Jack and the Check Book. Bangs John Kendrick
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Here he winked at the butler as much as to say, "Now we'll see him flop." But Jack had no intention of flopping.
"Really?" he said, with a great show of enthusiasm. "Well, this is fine. I hadn't the slightest idea the place was in the market, but if we can get together on a figure, I might be tempted. How much?"
"What would you say to $2,500,000?" demanded the ogre, with a grim smile.
"Done!" said Jack. "And cheap at the price."
Here he drew out the check-book, and drew a check for the full amount to the order of William J. Ogre, Esq., which he tossed across the table to the amazed giant.
"There's your money," he said. "Fork over the deeds."
The ogre rubbed his eyes, and almost stopped breathing for a moment.
"H'm!" he muttered, inspecting the check closely. "This looks pretty good to me. What kind of a book is that, young man?"
"That?" laughed Jack. "Oh, that's what we call the magic check-book. It is the kind that all our big financiers use – Mr. Rockernegie, Colonel Midas, and John Jacob Rothschild, and all the rest of them. It is merely an ingenious financial contrivance that enables us to avoid contact with actual money, which is not only vulgar and dangerous to carry in large quantities, but in some cases is full of germs." The lad went on and explained to the ogre just how checks were drawn and presented for payment.
"It's a pretty nice sort of an arrangement, that," said the ogre, very much interested, "but suppose you draw out your whole balance, what then?"
"All you have to do is to affix a half dozen ciphers to the remainder before you start the overdraft," said Jack. "For instance, on my way up here this morning I found that the balance on hand was only $3,575,457, so, feeling that I should be more comfortable with just a little more ready money to carry me along, I added those six ciphers you see on the right-hand side of the figures, bringing the balance up to $3,575,457,000,000. If you will examine the ciphers under a microscope, sir, you will note that they have only recently been entered."
"By thunder!" roared the ogre, glaring at the book enviously. "This is one of the marvels of the age. Why, armed with a book like that you can buy anything in sight!"
"If the other man will sell," said Jack. "By-the-way, would you mind if I lit my after-breakfast cigarette?"
"Go ahead! Go ahead! Do anything you darn please," said the ogre, gazing at him with wonder.
Jack thereupon drew a check for $500,000, tore it from the book, and rolled it into a small cylinder, which he filled with some corn-silk he had in his pocket, and then lit it with another check for a similar amount.
The ogre's eyes nearly popped out of his head at such a marvellous exhibition of resources.
"It makes an expensive smoke," smiled Jack, settling back to the enjoyment of the cigarette, "but after all, as long as I have the money, why not enjoy myself? Will you join me?"
He took up his pen as though to make another.
"No, no, no!" cried the ogre, walking agitatedly up and down the floor. "I – er – I'm afraid it's too soon after breakfast for me. Do you mean to tell me that such an inexhaustible treasure as this really exists?"
"There it is, right before your eyes," said Jack. "Suppose we test it. Think of a large sum of money, tell me what it is, and see if I can't go you a dollar better."
"Four hundred millions!" cried the ogre, impulsively.
"Piker!" ejaculated Jack, with a smile, as he drew his check for $400,000,001.
"A billion and a half!" cried the ogre.
"Now you're beginning to get your pace," laughed Jack. "There's my check, sir, for $1,500,000,001, according to specifications."
"That reduces your balance some, though," said the ogre.
"Yes," said Jack. "It reduces it by $1,900,000,002, leaving me with only $3,573,574,999,998 on hand, but if I affix six ciphers to that, as I will now proceed to do, I have, as the figures conclusively show, $3,575,574,999,998,000,000, or about a squillion more than I had before I began to draw."
The ogre collapsed in his chair. The magnitude of these figures appalled him.
"Great glory!" he cried. "I didn't know there was that much money in the world. Can – can anybody work that book?"
"Anybody who comes by it honestly and without trickery," said Jack. "Of course, if a man gets hold of it in an unscrupulous way, or goes back on his bargain, it's as valueless to him as so much waste paper."
The ogre strode up and down the room, filled with agitation. He had thought to trick the boy out of his wonderful possession – in fact, to swallow him whole and then appropriate his treasure, but Jack's explanation put an entirely new phase on the matter.
"I suppose you wouldn't part with that book?" he finally asked.
"Yes," said Jack. "I'll let you have it if you will transfer all your property irrevocably to your stepdaughter, Beanhilda, and give me her hand in marriage."
"It's a bargain!" gulped the ogre, whereupon he summoned his lawyers and his secretaries, and by noon all his possessions had passed beyond recall into the hands of Beanhilda. A special messenger was sent down the bean-stalk to fetch Jack's mother, and that afternoon the happy lad and the fair Princess of Ogreville were married with much pomp and ceremony.
"Bless you, my children!" murmured the ogre, as the irrevocable words were spoken by the priest, and Jack passed the magic check-book over to its new owner. "May you live long and happily. As for me, I'm off for a week's vacation in little old New York."
"How did you manage it, sweetheart?" whispered Beanhilda in her husband's ear a few weeks later. "Step-papa had such a penchant for hard-boiled boys that I feared you were lost the moment he appeared."
Jack explained the whole history of the magic check-book to her, but when he had done, his bride grew white.
"But what if he comes back?" she cried, shuddering with fear. "His vengeance will be terrible."
"Have no fear, Beanhilda," Jack answered. "He will not return. Read that."
And he handed her an evening paper in which, with rapidly drying eyes, she read the following:
William J. Ogre, claiming to be a prominent resident of Ogreville, who was arrested at the St. Gotham Hotel last Thursday afternoon on a charge of having passed a dozen bogus checks for amounts ranging from ten to fifteen thousand dollars apiece, was found guilty yesterday by a jury in the criminal branch of the United States Circuit Court. He was sentenced to fifteen years' imprisonment at hard labor in the Federal Prison at Thomasville, Georgia, on each of the five different counts, making his prison term in all not less than seventy-five years. Other indictments are still pending against him for forgery on the complaint of Major Bilkins, president of the Suburban Trust Company, of whose name he was found availing himself in his criminal transactions. Major Bilkins, when seen last night by a reporter of this paper, stated his intention of keeping the shameless operator in jail for the rest of his natural life.
"I shouldn't sit up for papa if I were you, Beanhilda," said Jack, with a smile. "It looks to me as if he was going to be detained