The Prince and Betty | Page 5

Scobell. He started to relight
his cigar, but after scorching the tip of his nose, bowed to the inevitable
and threw the relic away.
"See here," he said, having bitten the end off the next in order; "I've
thought this thing out from soup to nuts. There's heaps of room for
another Monte Carlo. Monte's a dandy place, but it's not perfect by a
long way. To start with, it's hilly. You have to take the elevator to get to
the Casino, and when you've gotten to the end of your roll and want to
soak your pearl pin, where's the hock-shop? Half a mile away up the
side of a mountain. It ain't right. In my Casino there's going to be a
resident pawnbroker inside the building, just off the main entrance.
That's only one of a heap of improvements. Another is that my Casino's
scheduled to be a home from home, a place you can be real cosy in.
You'll look around you, and the only thing you'll miss will be mother's
face. Yes, sir, there's no need for a gambling Casino to look and feel
and smell like the reading-room at the British Museum. Comfort,
coziness and convenience. That's the ticket I'm running on. Slip that to
the old gink, Crump."
A further outburst of the French language from Mr. Crump,
supplemented on the part of the "old gink" by gesticulations,
interrupted the proceedings.
"What's he saying now?" asked Mr. Scobell.
"He wants to know--"
"Don't tell. Let me guess. He wants to know what sort of a rake-off he

and the other somnambulists will get--the darned old pirate! Is that it?"
Mr. Crump said that that was just it.
"That'll be all right," said Mr. Scobell. "Old man Blong's offer to the
Prince of Monaco was five hundred thousand francs a year--that's
somewhere around a hundred thousand dollars in real money--and half
the profits made by the Casino. That's my offer, too. See how that hits
him, Crump."
Mr. Crump investigated.
"He says he accepts gladly, on behalf of the Republic, sir," he
announced.
M. d'Orby confirmed the statement by rising, dodging the cigar, and
kissing Mr. Scobell on both cheeks.
"Cut it out," said the financier austerely, breaking out of the clinch.
"We'll take the Apache Dance as read. Good-by, Squire. Glad it's
settled. Now I can get busy."
He did. Workmen poured into Mervo, and in a very short time,
dominating the town and reducing to insignificance the palace of the
late Prince, once a passably imposing mansion, there rose beside the
harbor a mammoth Casino of shining stone.
Imposing as was the exterior, it was on the interior that Mr. Scobell
more particularly prided himself, and not without reason. Certainly, a
man with money to lose could lose it here under the most charming
conditions. It had been Mr. Scobell's object to avoid the cheerless
grandeur of the rival institution down the coast. Instead of one large
hall sprinkled with tables, each table had a room to itself, separated
from its neighbor by sound-proof folding-doors. And as the building
progressed, Mr. Scobell's active mind had soared above the original
idea of domestic coziness to far greater heights of ingenuity. Each of
the rooms was furnished and arranged in a different style. The note of
individuality extended even to the croupiers. Thus, a man with money

at his command could wander from the Dutch room, where, in the
picturesque surroundings of a Dutch kitchen, croupiers in the costume
of Holland ministered to his needs, to the Japanese room, where his
coin would be raked in by quite passable imitations of the Samurai. If
he had any left at this point, he was free to dispose of it under the
auspices of near-Hindoos in the Indian room, of merry Swiss peasants
in the Swiss room, or in other appropriately furnished apartments of
red-shirted, Bret Harte miners, fur-clad Esquimaux, or languorous
Spaniards. He could then, if a man of spirit, who did not know when he
was beaten, collect the family jewels, and proceed down the main hall,
accompanied by the strains of an excellent band, to the office of a
gentlemanly pawnbroker, who spoke seven languages like a native and
was prepared to advance money on reasonable security in all of them.
It was a colossal venture, but it suffered from the defect from which
most big things suffer; it moved slowly. That it also moved steadily
was to some extent a consolation to Mr. Scobell. Undoubtedly it would
progress quicker and quicker, as time went on, until at length the
Casino became a permanent gold mine. But at present it was being
conducted at a loss. It was inevitable, but it irked Mr. Scobell. He
paced the island and brooded. His mind dwelt incessantly on the