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158 description had taken the early afternoon train out. He took the rug with him—not only my rug, but a rug that he had bought from another woman in Bayport."

"He'll probably sell them in some other town."

"Just what he did. They found that he had bought a ticket to the next city but when they got in touch with the police there they found that he had sold the two rugs to a wholesale firm and disappeared. He sold my rug for five hundred dollars, and the other one for three hundred dollars."

"Did he give the other woman counterfeit money, too?"

"Yes."

"He cleaned up on that afternoon's work," remarked Frank. "He didn't lose any time in getting away, either."

"If I had only gone to the bank early it might have been different," said Mrs. Hardy. "As it was, I got there only a few minutes before three o'clock, and by the time I got in touch with the police and by the time they had tried to trace the man here and later found where he had gone—you know how slow they are—it was too late."

"I guess there's no chance of seeing him back in two days with the rug he wanted to sell you," observed Frank. "Either he is in