"Here is the money, Miss Laura," he said, producing a packet of crisp bank-notes. "I'd give it all to know just who I am. I seem to be right on the verge of discovering it to-day; yet something balks me." "Oh, look at all that money!" crowed Billy, as Laura accepted the bills, while Chet, with the help of the interested nurse, arranged the bed-table and gave the man a pad and a fountain pen. The head surgeon, who had taken a great interest in the case and with whom Laura had already conferred, tiptoed into the room and stood to look on. "You bankers," said Laura, laughing, and speaking to the patient, "are always so much better off than ordinary folks. You pass out any old kind of money to your customers; but you never see a banker with anything but new bank-notes in his pocket." The man listened to her sharply. A sudden quickened interest appeared in his countenance. The others heard Mother Wit's speech with growing excitement. "See," said the girl of Central High, extracting one of the bank-notes from the packet "Here is another bill on the Drovers' Levee Bank, of Osage, Ohio. Did you notice that? Doesn't it sound familiar to you?" She repeated the name of the bank and its locality slowly. "You have more bills of that same bank. But none like the one you gave Chet when you bought that lavallière for 'the nice little girl' you told him you expected to give it to." The man stared at her. He seemed enthralled by what she said. Laura proceeded in her quiet way: "Just write this name, please: 'Bedford Knox.' Thanks. Now write it again. He is cashier of your bank in Osage, Ohio." Jess barely stifled a cry with her handkerchief. But everybody else was silent, watching the man laboriously writing the name as requested by Laura. It was a disappointment. No doubt of that The man did not write the name as though he were familiar with it at all. But Laura was still smiling when he looked up at her, almost childishly, for further directions. "Now try this other, please," said the girl firmly. "Two men always sign bank-notes to make them legal tender. The cashier and the president The president of the Drovers' Levee Bank, of Osage, Ohio, is----" She hesitated. The man poised his pen over the paper expectantly. Said Laura, briskly: "Write 'Peyton J. Weld.'" At her words Janet Steele uttered a startled exclamation. The man did not notice this. He wrote the name as Laura requested. Chet, looking over his shoulder and with one of the Osage bank-notes in his hand for comparison, watched the signature dashed off in almost perfect imitation of that upon the bank-note. "You guessed it, Mother Wit!" the big boy cried. "Write it again, Mr. Weld. That is your name as sure as you live!"