The officer--Hardwick, by name--and his associate were good fellows, as I have said. They had greeted us as congenial spirits and, probably on this account, I noticed some embarrassment on his part when he leaned into the light and slowly looked over the money Monsieur had given him. The rest of us were conversing in a more or less distrait fashion till this unpleasant duty should be finished, when he took an electric torch from his pocket and flashed it on one of the bills; then on another, and so through the lot. Hesitatingly he touched Monsieur's arm, asking: "Is this the money you won last night?" "That? It is just as they paid me." A moment of silence, then: "I'm sorry to tell you, but these two fifty-dollar bills are counterfeits." There ensued an absolute hush, and before my eyes arose the vision of Sylvia's father paying his supper check with a crisp fifty. "Counterfeit," the professor mused, putting out a hand for them and moving nearer the light. "Strange! Just today I was speaking of a counterfeiter!" And Tommy, in an awed voice, asked: "You don't think it's more dreams?" The officials, I rather suspected, were beginning to look at us askance. Our various attitudes at this discovery were scarcely in accordance with the usually accepted actions of innocent people; on the contrary, with but a grain of imagination, we might be branded as a trio of rascals trying to stall out of a tight place. My apprehension was more confirmed when Hardwick, a shade less cordial, said: "As a United States official, I should like to hear your views about these." Now Tommy looked across at me and I saw that he was awake. Monsieur, on the other hand, remained blissfully indifferent that anything might be out of the ordinary--except, of course, being loaded with a hundred dollars of bad money, which does not happen every day. "My counterfeiter?" he smiled innocently. "Yes, he could have done these. His plates are all but perfect. And these bills--you will admit they almost fooled you!" Whereupon he laughed. Tommy fidgeted, saying: "Have a care, gezabo, or you'll be sending us to the rock pile!" "My friend is cut-upping," Monsieur beamed on the official, but met with no more hearty response than the dry acquiescence: "I've no doubt of it. But suppose you tell me more of your other friend--the counterfeiter!" "Friend? _My_ friend?" Monsieur's face now became the picture of horror. "I was telling these boys of one who disappeared years ago, and afterwards the police showed me some plates found in his rooms! _My_ friend!" Hardwick began to laugh. "Please accept my apologies, but, really, for the moment----" "Don't mention it," Tommy interrupted him, handing across a newly opened box of cigars. "I understand you--the professor couldn't!" Returning to the important subject, Hardwick said: "Whoever put these out is probably in Cuba. You got them at the cafe----?"