The Girls of Central High Aiding the Red Cross | Page 3

premises."
"You scamp!" exclaimed Laura sternly, to Short and Long.

"He's all right!" declared Bobby warmly. "You know just how mean
and stingy Purt Sweet is--and his mother has more money than
anybody else in Centerport. Last Christmas, d'you know what Purt
did?"
"Something silly, of course," Laura said.
"I don't know what you call silly. I call it mean," declared the smaller
girl. "Purt got it noised abroad that he was going to give a present to
every fellow in his class--didn't he, Short?"
"That's what he did," said Billy Long, taking up the story. "And the day
before Christmas he got us all over to his house and offered each of us
a drink of ice-water! And some of the kids had been foolish enough to
buy him things--and give 'em to him ahead of time, too!"
"Serves you right for being so piggish," commented Chet.
"It was a mean trick," agreed Laura, "for some of the boys in Purt's
grade are much younger than he is. But this idea of giving Christmas
presents because you expect something in return----"
"Is pretty small potatoes," finished Lance Darby, the dark youth. "But
what's the matter here, Laura?" he added. "I've counted these bills and
they are just exactly right by those figures you have set down there."
"You turned them from left to right as you counted, Lance," cried
Laura.
"Sure! I counted the face of each bill," was the answer.
"Now count them the other way!" exclaimed Laura in despair.
Her friends gathered around while Laura did this. Even Chet gave some
attention to his sister's trouble now. From right to left the packet of
bank-notes came to fifty dollars less than the sum accredited to them on
the ledger.
"Well, what do you know about that?" breathed Lance.

"That's the strangest thing!" declared Jess Morse.
"Why," said Bobby of the quick mind, "must be some of the bills are
not printed right."
"Nonsense!" ejaculated Chet.
"Who ever heard of such a thing as a banknote being printed wrong
unless it was a counterfeit?" demanded Laura.
Mr. Belding, having finished with his customer, came back to the little
office and heard this. "I am quite sure we have taken in no
counterfeits-- eh, Chet?" he said, smiling.
"And there's only one big bill--this hundred," said Chet, who had taken
the package of bills and was flirting them through his fingers. "I took
that in myself when I sold that lavallière to the man I told you about,
Father. You remember? He was a stranger, and he said he wanted to
give it to a young girl. I------"
"Let's see that bill, Chet!" exclaimed Bobby Hargrew suddenly.
Chet slipped the hundred-dollar note out of the packet and handed it to
the grocer's daughter. But she immediately cried:
"I want to see the hundred-dollar bill, Chet. Not this one."
"Why, that's the hundred------"
"This is a fifty," interrupted Bobby. "Can't you see?"
She displayed the face of a fifty-dollar bank-note to their wondering
eyes. Their exclamations drowned Mr. Belding's voice, and he had to
speak twice before Bobby heard him.
"Turn it over!"
The grocer's daughter did so. The other side of the bill was the face of a
hundred-dollar bank-note! At this there certainly was a hullabaloo in

and around the office. Mr. Belding could scarcely make himself heard
again. He was annoyed.
"What is the matter with that bank-note? Whether it is counterfeit or
not, you took it in over the counter, Chetwood," he said coldly.
"This very day," admitted his oldest son.
"Then, my boy, it is up to you," said the jeweler grimly.
"What----Just what do you mean?" asked Chet, somewhat troubled by
his father's sternness.
"In a jewelry store," said Mr. Belding seriously, "as I have often told
you, a clerk must keep his eyes open. You admit taking in this bill. If
the Treasury Department says it is worth only fifty dollars, I shall
expect you to make good the other fifty."
The young people stared at each other in awed silence as the jeweler
turned away. They could feel how annoyed he was.
"Gee!" gasped Chet, "if I'm nicked fifty dollars, how shall I ever be
able to buy Christmas presents, or even give anything for the Red Cross
drive?"
"Oh, I'm sorry, Chet!" Jess Morse murmured.
"Looks as if hard times had camped on your trail, old boy," declared
Lance.
"But maybe it is a hundred-dollar bill," Laura said.
"It's tough," Short and Long muttered.
"Try to pass it on somebody else," chuckled Bobby, who was not very
sympathetic at that moment.
"Got it all locked up, Laura?" Jess asked. "Well, let us go then. You
can't make that bill right by looking at it, Chet."

"I--I wish I could get hold of the man who