By Gregory Clark, October 22, 1927.
We were betting each other how long we could hold our breath.
“I bet you a thousand dollar bill…” began Charles.
“There’s no such thing as a thousand dollar bill,” I said.
“Yes, there is.”
“No, there isn’t.”
“There is, too.”
“I bet you a thousand dollar bill there isn’t,” I said.
And in this way was born the singular notion to make a story out of a thousand dollar bill1.
For there are such things as $1,000 bills. Charles phoned one of his bankers, and I lost the bet.
“Pay now,” said Charles, “and I want the $1,000 in one bill.”
However, after some discussion, Charles agreed not to collect right away if I would get a $1,000 bill and take it out on to Yonge street and buy him a dollar neck-tie with it.
“I would just like to see you,” he said, “trying to buy something with a $1,000 bill.”
“Where would I get a $1,000 bill?” I demanded. “Who would trust me with it?”
The editor, standing nearby, said he would – out of the business office.
So we had the business office get us a $1,000 bill from the bank.
It was the plainest, ordinary little bill, about the size of a one dollar bill, perhaps a trifle longer and a trifle narrower, green on the face and orange on the back2. It had a picture of the queen on it3, and on either side of her majesty, the neat figures 1000. Arched overhead were the words, One Thousand Dollars.
“There are not many of them,” said the bank manager. “And few of them are ever in circulation. They are used mostly between banks There are also thousand and five thousand dollar ‘legals’, which look like a Bank of England note, and are used only between banks. But this little fellow here is negotiable, just like a dollar bill.”
I wrapped it in a dollar I happened to have in my pants pocket, and grasping it firmly with my left hand in my pocket I called for Charles and we went forth to try and spend it.
“The idea,” said the editor, as we departed, “is not entirely humorous. This will test Toronto’s urbanity. If a thousand dollars knocks them dizzy, it will show that Toronto is not as big as she looks. On the other hand, if it creates no stir along Yonge street, why, Toronto is growing up.”
Charles and I agreed that we would not risk the bill in a big jewelry store, because in all probability they would change it for us right off.
“You buy me a tie, that’s all I want. And it must be a dollar tie or a ninety-five cent tie.”
“Right-o,” says I, my hand perspiring with the clench I had on that flimsy bill in my pocket, for we were now in the midst of Yonge street traffic, and I was turning over in my mind the idea of calling one of the big policemen off traffic duty to follow us.
“We’ll Just Charge It”
Furthermore, as we turned north on Yonge street, I suddenly noticed what an awful criminal looking population Toronto has got. I never noticed it before. But all at once, every face I looked at had a grim, sinister expression on it, and each face was staring peculiarly at me!
I glanced at Charles, and, by George, there was a funny look even on his familiar face.
“Ahem!” said Charles. “What do you say, Greg, if we just jump a train for New York and have a celebration on that $1,000?”
“How long would it last?” I demanded.
“That’s a fact,” said Charles. “Let’s not do that. Well, here’s Dunfield’s. I like their ties.”
We walked in and stood beside the dollar tie rack. We had to wait a few minutes. Apparently the clerks thought by our looks that we didn’t have much money. Little did they know!
Finally a salesman walked over.
“We want a tie – a dollar tie – or have you any around ninety-five cents?” asked Charles.
So we selected a tie; a jolly dollar tie.
As the salesman slipped it into the envelope, I tossed the $1,000 bill on to the showcase.
The salesman glanced at it, halted in his tracks, examined it closer, without picking it up.
“Is this the smallest you’ve got?” he asked, never turning a hair.
“Yes, it is,” I said, feeling about in different pockets to see if by chance I might have a five hundred or a couple of hundred in my match pockets or small change pocket.
“I’m afraid,” said the salesman, “that as it is after banking hours…”
“Have you anything smaller, Charles?” I asked.
Charles patted his wallet pocket thoughtfully.
“No.” said he, “I’ve nothing smaller, I’m afraid.”
We looked at the salesman. He said: “Just a moment.”
He walked back to the cashier’s desk and talked quietly with another salesman. They both returned and handed us the bill, and the tie.
