Argosy All-Story Weekly — page 106: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

Ke ae ee be of ‘e Ale ile oe! NY We early vy ; - rs Vi u 75 eT Waar di Wei fe ei eka Pd HG ee y Vahea. gets Sie ~ ae eer ad — ~~ ea ee a ee « = : tie ee 5 ~t hs ~ i 3 “ as hardening. He lighted a cigarette and hunched deep in his chair and hooked his hands behind his pineapple-shaped head. Grant rose. _ ““Ed, that ham of yours was tarnation salt. I’m going out and get me a nice, long drink from that icewater pitcher you got on the dining room table. It’s a wonder you wouldn’t keep some here in the office! You fellers want I should fetch yeu some?” -No one but Grant was thirsty, it seemed; and after a time he rejoined them, wiping his lips and clearing his throat as he settled into his chair. He looked squarely at Mosely, and when _ he had caught and held his eyes, his own left orb flickered slightly.. Mosely looked surprised and expectant. “Member that counterfeiter stopped here ‘long "bout eight, nine year ago?” “Yeah,” grunted Mosely. “ What about him?” “Nothing, only us playing cards to- night put-me in mind of him. You won a couple of dollars, Ed, and he give you one of his phony bank notes. And you passed it on in good faith. Wonder who finally got stuck?” _ “Who was he?” Thumb asked. “Why, feller name of Jennings. One = of the mob used to put the stuff into cir- culation; and he had the plates. The man who made the queer was Parson Ran- dall.” “Him?” Hambone spoke up. “ He was _ the best in the business. Died down in At- lanta bout two years ago.” Grant nodded. “So I heard tell. Well, seems the gov- ernment wanted the plates the worst way, and had sent out descriptions of Jennings, and I recognized him minute I clapped eyes on him. I was scared, I tell you; never was one for gun play, and had Jen- nings figgered out as a desp’rate character. But shucks! He just collapsed. No fight in him. Me and Ed carried him up to his room and put him to bed with a nice hot drink. Ed had a license, them days.” Mosely laughed, and nodded his head. “That’s so,” he said. “And when the Federal agents got here, ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY. they took him and his plates and about three thousand dollars’ worth of trick money. There was a reward offered for the plates, a thousand dollars. But them detectives took it. Give me a hundred for my trouble. All I got out of it.” Thumb nodded vigorously and spat. “ Just like a dick! Dirty, yeller crooks, all of ’em!” | Grant smoked in silence for a few min- utes, eyes half closed. “ There’s a funny side to that affair,” he resumed. ‘“‘ Them five dollar notes was about the slickest counterfeits ever put out in the East. Banks took ’em without ques- tion; I’ve heard there was only three men at the Sub-Treasury in New York could tell em from the genuine. Well, after they had took Jennings away, me and Ed here got to thinking it was sort of funny all he had on him was three thousand or so; and we decided there must be a lot more planted somewhere. And one thing leading to an- other, we figgered mebbe he’d hid some of it right in the room he’d stopped in here. — So we went through it like a pair of vacuum cleaners. And sure enough, while Jennings had been pretendin’ to be sick abed he’d took his penknife and slit a little place in the seam of the feather mattress, and when we ripped it open there was more’n a hun- dred thousand dollars’ worth! *Member, ~ Ed?” “Think I’m dikely to forget it? Never see so much in one pile, before nor since.” Thumb’s pupils distended as he leaned toward Joe Grant. ‘Ya turned it over to the gov’ment?” Grant shuffled his feet awkwardly. ‘Well, that’s what I ought to have done, I know. But I was kinda hot over being done out of the reward, and I just kept it. After I cooled down I dassent turn it in; they’d question me, likely, and find out I’d held onto it for ‘most a year. And so I cal’lated to burn it up; I dunno why I never did.” “Va mean to tell me ya got more’n a hundred grand of queer meney on ya?” breathed Thumb, as if he were choking. Grant laughed uneasily. ‘““ Not on me, no. It’s in an old shoe box aown to my house.” 6 A Eomicbooks 4- <n, com