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Rh 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