The Counterfeit Mystery. Norvin Pallas

seemed endless. The books were going to take longer to fill than most people realized, unless they bought some big utilities. At last Ted had his column of figures, and ran down it. First column zero, second column zero—that was all right so far. But the third column—fifteen? No, that couldn’t be right, it was only supposed to be ten. Ted frowned. He added it up again. It still came out fifteen hundred stamps.

      Something was wrong here. He started over again. He went through the book carefully once more. This time there could be no doubt. A customer had to paste in fifteen hundred stamps in order to complete his book. Fifteen hundred stamps, at ten cents each, meant that the customer would have to spend a hundred and fifty dollars to fill a book.

      But if he spent a hundred and fifty dollars to fill a book worth three dollars, then he was getting only 2 per cent on his money. And Ted remembered very clearly that Mr. Woodring had told Mr. Dobson the plan paid 3 per cent.