Hodge was silent.
“Answer!” exclaimed Frank. “Do you suppose that woman could have been convicted?”
“I doubt it,” admitted Bart.
“That was the very reason I was willing to let her go. I should have been foolish to put myself to the trouble of prosecuting her with every chance against conviction. I knew that.”
Bart jumped up.
“Men are bigger fools than women!” he snapped. “I am beginning to realize that better and better.”
“And you are a woman hater!” laughed Merriwell.
“Don’t fling that at me! A pretty woman will make a fool of a man any day, and it is impossible to find twelve men who will convict a pretty woman of crime if they can help it. Adventuresses know it, and they profit by it. If they are arrested, they work all their arts on judge and jury, and in nine cases out of ten, they go scot-free. The old fools on the jury ogle the pretty prisoner, and sometimes they openly flirt with her. They sympathize with her because she is young and pretty, and, when the evidence is so strong they cannot acquit her, they disagree. Yes, men are fools!”
Frank nodded.
“That being the case,” he said, “I think you will have to admit that I was wise in letting the woman go.”