Enter well-dressed man smoking big cigar. Polite Publican: "Good evening, sir." Big Cigar Proprietor: "Good evening. Brandy and soda, please!" (Throws down a sovereign, receives brandy and soda and change, the change all in silver. Big Cigar Proprietor picks up change.) Big Cigar Proprietor: "Oh! excuse me--could you let me have half-a-sovereign for ten shillings' worth of this silver?" Polite Publican (always ready to oblige): "Certainly, sir." (Does so.) The publican gets, as he thinks, ten shillings' worth of silver back. Does he? Oh, dear, no! There were three bad two-shilling pieces amongst it! It would be difficult to hit upon two more contrasting illustrations than the following. The first instance goes to prove that children are called into play as "passers"--though unconsciously so--in the case when the smallest "coined" piece is to be thrust on the public. A man used his little girl to go into small confectioners' shops and purchase a farthing's worth of sweetmeats. The little one tendered a bad penny, obtaining her sweets and giving her father the three farthings change. Both were arrested and charged. The child, however, was taken out of the dock and put in the box to give evidence against her father. Her childish evidence was convincing enough, and at the end of the examination, the man, overcome with better feelings, contrived to catch the little one up in his arms, ere he was sent down below, caressing her fondly and covering her tiny face with kisses. Such a method--an awkward method, and one in every way calculated to be eventually found out--stands in strong contrast with the really delicate and ingenious means employed by a lady whose efforts at changing a sovereign were worthy a better cause. Her _modus operandi_ was to select say a boot-maker's shop, generally in a well-populated suburban district, and purchase boots to the value of nineteen and sixpence. "Will you kindly send them to my house, No. 42, Easyway Terrace, in an hour's time?" she asks the shopkeeper. [Illustration: FIG. 15.--COINS PACKED IN TISSUE PAPER.] [Illustration: CARRYING COUNTERFEIT COIN.] "Certainly, madam." "I will pay the messenger when he brings them--I find I have not sufficient money in my purse. Mrs. Adams is my name," she further remarks, and leaves the shop. In an hour's time the boy with the boots is on his way to No. 42, Easyway Terrace. Curiously enough, he is met outside by Mrs. Adams herself! "Oh! are those boots for Mrs. Adams?" "Yes, mum." "Thank you. Let me see," playing with her purse, "nineteen and six. There's a sovereign. You can keep the sixpence for being so punctual." The lad is delighted, and away he goes whistling. The lady is equally pleased--away she goes with the boots to a pawnbroker's. The shopkeeper is in a rage--for the sovereign is a counterfeit one!