"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."