"He kicked my grip, and I opened her up on the minute. He went through it like an old goat through a cracker barrel, but he didn't find anything--see? If he'd looked under the cushion of a seat in the smoker he might have found a whole lot of stuff that didn't look like a prayer meeting layout. WHAT WAS HIDDEN UNDER SEAT. "Say, I bet I had fourteen $2 gold watches, twenty gold-rimmed spectacles that cost me 15 cents apiece, one dozen books, tightly sealed in wrappers, that looked mighty interesting to the jay who couldn't see into the books, and yet who had to do it finally at $2 apiece, and, as a topper of it all, my three-book monte game. Did you ever see the game? "I've got a line of wild west books about two inches thick, each, and costing me 40 cents a volume. They've got some great pictures on the cloth covers, and maybe there's some hot stuff inside--I don't know. But here's my unparalleled offer: I pick out my man and lay these three volumes across his knees in the car seat and go after him with some of the warmest kind of air about their interest, the binding, and the illustrations. "You pay me for the set," I explain, "but in doing it I give you a chance to get the books for nothing and at the same time double your investment. HOW THREE BOOK MONTE IS PLAYED. "I take out three small, thin spelling books, cloth bound, all alike as the bindery and the presses can make them. Then, careless like, I take a $10 bill out of my pocket, fold it across in a sort of V-shape and slip it into the middle of one of the spelling books, so that just one corner will stick out, probably a quarter of an inch. Of course, I haven't seen it! Sometimes the man on the cars will try to say something about it, but I cut in and drown him out with easy talk till he gets the idea that he might as well have that ten and the books for five, and let it go at that. "But one corner all the time is torn off that bill, and about a quarter of an inch of that bill is sticking out of the center of one of the other books. Of course the jay hasn't seen that! SHOWS CORNER OF BILL. "Well, I begin and shuffle the books on the payment of the $5. As they are shuffled the corner of the bill that is still attached gets turned around next to me, while the corner that is torn off gets around next to the passenger, whom I have cornered in the seat in a way that he can't see everything that he really ought to see in order to save his money. When I hold out the three books for the drawing I am in a position where I couldn't possibly see the corner that sticks out, while he is where he can't see anything else. "And he draws the book with the corner sticking out!