The Prince and Betty | Page 4

Indiana, and a weekly paper in
New York. He had financed patent medicines, patent foods, patent
corks, patent corkscrews, patent devices of all kinds, some profitable,
some the reverse.
Also--outside the ordinary gains of finance--he had expectations. He
was the only male relative of his aunt, the celebrated Mrs. Jane Oakley,
who lived in a cottage on Staten Island, and was reputed to spend five
hundred dollars a year--some said less--out of her snug income of
eighteen million. She was an unusual old lady in many ways, and,
unfortunately, unusually full of deep-rooted prejudices. The fear lest he
might inadvertently fall foul of these rarely ceased to haunt Mr.
Scobell.
This man of many projects had descended upon Mervo like a stone on
the surface of some quiet pool, bubbling over with modern enterprise in
general and, in particular, with a scheme. Before his arrival, Mervo had
been an island of dreams and slow movement and putting things off till
to-morrow. The only really energetic thing it had ever done in its whole
history had been to expel his late highness, Prince Charles, and change
itself into a republic. And even that had been done with the minimum
of fuss. The Prince was away at the time. Indeed, he had been away for
nearly three years, the pleasures of Paris, London and Vienna appealing
to him more keenly than life among his subjects. Mervo, having
thought the matter over during these years, decided that it had no
further use for Prince Charles. Quite quietly, with none of that vulgar
brawling which its neighbor, France, had found necessary in similar
circumstances, it had struck his name off the pay-roll, and declared
itself a republic. The royalist party, headed by General Poineau, had
been distracted but impotent. The army, one hundred and fifteen strong,
had gone solid for the new regime, and that had settled it. Mervo had
then gone to sleep again. It was asleep when Mr. Scobell found it.
The financier's scheme was first revealed to M. d'Orby, the President of
the Republic, a large, stout statesman with even more than the average
Mervian instinct for slumber. He was asleep in a chair on the porch of
his villa when Mr. Scobell paid his call, and it was not until the

financier's secretary, who attended the seance in the capacity of
interpreter, had rocked him vigorously from side to side for quite a
minute that he displayed any signs of animation beyond a snore like the
growling of distant thunder. When at length he opened his eyes, he
perceived the nightmare-like form of Mr. Scobell standing before him,
talking. The financier, impatient of delay, had begun to talk some
moments before the great awakening.
"Sir," Mr. Scobell was saying, "I gotta proposition to which I'd like you
to give your complete attention. Shake him some more, Crump. Sir,
there's big money in it for all of us, if you and your crowd'll sit in.
Money. _Lar' monnay_. No, that means change. What's money, Crump?
_Arjong_? There's arjong in it, Squire. Get that? Oh, shucks! Hand it to
him in French, Crump."
Mr. Secretary Crump translated. The President blinked, and intimated
that he would hear more. Mr. Scobell relighted his cigar-stump, and
proceeded.
"Say, you've heard of Moosieer Blonk? Ask the old skeesicks if he's
ever heard of Mersyaw Blonk, Crump, the feller who started the
gaming-tables at Monte Carlo."
Filtered through Mr. Crump, the question became intelligible to the
President. He said he had heard of M. Blanc. Mr. Crump caught the
reply and sent it on to Mr. Scobell, as the man on first base catches the
ball and throws it to second.
Mr. Scobell relighted his cigar.
"Well, I'm in that line. I'm going to put this island on the map just like
old Doctor Blonk put Monte Carlo. I've been studying up all about the
old man, and I know just what he did and how he did it. Monte Carlo
was just such another jerkwater little place as this is before he hit it.
The government was down to its last bean and wondering where the
Heck its next meal-ticket was coming from, when in blows Mr. Man,
tucks up his shirt-sleeves, and starts the tables. And after that the place
never looked back. You and your crowd gotta get together and pass a

vote to give me a gambling concession here, same as they did him.
Scobell's my name. Hand him that, Crump."
Mr. Crump obliged once more. A gleam of intelligence came into the
President's dull eye. He nodded once or twice. He talked volubly in
French to Mr. Crump, who responded in the same tongue.
"The idea seems to strike him, sir," said Mr. Crump.
"It ought to, if he isn't a clam," replied Mr.