“Zowie! what’s that you’re saying, Jack—don’t tell me they’re off-color bills, counterfeits in fact. Wouldn’t that be a rotten deal to hand out, and me figgering how I’d spend them? Is that what you mean?”
“I reckon it’s so, Scotty, much as I hate to knock your good luck,” Jack told him, with a shake of his head. “I happened to have a little experience in a small bank some years ago and they did say I showed signs of being a clever detector of bad money. That’s a clever job all right; but I’m afraid it won’t stand the wash worth a cent. Go slow, and don’t count your chickens before they’re hatched. Also I’d advise you not to go around telling about your windfall until you’ve shown this stuff to some friendly bank official, whose advice you’d be willing to take. If he says it’s good stuff why forget what I’m saying, and go the limit. But we’d better be finishing our own job, Perk, and get off on our jump.”
Scotty hung around for a short time, looking puzzled, as though he hardly knew how much to believe. What Jack had said in his friendly fashion had doubtless cast quite a damper on certain bright dreams in which he had been indulging. However, he finally decided to take himself off, evidently eager to know whether the laugh was on him or not, for he called out:
“Goodbye, Jack, Perk; and be sure to look me up when next you drop in at Candler Field Airport; like as not I’ll still be on my old job here, unless they decide to transfer me somewhere else. And say, Jack, I’m meaning to take your advice, and get an opinion on this here stuff ’fore I try to pass it out on any old duffer. So-long boys and luck!”
When the two comrades, adventure bound, found themselves alone they looked at each other in silence for almost a full minute, when a grin started to travel over Perk’s well bronzed face.
“Say, wouldn’t it jar you though, to have such luck knock at your door, and then give you a sly kick?” he demanded of his companion.
“To tell the honest truth, Perk, I’m not thinking about Scotty and his queer windfall; it’s our own great good luck that’s making me suspect we’re bound to carry this job through with flying colors.”
“Eh? now what d’ye mean by saying that?” asked the other hastily.
“Right in the beginning, Perk, we seem to have stumbled on a nice little plum in the shape of a clue—flung directly at our heads, you might say in the bargain.”
“Glory be! do you mean to tell me those bogus notes were off the same plates we’ve been hearing so much about lately that I’ve been dreamin’ I was tied hand an’ foot, an’ poked under a dozen bales of them?”