"I see you know me," said Frank with a smile.
The man muttered something to himself.
In a few words Frank told how he had been cheated by the old twenty dollar Confederate bill the man had passed on him some time ago, in the lumber office.
"And when I saw that man, to-day, for the first time since, hiding around your store," went on Frank to Mr. Mack, "I thought perhaps he was up to some of his old tricks. He went in as soon as you went out, and I saw him give your clerk the same kind of a bad bill he gave me. Only I gave him eighteen good dollars in change."
"But I didn't," said George Smith with a grateful look at Frank. "I was warned in time."
"I tell you it is all a mistake," said the man. "You had better let me go."
"The only place you will go to is prison," cried Mr. Mack. "Take him away, Constable Sprigg," he said to one of the men who had come into the store with him. "Take him away!"
So the man who had cheated Frank, and who had nearly cheated Mr.
Mack, was locked up in jail. It was found that he had many
Confederate bills with him. That money was once good in the Southern
States, during war-times, but now it is of no value, and will not buy
even a stick of candy.
Of course grown persons could not be fooled by the Confederate bills, but boys, who had never seen any of that money, might be easily deceived. And it was on boys that the man played his tricks, giving them bad twenty dollar bills for some small purchase, and getting good money in change.
"He just waited until Mr. Mack went out of his store," explained Frank, "and he knew only a boy was left in charge. That's how he tricked me, waiting until Mr. Mason was out of the office."