Evening Republican, Volume 18, Number 92, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 April 1914 — Most $5 Bills Are Not Jokes; This One Was [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Most $5 Bills Are Not Jokes; This One Was

KANSAS CITY, MO. —A $5 bill is no Joke nowadays; but a grocer over on the South side managed to derive considerable excitement from a phony $5 bill the other day. An enterprising wholesale firm gbt out a phony bill with

its advertisement printed on it in fine letters. The South side grocer was presented with one and thrust it in his pocket that evening when he went home to dinner. His wife was reading the bargain page in the paper when he reached home and inquired into the state of the family exchequer. “Yeu never give me any money,” she complained. "Surprise me once with a piece of money without my asking.” “Sure thing,” said the grocer, and

handed over the phony bill. It was examined —and execrated in the same breath. Then the wife put it in a sugar bowl on the sideboard, where the maid found it later in the evening. The maid happened to need about that much, so she appropriated it to her own uses. Early the next morning she hurried down to a corner store and had the bill changed to five ones, which she adroitly concealed in her shoe, according to the latest ideas in the women detective stories she was reading at the time. About two hours later the missus was a trifle surprised to find an enraged storekeeper on her front step, holding her phony |5 bill in his hand and demanding his money back. “I want those five ones,” he howled. The maid discreetly ’retired to the kitchen and laced her shoe a little tighter. “If you’d Just explain,” said the mistress, “maybe I’d have some idea of what all this is about.* “Your maid brought this ?5 bill to my store this morning and said you wanted it changed to ones,” sputtered the storekeeper. “I gave ’em to her, and less’n two hours afterward a man threatened to have me arrested for trying to pass a phony bill on him.” The maid was haled to the court of inquiry, and with many tears and sobs confessed to her unholy hankering for five bucks. She unlaced the money, "was fired on the spot and the incident closed.