Dick pulled out a bill from his pocket, and handed it to the stranger, receiving the pocket-book in return. At that moment a policeman turned the corner, and the stranger, hurriedly thrusting the bill into his pocket, without looking at it, made off with rapid steps.
“What is there in the pocket-book, Dick?” asked Frank in some excitement. “I hope there’s enough to pay you for the money you gave him.”
Dick laughed.
“I’ll risk that,” said he.
“But you gave him twenty dollars. That’s a good deal of money.”
“If I had given him as much as that, I should deserve to be cheated out of it.”
“But you did,–didn’t you?”
“He thought so.”
“What was it, then?”
“It was nothing but a dry-goods circular got up to imitate a bank-bill.”
Frank looked sober.
“You ought not to have cheated him, Dick,” he said, reproachfully.
“Didn’t he want to cheat me?”
“I don’t know.”
“What do you s’pose there is in that pocket-book?” asked Dick, holding it up.
Frank surveyed its ample proportions, and answered sincerely enough, “Money, and a good deal of it.”
“There ain’t stamps enough in it to buy a oyster-stew” said Dick. “If you don’t believe it, just look while I open it.”
So saying he opened the pocket-book, and showed Frank that it was stuffed out with pieces of blank paper, carefully folded up in the shape of bills. Frank, who was unused to city life, and had never heard anything of the “drop-game” looked amazed at this unexpected development.
“I knowed how it was all the time,” said Dick. “I guess I got the best of him there. This wallet’s worth somethin’. I shall use it to keep my stiffkit’s of Erie stock in, and all my other papers what ain’t of no use to anybody but the owner.”
“That’s the kind of papers it’s got in it now,” said Frank, smiling.
“That’s so!” said Dick.
“By hokey!” he exclaimed suddenly, “if there ain’t the old chap comin’ back ag’in. He looks as if he’d heard bad news from his sick family.”
By this time the pocket-book dropper had come up.
Approaching the boys, he said in an undertone to Dick, “Give me back that pocket-book, you young rascal!”
“Beg your pardon, mister,” said Dick, “but was you addressin’ me?”
“Yes, I was.”
“‘Cause you called me by the wrong name. I’ve knowed some rascals, but I ain’t the honor to belong to the family.”
He looked significantly at the other as he spoke, which didn’t improve the man’s temper. Accustomed to swindle others, he did not fancy being practised upon in return.
“Give me back that pocket-book,” he repeated in a threatening voice.
“Couldn’t do it,” said Dick, coolly. “I’m go’n’ to restore it to the owner. The contents is so valooable that most likely the loss has made him sick, and he’ll be likely to come down liberal to the honest finder.”
“You gave me a bogus bill,” said the man.
“It’s what I use myself,” said Dick.
“You’ve swindled me.”
“I thought it was the other way.”
“None of your nonsense,” said the man angrily. “If you don’t give up that pocket-book, I’ll call a policeman.”
“I wish you would,” said Dick. “They’ll know most likely whether it’s Stewart or Astor that’s lost the pocket-book, and I can get ’em to return it.”
The “dropper,” whose object it was to recover the pocket- book, in order to try the same game on a more satisfactory customer, was irritated by Dick’s refusal, and above all by the coolness he displayed. He resolved to make one more attempt.
“Do you want to pass the night in the Tombs?” he asked.
“Thank you for your very obligin’ proposal,” said Dick; “but it ain’t convenient to-day. Any other time, when you’d like to have me come and stop with you, I’m agreeable; but my two youngest children is down with the measles, and I expect I’ll have to set up all night to take care of ’em. Is the Tombs, in gineral, a pleasant place of residence?”
Dick asked this question with an air of so much earnestness that Frank could scarcely forbear laughing, though it is hardly necessary to say that the dropper was by no means so inclined.