“We’ll just charge it to you,” he said, “and you can drop in and pay for it another time!”
Done! Stumped! Bluff called! Anybody that presents thousand dollar bills around Dunfield’s can have tick4. They can easily have a dollar tie on credit. In fact, take the whole store, and you’re welcome!
Charles and I didn’t know just what to do in the face of this friendly offer. But I, lying like the deuce, as a matter of fact, said:
“No thanks, old man. I don’t like to do that. I like to pay cash for everything.”
And, somewhat crestfallen, we went out into Yonge street.
The Gaze of Suspicion
Imrie’s were the next victims.
We selected a very nice tie, smart club stripe. It was slipped into its envelope. I laid the thousand dollar bill on the show case. The salesman picked it up calmly, turned to the cash register and said:
“One from a hundred.”
“One from a thousand!” I corrected, in an alarmed voice.
The salesman stopped, looked at the bill.
“By Jove,” he said, “I slipped one of those noughts, didn’t I? Well, I’m sorry. It’s after banking hours; I can’t change this. But here-“
He slapped a check book down on the show case.
“I’ll take your cheque.”
Stumped again!
It began to look as if a thousand dollar bill did not cut much ice after all amongst the merchants of Yonge street.
I said I had no bank account – that I carried my wealth about with me – I got out of Imrie’s with as much dignity as I could, and we made for Brass’s.
There we chose a black and white tie, at ninety-five cents.
The salesman took the bill in his hand. He turned red.
“Where’d you get this?” he asked.
“It’s perfectly good,” I retorted.
“It looks all right,” said the salesman, turning it over and over and feeling it carefully.
“Feels all right. But I’m sorry; I can’t change it.”
He hung the tie back on the rack, and we I could feel upon our backs, as we walked out, the psychic impress of a gaze that was both suspicious and envious.
“Where now, Charles?”
“I think,” said Charles, “you should buy me a pot of tea.”
“Right-o.”
We went to a small but busy little tea shop and sat down and solemnly consumed a double pot of tea and three orders of cinnamon toast.
I signaled the girl. “Pay my check, please.”
And I handed her the thousand dollar bill. She never even looked at it. She picked it up casually with the slip and walked off to the cashier.
In a moment, the manager came back, all smiles:
“I’m frightfully sorry,” he said, beaming, “but you’ve caught me without… as a matter of fact, I’m most sorry, but I’ve not ten minutes ago returned from the bank. I can’t change this!”
He held the thousand dollar bill triumphantly in his hand, waved it, but maintained the air of a gentleman who was most frightfully embarrassed, socially, at being caught without any money.
“But we’ve drunk the tea and eaten the toast,” said Charles.
“Have you nothing smaller than this?”
I asked Charles if he had.
“No. I’ve not,” he retorted, “and, anyway, you invited me to tea.”
“Well, now, I’ll tell you, gentlemen,” said the manager, “it’s quite all right. You just pay this chit the next time you’re n!”
He was all for having us regular customers.
But in the end, Charles dug up the eighty cents and paid the bill, with loud protests that I had invited him to tea and might at least carry some decent sized money about with me.
Just Chicken Feed
As we left the tea room the girl who had waited on us passed us in the corridor with a pale and very much impressed little smile.
“Now where?”
“Eaton’s,” said Charles. “I feel we will meet our fate at Eaton’s.”
And as we walked north to Eaton’s, we looked at the crowd walking by. Somehow, the sinister criminal look about them that I had noticed at first had all gone. I noticed, instead, a sort of patient, harried look about them all. They seemed weary, tired. I felt a thousand dollars would do each one of them so much good.
And the humorous feel of that flimsy note in my pants pocket lost something.
“A lot of these girls,” I said to Charles, “work hard for a whole year for a thousand dollars.”
“And what,” said Charles, “would they do with it if you handed one of them that $1,000 in your pocket? Buy a fur coat.”
“Or maybe they wouldn’t believe it. Let’s try to give it away to someone!”
