"I am very glad to see that you are not afraid to trust a humble member of the noble fraternity of wheelmen," said he, as he lifted the catch and opened the purse. "Now, when I take this money to its owner in the morning, he will pay the reward out of what it contains, won't he? Well, I'll do the same by you, and you may trust me to tell him (I am a wheelman, you know) that I have already paid twenty-five dollars to—Hallo? Where are you going? A bargain is a bargain. Come back and get your money. Moses Taylor! Where did he go in such haste?"
Joe might well ask that. The place whereon the strange wheelman had stood a second before was vacant, and he had disappeared from view.
A CASE OF MISTAKEN IDENTITY.
The expression that came upon Arthur's face and Roy's when the sleek and plausible stranger hurried away from them, without waiting for the money that Joe was getting ready to give him, was a study. Joe gave them one quick glance, and then, utterly heedless of the fact that he was drawing the amused attention of many of the passing crowd, placed his hands upon his hips and laughed—not boisterously, as he would if he had been in the woods or even in Mount Airy, but none the less heartily.
"Was—was it a bite?" inquired Arthur, as soon as he could speak.
"I should say it was," replied Joe, wiping the tears from his eyes. "And you fellows thought I was taken in by it. Don't you read the papers, you two? Why, that game is old enough to be gray-headed No one ever tried to play it on me before, but I recognized it in a minute."
"I confess that I don't see where the trick comes in," said Roy.