"I'll risk that," said he.

"But you gave him twenty dollars. That's a good deal of money."

"If I had given him as much as that, I should deserve to be cheated
out of it."

"But you did,--didn't you?"

"He thought so."

"What was it, then?"

"It was nothing but a dry-goods circular got up to imitate a
bank-bill."

Frank looked sober.

"You ought not to have cheated him, Dick," he said, reproachfully.

"Didn't he want to cheat me?"

"I don't know."

"What do you s'pose there is in that pocket-book?" asked Dick,
holding it up.

Frank surveyed its ample proportions, and answered sincerely enough,
"Money, and a good deal of it."

"There aint stamps enough in it to buy a oyster-stew," said Dick.
"If you don't believe it, just look while I open it."

So saying he opened the pocket-book, and showed Frank that it was
stuffed out with pieces of blank paper, carefully folded up in the
shape of bills. Frank, who was unused to city life, and had never
heard anything of the "drop-game" looked amazed at this unexpected
development.

"I knowed how it was all the time," said Dick. "I guess I got the
best of him there. This wallet's worth somethin'. I shall use it to
keep my stiffkit's of Erie stock in, and all my other papers what
aint of no use to anybody but the owner."

"That's the kind of papers it's got in it now," said Frank, smiling.

"That's so!" said Dick.

"By hokey!" he exclaimed suddenly, "if there aint the old chap
comin' back ag'in. He looks as if he'd heard bad news from his
sick family."

By this time the pocket-book dropper had come up.

Approaching the boys, he said in an undertone to Dick, "Give me back
that pocket-book, you young rascal!"

"Beg your pardon, mister," said Dick, "but was you addressin' me?"

"Yes, I was."

"'Cause you called me by the wrong name. I've knowed some rascals,
but I aint the honor to belong to the family."

He looked significantly at the other as he spoke, which didn't
improve the man's temper. Accustomed to swindle others, he did not
fancy being practised upon in return.

"Give me back that pocket-book," he repeated in a threatening voice.

"Couldn't do it," said Dick, coolly. "I'm go'n' to restore it to
the owner. The contents is so valooable that most likely the loss
has made him sick, and he'll be likely to come down liberal to the
honest finder."

"You gave me a bogus bill," said the man.

"It's what I use myself," said Dick.

"You've swi