“If you try,” said Charles, “crippled as I am, I will bean you. You should realize by now that that $1,000 is real, and that it is mere chicken feed on Yonge street. Grab tight on it. Here’s Queen and Yonge.”
In Eaton’s we decided that it must be a girl we buy the tie from. So we hunted around, finding nothing but men clerks in the tie departments. But at last we came to the boys’ tie department, with girls behind the counter. And there, suspended on a rack was a gorgeous tie of scarlet and black stripes, the most gorgeous tie you would ever want to see, and it was marked boldly above it, “75 cents.”
“There’s the tie!” cried Charles. “And there’s the girl to sell it to us.”
She was amiable.
“That is a beautiful tie,” she agreed, passing it over to us. “You would be surprised who I sold a tie just like that to, last week!”
“Who was that?”
“Mr. Tommy Church5,” said the girl.
“Sold,” said Charles. “I must have this tie, even if I only use it to tie up love-letters and things in lavender.”
I laid the $1,000 bill softly on the counter.
The girl went ahead making the bill out, and then glanced at the note to see what denomination she would take the seventy-five cents out of.
“Oh!” said she.
She picked it up and studied it for a minute.
“I wouldn’t like to send that up,” she said. “Just wait a moment.”
And, taking the thousand dollar bill carelessly in her fingers so that it fluttered, she walked off, out of the circle, into the crowded aisle.
“Your Change! Thank You!”
Charles and I had the pleasure of seeing the salesgirl walking briskly off, we knew not whither, with that thousand dollar bill waving carelessly by her side as if it had been a dollar.
“Gone to see about it,” said Charles.
“I think maybe we should have gone with her,” said I.
“What,” said Charles, in a friendly way, “would the office do if you lost that bill? Would they take it out of you?”
“Hang it, Charles,” I expostulated, “don’t talk like that! I wonder where she’s gone?”
“She might lose it,” said Charles. “She might have it snatched out of her hand by some of these pickpockets.”
I went clammy all over.
And then, to my joy, appeared the young lady, coming briskly back. The time she was gone was less time than it would have taken for the tube to go up and come back with our change6.
She appeared smartly before us at the counter.
“Your change,” she said.
And she counted off nine hundred and ninety-nine dollars and twenty-five cents.
Handed us the tie.
“Thank you!” said the girl in the boys’ neckwear department.
No hesitation. No doubt. What happened was that she had simply carried the bill to the cashier’s office, one floor up, handed it in, asked for change, got it, and took her seventy-five cents out of it.
So there was the end of our thousand dollar bill. All I had left of it was nine one hundred dollar bills, four twenties, a ten, a five and two twos. And a quarter.
Funny how unromantic that roll looked. Just so much spondoolicks7.
“Well,” said Charles.
“It looks,” said I, “as if Toronto is growing up. It is nothing to them that plain ordinary fellows haul out thousand dollar bills.”
“The races are on,” said Charles. “And the stock market is booming as never before. Maybe the good times they talk about are really here8. And besides, we may look a little like gamblers.”
“There’s something flattering about the reception we got all along the line. It must be the ties I wear,” said I.
“Here,” said Charles, “you take this one. I’ll never use it. It’s more your style.”
“No, Charles,” I replied. “You keep it as s souvenir of this adventure. I’ll charge it up to expenses anyway.”
Editor’s Notes: This is one of the original “stunt” stories that was done in the late 1920s and early 1930s. If you think it is odd, just consider that this would not be out of place today as a Youtube video.
- $1000 in 1927 would be $17,915 in 2025. ↩︎
- Here is an image of it (this would be before the creation of the Bank of Canada in 1935). ↩︎
- That would be Queen Mary, wife of George V. ↩︎
- In this context, “tick” is slang for “an account” or “credit”. ↩︎
- Thomas Church was mayor of Toronto from 1915-1921, and then a Member of Parliament for a Toronto riding from 1921-1930, 1934-1950. ↩︎
- I love the idea that they would be using pneumatic tubes for this. ↩︎
- “Spondoolicks” is slang for money or cash. Greg sure can bring out the 19th century slang. ↩︎
- Uh, oh. ↩︎
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