hand while talking to the girl, and it must have touched her car at a
point where the axle of the dray had rubbed. So this was his one memento
of the incident.

He thanked the stranger, and walked to a near-by hatter's, where a ready
clerk set before him hats of all styles. He selected one quickly and left
his soiled hat to be cleaned and sent home later.

Offering a ten-dollar bill in payment, he received in change a
five-dollar bill and a silver dollar. He gave the coin a second glance.
It was the first silver dollar that he had handled for some time, for he
seldom visited the West.

"There's no charge for the cleaning," said the clerk, noting down Orme's
name and address, and handing the soiled hat to the cash-boy.

Orme, meantime, was on the point of folding the five-dollar bill to put
it into his pocket-book. Suddenly he looked at it intently. Written in
ink across the face of it, were the words:

"Remember Person You Pay This To."

The writing was apparently a hurried scrawl, but the letters were large
and quite legible. They appeared to have been written on an uneven
surface, for there were several jogs and breaks in the writing, as if the
pen had slipped.

"This is curious," remarked Orme.

The clerk blinked his watery eyes and looked at the bill in Orme's hand.
"Oh, yes, sir," he explained. "I remember that. The gentleman who paid it
in this morning called our attention to it."

"If he's the man who wrote this, he probably doesn't know that there's a
law against defacing money."

"But it's perfectly good, isn't it?" inquired the clerk. "If you want
another instead----"

"Oh, no," laughed Orme. "The banks would take it."

"But, sir----" began the clerk.

"I should like to keep it. If I can't get rid of it, I'll bring it back.
It's a hoax or an endless chain device or something of the sort. I'd like
to find out."

He looked again at the writing. Puzzles and problems always interested
him, especially if they seemed to involve some human story.

"Very well," said the clerk, "I'll remember that you have it, Mr.----" he
peered at the name he had set down--"Mr. Orme."

Leaving the hatter's, Orme turned back on State Street, retracing his
steps. It was close to the dinner hour, and the character of the street
crowds had changed. The shoppers had disappeared. Suburbanites were by
this time aboard their trains and homeward bound. The street was thronged
with hurrying clerks and shop