"Here's a case that happened some years ago. I am a scrapbook fiend, Belding," chuckled Mr. Monroe. "There were once two bills issued for a Kansas bank just like this one you have brought to me. Only this note that we have here was printed for the Drovers' Levee Bank of Osage, Ohio, as you can easily see. This note went through that bank, was signed by Bedford Knox, cashier, and Peyton J. Weld, president, as you can see, and its peculiar printing was not discovered.
"Ah, here we have it!" added Mr. Monroe, fluttering the stiff leaves of the scrapbook and finally coming to the article in question. "Listen here: 'It was found on communication with Washington that a record was held there of the bill, and the department was anxious to recall it. With another bill it had been printed for a bank in Kansas, and the mistake had been made by the printer who had turned the sheet upside down in printing the reverse side. The first plate bore the obverse of a fifty-dollar bill at the top and of a hundred-dollar bill at the bottom, while the other plate held the reverse of both sides. By turning the sheet around for the reverse printing, the fifty-dollar impression had been made on the back of the hundred-dollar bill.'
"Do you see, now?" laughed the banker. "Quite an easy and simple mistake, and one that might often be made, only the printers are very careful men."
Oddly enough, Mr. Belding, although relieved by the probability that the Department at Washington would make the strange bill right for him, was suddenly attracted by another fact.
"I wonder," he said, "if that man came from Osage, Ohio?"
"What man? The one who passed the bank-note on your son?"
"Yes. You know, he was injured and is now in the hospital."
Mr. Belding related the story of the accident and the unfortunate mental condition of the injured man. "They tell me all the money he had with him was new money--fresh from the Treasury."
"He probably did not make it himself," chuckled the jolly banker. "Poor chap! Don't the doctors think he will recover his memory?"
"That I cannot say," the jeweler said, rising. "Then you think I may relieve Chet's mind?"
"Oh, yes. I will give you another hundred for this bill, if you want me to. I will send this to Washington, where they probably already have a record of it. Bills of this denomination are printed by twos, and the other has probably turned up--as in the case of the Kansas bank-note."