This is a story of high finance as well as high flying. It never would have been written if a couple of Yankee doughs had not found a cache of Jerry marks in a deserted abri near Vaubecourt.
You see, a year before Uncle Sam peeled off his coat and spat on his hands to take a poke at Kaiser Bill, the Frog poilus had chased the Heinies out of the aforementioned Frog hamlet. And the Jerry brass hats, evidently very hard pressed, were satisfied to escape with even their skivvies. They left behind them a Boche paymaster and payroll buried in a mass of debris.
The doughs who stumbled over this treasure left the Heinie paymaster where they found him— because he was no longer fit for circulation—but the marks, having escaped the blast of shells, soon began to circulate throughout France; and thereupon reports hit Chaumont to the effect that a flock of Yanks, the majority of whom had failed to pass an intelligence test, had purchased the Kraut legal tender at various places and had paid for it with honest-to-goodness French and American currency.
Outside Bar-le-Duc, in the Frog farmhouse which served as headquarters for the Ninth Pursuit Squadron, Major Rufus Garrity was hearing the lowdown on these Yankee financial geniuses from a colonel who was tarrying over business so that both he and his official automobile could take on liquid refreshments.
“Yes sir, Garrity,” the brass hat prated, “these doughs have been selling the marks at prices that are outrageous. They tell the dumb guys they pick out for customers that they will be in Germany before long and that they will need marks and plenty of ‘em. So they give ‘em about twenty marks for ten francs. That’s robbery!
“What’s more, they will also be charged with confiscating Allied property and the sticking up of Boche prisoners. They’ll get the jug for it—those doughs. But we’ll grab ‘em all right. The Intelligence Corps is on their tails right now and expects to round ‘em up in no time. Damndest thing I ever heard, Garrity.”
“Why the dirty crooks!” Lieutenant Phineas Pinkham horned in indignantly. “Why them doughs will be lousy with Frog dough before they know it. How do guys get so lucky, huh?”
“They won’t be so lucky when they get thrown into a klink for twenty years,” Garrity clipped. “How much do you think they got out of that old dugout, Colonel?”
“Well, it’s a safe bet that they found at least eighty thousand marks,” the brass hat came back. “They sell ‘em forty thousand francs and—that’s
some profit!”
“Ain’t that just my luck?” Phineas complained. “I have pancaked in about three different trenches since I’ve been over and I never hit that one where the marks were. I never was lucky. I took a dozen chances on an egg beater at a ladies’ aid supper once back in Boonetown and my Aunt Isora only took one—and she won it! And all them dumb doughs ready to pay two francs for— haw-w-w-w-w! It is awful what they don’t know about foreign exchanges, ain’t it, Colonel ?”
“Ah—er—Garrity,” the braided, baywindowed high officer said testily, “I came in to have a quiet chat with you. This Pinkham fellow— hasn’t he any idea of discipline or respect for his superior officers? Do they all walk over you like this, Major? I want the man out of here! I have other matters to discuss that are none of his affair. Hmph! Hmm!” he blustered.
The Old Man turned on Phineas. “Get out of here,” he exploded. “Who do you think you are? Coming in like this and—”
“Napoleon,” Phineas said promptly. “But nobody will believe me, haw-w-w-w-w!” Then shaking his head, the Boonetown nuisance went out. “Huh, I would like to meet up with them doughs. Boys!”
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