have been tempted to believe that he had made an error and
really drawn the check for that amount had he not been sure to the
contrary.

"That kind of raising is easy," said the expert. "You see it demands
no interlining or extending of words. The check-raiser simply knows
how well certain characters lend themselves to changes that cannot be
detected. The capital _T_ in almost every man's handwriting can be
changed to a capital _F_ without any trouble by even an unskilled
crook."

A check for $2,000 was raised to $50,000 almost in the wink of an eye.
"This is the easy and safer part of the business," said he. "But when
a check is to be raised from a sum like $10 to, say, $10,000, and the
drawer has written it so that there is no room between the word 'ten'
and 'dollars,' chemicals must be used. There is always more danger of
detection in that. In the mere alteration of a check there is little.
Look here. I'll change your checks as fast as you can write them, and
I bet a lot of my alterations will pass muster."

A pad was hauled out and the writer filled the sheets out with
carefully written amounts. The expert was as good as his word. He
altered them almost as fast as they were written. Some, to be sure,
were crude and would have betrayed the fact of alteration to the eye
of any careful banker. But many were almost perfect, and all were
wonderfully deceptive and showed what could be done by a crook who had
plenty of time.

"But how about the perforations?" he was asked. "How could a crook
change them?"

"Nothing easier," was the reply. "The fact that checks stamped with
the amount in perforated characters are considered safe aids the
swindler. Really, to beat the perforations is so easy that it will
make you smile. All the outfit that is needed is a common little punch
with assorted small cutting tubes and a bottle of an invisible glue
that every crook can make or that he can buy in certain places that
every crook knows. Now, here is a check stamped in perforated
characters $300$. I take my little punch and fit into it a cutter that
will punch holes of the same size as the holes in the perforations.

"Now I punch out of the edge of the check a few tiny disks. I moisten
the tip of a needle and press them carefully into the holes that make
the upper part of the figure 3. See, even in my haste and without
glue, they fill the perforations completely and I can shake and pull
the check without disturbing them."

It