Amy reached for her purse and opened it.
“If that girl wished a counterfeit five-dollar bill on me,” she declared, “I will pursue her to the ends of the earth and get it back.”
“Quick! Let me see that bill,” urged Jessie.
Together, heads almost touching, they examined the greenback which had come so strangely into their possession. To their inexperienced eyes there was nothing wrong with the marking. Then Jessie suddenly uttered an exclamation. She pointed to a tiny, v-shaped notch in one corner of it.
“Amy, it is, it must be, one of the counterfeits!” she breathed.
CHAPTER II
THE COUNTERFEIT BILL
Eagerly Jessie and Amy scrutinized the bill again and, with the v-shaped notch to help them, they saw, or thought they saw, that the marking on the under side of the bill was a trifle blurred and indistinct.
Even then they were not satisfied, but must run down to show the note to Mr. Norwood, who sat chatting with Momsey in the living room.
“Daddy Norwood, if you tell me this bill is a counterfeit, I will never forgive you,” was Jessie’s greeting to her father, as she dropped on the arm of his chair and thrust the bill into his hand.
“What’s this, what’s this?” exclaimed Mr. Norwood, smiling at the two girls. “What is all this talk about counterfeits? Am I to understand, my daughter, that you have turned criminal?”