tapped,” he was saying. “So—” He broke off as the boys entered. “What luck?” he asked.

“It’ll be O.K.,” Ken told him. “Sam said we could pick it up in half an hour.”

“Good,” his father said.

“Good,” Pop echoed, almost absent-mindedly. “Go on, Dick. Did they ever find out who was doing the wire tapping?”

Richard Holt grinned. “It was the old woman who cleaned the office. They certainly never would have suspected her—she looked too old and harmless. But she got jittery finally, and disappeared. And they were curious enough to investigate. Now, I understand, you can’t get a job cleaning the municipal offices there unless you’re recommended by the prime minister himself.”

“Wow!” Bert said. “What a yarn! Did they track down the rest of the gang then too?”

“What’s this all about?” Ken wanted to know. “Start from the beginning.”

“It’s not a very lively story, except for the old lady,” Mr. Holt assured the boys. “Just an ordinary tale of slick counterfeiters, though they did have an expert engraver capable of turning out beautifully engraved ten-dollar bills. United States bills, that is, which are always popular in Europe, and therefore easy to pass. Of course the banks could spot them, and they did eventually—a few at a time. But as long as the gang had its wire-tapping service in operation, it could keep informed as to police suspicions—and shift its plates and its printing apparatus to a new location if the police began to make inquiries in the neighborhood where they were.”

“Did they track down the gang?” Bert persisted.

“Unfortunately not,” Richard Holt admitted. “And you can imagine how the police chief felt, under the circumstances. He’s pretty sure they’ve cleared out of his territory, but of course that’s not enough to satisfy him. And of course the U.S. Treasury isn’t very happy about it either. Last I heard, it was sending some T-men over to lend a hand, because the counterfeits were American bills.”

Bert nodded. “Those T-men work fast. We received a circular here about six months ago, about some bad twenties that were turning up in this vicinity. But before we could print the story, the counterfeiters were nabbed. Of course,” he added, “most counterfeit bills here are made by the photoengraving process, and that’s pretty crude compared to a good engraving.”

Pop grinned. “People complain these days about the low standards of craftsmanship, but in some ways it’s a help. There aren’t many engravers in this country who can turn out a good set of plates, and what few there are, are working for the Bureau of Engraving in Washington or for some legitimate private business.”

“Of course there was one case, years ago,” Holt said. “I was just a cub reporter at the time, but I happened to be involved. I remember....”

He was off on another yarn. Almost an hour went by before Sandy happened to glance at the clock.

“Hey!” He jumped up. “Sam Morris said half an hour.”

The wail of a siren and the sudden clanging of the fire-engine’s bell seemed to put an exclamation mark at the end of his sentence.

“Vacation or no vacation, a fire is news,” Pop said. He reached for the phone, dialed rapidly, and spoke a few brisk questions into the mouthpiece. Then he slammed the receiver down.

“Get going, Ken,” he said. “You too, Sandy. This might be good for a picture. The fire’s at Sam Morris’s jewelry shop!”