he could, that he realized he was again free.
But in his haste to obey, he suddenly remembered the reporter whose interest in him had been of such assistance, and he stopped and looked about the courtroom for him. But Foster and the other reporters were busy telephoning the story to their papers, and repeating the magistrate's scathing rebuke to the police of the precinct and the city, so that Bob could not see them. And, after lingering a moment or so, he finally decided to return to his guardian without more delay, promising himself that he would search out his champion and thank him another time.