e as if it had been the result of their honest efforts of
years. They were now pen and brush crooks of the first caliber, had
reduced forgery to a fine art and demonstrated what an amateur might
do. For, although they did not know it, nearly half the fifteen
millions or so lost by forgeries every year was the work of amateurs
such as they.

The next problem was presenting the check for collection. Of course
Carlton could not put it through his own bank, unless he wanted to
leave a blazed trail straight to himself. Only a colossal bluff would
do, and in a city where only colossal bluffs succeed it was not so
impossible as might have been first imagined.

Luncheon over, they sauntered casually into a high-class office
building on Broadway where there were offices to rent. The agent was
duly impressed by the couple who talked of their large real estate
dealings. Where he might have been thoroughly suspicious of a man and
might have asked many embarrassing but perfectly proper questions, he
accepted the woman without a murmur. At her suggestion he even
consented to take his new tenants around to the Uptown Bank and
introduce them. They made an excellent impression by a first cash
deposit of the money Carlton had thrown down on the table the night
before. A check for the first month's rent more than mollified the
agent and talk of a big deal that was just being signed up to-day duly
impressed the bank.

The next problem was to get the forged check certified. That, also,
proved a very simple matter. Any one can walk into a bank and get a
check for $25,000 certified, while if he appears, a stranger, before
the window of the paying teller to cash a check for twenty-five dollars
he would almost be thrown out of the bank. Banks will certify at a
glance practically any check that looks right, but they pass on the
responsibility of cashing them. Thus before the close of banking hours
Dunlap was able to deposit in his new bank the check certified by the
Gorham.

Twenty-four hours must elapse before he could draw against the check
which he had deposited. He did not propose to waste that time, so that
the next day found him at Green & Co.'s, feeling much better. Really he
had come prepared now to straighten out the books, knowing that in a
few hours he could make good.

The first hesitation due to the newness of the game had worn off by
this time. Nothing at all of an alarming nature had happened. The new
month had already begu