"What's that?" gasped the tallest of the workmen.
"'Tis nothing," sneered the villain. "Come, Ralph, draw out the die."
The group gathered anxiously around the bit of metal. Mordaunt scrutinized it carefully, and strode swiftly over to an opposite corner of the stage where an ancient letterpress stood. Running an inked roller over the surface of the etching, he placed it on the bed of the press, revolved the wheel rapidly in one direction, reversed, and drew forth a slip of white paper.
"The face of a twenty-dollar bill to perfection," he exclaimed as he examined the dark oblong at one end. "Men, you may go."
Thus was the intricate process of counterfeiting depicted, and the audience, as audiences did in Shakespeare's time when a sign represented a forest or a tree or a mountain, allowed its imagination to make the thing seem plausible.
Mordaunt raised his voice. "Dolores!" he called, once, twice, thrice.
A tall, lithe creature in dark, clinging robes, with the black hair of all villains and villainesses, responded.
"Yes, brother?" she whined from the head of the basement stairway.
"Bring me Martha."
The ogre had commanded, therefore the maiden was flung down the steps before him—slight, dainty, with a wealth of blonde hair, and a pitiful sob in her voice which drew a lump into John's throat, willy-nilly.