"Now what has he done?" asked Jess. "It is what they say he has done, not what he really has done," wailed Lily. "The police have been to his house. And what do you think?" "I bet his mother's had a fit!" exclaimed Bobby, in an undertone. "The police accuse Purt of running down that man on Market Street the other Saturday night," said Lily warmly. "And Purt doesn't know anything more about it than a baby! Isn't it awful, girls?" CHAPTER XVIII WHERE WAS PURT? The police examination of Purt Sweet was no light matter. Two of Centerport's detective force had been working on the case ever since the stranger had been knocked down on Market Street, and, like Chet Belding and his friends, the detectives finally had come to the conclusion that Prettyman Sweet's automobile was the only Perriton car in the city that had not been in storage on that night. The detectives' visit to the Sweet residence, and Purt's later call upon the Chief of Police at his command, were dreadfully shocking to the boy's mother. Purt had to reassure her and insist that he was not going to be arrested and sent to jail at once; so he had not much time to be frightened himself. Indeed, he came out in rather good colors on this particular occasion. The boy's father had long since died. Purt had been indulged by his mother to a ridiculous degree, and as a usual thing Purt's conversation and his activities were ridiculed by his schoolmates. "This disgrace will kill me, Prettyman!" wailed Mrs. Sweet. "Where does the disgrace come in," pleaded poor Purt, "when I haven't really done anything?" "But they say you have!" "I can't help what they say." "You were out that evening with the car. I remember it very well," his mother declared. "What of it? I wasn't on Market Street the whole evening," grumbled the boy. "Where were you then?" she demanded. It seemed as though everybody else asked Purt Sweet that question, from the Chief of Police down; and it was the one question the boy would not answer. He grew red, and sputtered, and begged the question, every time anybody sought to discover just where he was with the automobile on that Saturday evening after dinner. Even when Chief Donovan threatened him with arrest, Purt said: "If I should tell you it wouldn't do any good. It would not relieve me of suspicion and would maybe only make trouble for other people. I was out with our car, and that is all there is to it. But I did not run that man down. I was not on Market Street." He stuck to this. And his honest manner impressed the head of the police force. Besides, Mrs. Sweet was very wealthy, and if Purt was arrested she would immediately bail him and would engage the best counsel in the county to defend her son. It is one thing to accuse a person of a fault. As Chief Donovan very well knew, it is an entirely different matter to prove such accusation.