“I know! The flames that dry the print!” Joan started out to the composing room, and the rest trailed along, quite a little procession, it was, with Joan and Chub leading.
The big room was fairly silent now, for the paper had just been run off the giant presses. But the rows of tiny blue flames along the top of each roller, which dried each page as it was flipped over, had not yet been turned out. Joan had always thought the flames very pretty—that little bit of bright color in this dim, cement-floored room, which was like a vast cave somehow, and usually thunderous with the roar of the presses.
Chub, as master of ceremonies, held the piece of paper up in front of the flames, moving it gently back and forth, so that it would not be scorched or burned.
The others pressed close about the office boy. Soon, there appeared upon the check down in the right-hand corner, the scrawled signature, “John W. Martin,” old-fashioned M and all.
“It’s certainly magic!” cried Joan.
“Yes, but don’t leave that ink around again,” Uncle John warned Chub.
“Very fine trick,” said Abie, while the others murmured their surprise.
“Now, let’s see, is this exchange the boys are making O.K.?” Uncle John asked, when they were all back in his little office again, and he had the check with its restored signature in his hand.
“Jimmy, don’t you know twenty-five dollars is a lot of money?”
“Well, I suppose it is,” admitted Jimmy. “But you see, I just entered the contest ’cause I wanted the ball and the trip to the game. Mom thought I won that, and I didn’t tell her any different, because we traded. It’d cost me twenty-five dollars to go to the game, and Babe Ruth wouldn’t sign a baseball for me, without I had that prize announcement letter telling him to. Anyway, I didn’t think my letter would win first, but I hoped it would win second.”