“I want my money!  I want my money!” bellowed Simpkins.

“You stand a fine chance of getting it,” returned the policeman, “but I will do what I can for you.  I’ll take you around to the police station, and you can make a complaint to the sergeant and give him a description of the ‘con’ men.”

As word of the swindle was passed among the crowd, various were the comments and bits of advice offered.

At first Bob had been too stunned by the discovery that he had been made an innocent party to the swindle even to think, but as he gradually recovered from the unpleasant surprise, his one thought was to get away from Simpkins, to deliver his groceries and get back to the store as quickly as possible.  In order to carry out this plan, he began to worm his way through the constantly increasing crowd.

One of the men who were offering advice chanced to see him, and cried: 

“There goes the boy!  He was probably standing in with the swindlers.  Why don’t you arrest him, Mr. Officer?”

“That’s the thing to do,” agreed several others, and the policeman, evidently thinking that it would be a wise procedure for him to seize some one in connection with the swindle, leaped after Bob, grasped him roughly by the shoulder, and started for the station-house, followed by Simpkins and those of the crowd who had nothing better to do.

Arrived at the police station, the countryman and the patrolman both talked at once, while Bob stood in silence, overcome by the disgrace of his arrest.

Taking his pencil, the sergeant stopped the countryman’s torrent of words, and began to ask him questions as to his meeting with the strangers, eliciting the information that he had met them coming over on the ferry-boat from Jersey City, and that the business deal they had proposed was the betting of fifteen hundred dollars on a race horse that was sure to win.

“It’s a pity there isn’t a law to keep you country people out of the cities,” grunted the sergeant, when the details of the story had been told him, and then, turning to the policeman, he said: 

“You did right in bringing along the boy, McCarty.  He is evidently one of the gang, or he wouldn’t have been passing along the street just as he was.  We may be able to learn from him who the ‘con’ men are, and where they hang out.  Search him, and then take him back to a cell.  I’ll send a couple of plain-clothes men in to talk with him.”

And grabbing Bob by the arm, the policeman dragged him toward the door which led to a cell.

CHAPTER II

BOB FINDS AN UNEXPECTED CHAMPION

Among those who had heard the story of the swindling of the countryman were several reporters for the great metropolitan afternoon papers, and as the burly policeman dragged the pathetic figure of the grocer’s boy to the cell, one of these, a particularly clean-cut, wide-awake young fellow, exclaimed: