Don Fortune Magazine #3

When a distressed millionaire hires Don Fortune to deliver a half-million-dollar ransom for his kidnapped daughter, the detective and his crew fly to a remote hunting lodge expecting danger—but instead find Babs Hardbank alive and well, happily waving from the dock. What unfolds is far more complex than a simple kidnapping: a scheme within a scheme that tests Don's quick thinking when the ransom's true contents are revealed, forcing him to outmaneuver those who thought they had the upper hand.

Spunky walks into a rich man’s mansion with a smirk, ready to turn the tables on a butler audition with a twist of wit. When the rich man declares he’ll signal "Come!" with a hand beckon, Spunky counters with a simple shake of his head—his own way of saying, "I’m not coming!"

Don Fortune and his pal Andy Jarvis take on a night-watchman job at a housing development plagued by material thefts, determined to clear an innocent watchman and catch the real crooks operating the scam. What looks like a straightforward stakeout turns into a game of cat-and-mouse when the thieves pull the same clever decoy trick twice, and Don begins piecing together a suspicious pattern that points to someone with access to multiple job sites. These ex-Marines are about to uncover who's really behind the racket—and it's someone closer to the operation than they expected.

A wanderer named Hobo Hank is asked for the time by a stranger, but when he checks his watch, he discovers it's in such poor condition that he's had to make a drastic sacrifice to keep it running at all. This 1946 humor story delivers its punchline with the kind of resourceful desperation that defined the character—a gag about making do with less when you've got almost nothing.

Professor Amnesia decides his coat needs pressing and comes up with a decidedly unorthodox solution—using a steam roller to do the job. The results are predictably disastrous, though the good professor's amnesia apparently doesn't extend to explaining exactly how he ended up so thoroughly flattened in "A Pressing Matter!"

Horace stops at a gas station where he purchases anti-chatter oil—not for his motor, but for a purpose he reveals with a crash that lands as the punchline. Meanwhile, a young chauffeur hired through an agency discovers his new employer expects him to handle far more than just driving, and he responds with his own humorous twist on the job requirements.

Spunky, a man with a sharp tongue and a sharper wit, finds himself juggling more than just a chauffeur’s duties when he’s assigned to manage a farm’s poultry, dogs, and garden. With a dry chuckle, he quips about the clay soil—hinting he might just start baking bricks in his spare time.