Page:Harry Castlemon - The Steel Horse.djvu/59

 enough to be gray-headed. No one ever tried to play it on me before, but I recognized it in a minute."

"I confess that I don't see where the trick comes in," said Roy.

"Don't you? Well, look here. The reason that fellow gave for turning the purse over to us was because he couldn't wait until morning to claim the reward that would surely be offered for its recovery, being obliged to leave town by the first train. Some folks would believe that story. The purse is fat enough to excite the cupidity of a dishonest man, who, nine times out of ten, will pay the sharper out of his own pocket, rather than open the purse and let him see what there is in it. Now, suppose I had given that fellow twenty-five good and lawful dollars of the Republic; let's see what I would have received in return."

As Joe said this he turned out the contents of the purse, and Roy and Arthur discovered, to their no small astonishment, that what they had taken for a greenback was nothing more nor less than the advertisement of a quack