£5-NOTES FOR A PENNY.

Wanganui Chronicle, Issue 12857, 29 January 1913, Page 7

£5-NOTES FOR A PENNY.

LONDON STREET "SALE.'

BARGAINS THAT WERE MISSED

COMEDIAN WINS WAGER

OLD TRICK REVIVED

LONDON, January 20. With his face "unshaved, his clothes rather shabby looking, and of unkempt appearance generally, a well-known ocmedian stood outside the Grand Hotel, in the West End. on Saturday, offering five-pound notes at a Id each.

Not -withstanding that the tame trick was done many years ago with sovereigns people thought it was either .an impudent attempt to gather in a few coppers for valueless bits of paper, or a little joke that some incorrigible humorist was trying to -work off. Try as he might, the dierepntabl*?---looking individual could not make the passers-by believe that they were genuine^ fivers he was giving away iff this fashion. As they came along they wpuld give the supposed faker a knowing look and pass on, little dreaming what <a good thing they had missed. Of the hundreds of pedestrians that passed during the twenty minutes that the "safe" was in progress only twothought it good enough to risk a penny. Later on, when these lucky persons made the discovery that they had secured genuine notes, they made a ■ wild rush iback to the Grand, only to find that the philanthropist had vanished. He had gone after having sold two £5 notes for 2d, but he had won a substantial wager from a friend. The whole business was the outcome of a bet. The comedian laid a ««ger with his friend that he would not sell six of the notes in twenty minutes, and as he himself afterwards remarked, he "won in a walk.