The Prince and Betty | Page 6

problem. Ideas for promoting the prosperity of his nursling came to him
at all hours--at meals, in the night watches, when he was shaving,
walking, washing, reading, brushing his hair.
And now one had come to him as he stood looking at the view from the
window of his morning-room, listening absently to his sister Marion as
she read stray items of interest from the columns of the _New York
Herald_, and had caused him to utter the exclamation recorded at the
beginning of the chapter.
* * * * *
"By Heck!" he said. "Read that again, Marion. I gottan idea."
Miss Scobell, deep in her paper, paid no attention. Few people would
have taken her for the sister of the financier. She was his exact opposite
in almost every way. He was small, jerky and aggressive; she, tall,

deliberate and negative. She was one of those women whom nature
seems to have produced with the object of attaching them to some man
in a peculiar position of independent dependence, and who defy the
imagination to picture them in any other condition whatsoever. One
could not see Miss Scobell doing anything but pour out her brother's
coffee, darn his socks, and sit placidly by while he talked. Yet it would
have been untrue to describe her as dependent upon him. She had a
detached mind. Though her whole life had been devoted to his comfort
and though she admired him intensely, she never appeared to give his
conversation any real attention. She listened to him much as she would
have listened to a barking Pomeranian.
"Marion!" cried Mr. Scobell.
"A five-legged rabbit has been born in Carbondale, Southern Illinois,"
she announced.
Mr. Scobell cursed the five-legged rabbit.
"Never mind about your rabbits. I want to hear that piece you read
before. The one about the Prince of Monaco. Will--you--listen,
Marion!"
"The Prince of Monaco, dear? Yes. He has caught another fish or
something of that sort, I think. Yes. A fish with 'telescope eyes,' the
paper says. And very convenient too, I should imagine."
Mr. Scobell thumped the table.
"I've got it. I've found out what's the matter with this darned place. I see
why the Casino hasn't struck its gait."
"I think it must be the _croupiers_, dear. I'm sure I never heard of
croupiers in fancy costume before. It doesn't seem right. I'm sure
people don't like those nasty Hindoos. I am quite nervous myself when
I go into the Indian room. They look at me so oddly."
"Nonsense! That's the whole idea of the place, that it should be

different. People are sick and tired of having their money gathered in
by seedy-looking Dagoes in second-hand morning coats. We give 'em
variety. It's not the Casino that's wrong: it's the darned island. What's
the use of a republic to a place like this? I'm not saying that you don't
want a republic for a live country that's got its way to make in the
world; but for a little runt of a sawn-off, hobo, one-night stand like this
you gotta have something picturesque, something that'll advertise the
place, something that'll give a jolt to folks' curiosity, and make 'em talk!
There's this Monaco gook. He snoops around in his yacht, digging up
telescope-eyed fish, and people talk about it. 'Another darned fish,' they
say. 'That's the 'steenth bite the Prince of Monaco has had this year.' It's
like a soap advertisement. It works by suggestion. They get to thinking
about the Prince and his pop-eyed fishes, and, first thing they know,
they've packed their grips and come along to Monaco to have a peek at
him. And when they're there, it's a safe bet they aren't going back again
without trying to get a mess of easy money from the Bank. That's what
this place wants. Whoever heard of this blamed Republic doing
anything except eat and sleep? They used to have a prince here 'way
back in eighty-something. Well, I'm going to have him working at the
old stand again, right away."
Miss Scobell looked up from her paper, which she had been reading
with absorbed interest throughout tins harangue.
"Dear?" she said enquiringly.
"I say I'm going to have him back again," said Mr. Scobell, a little
damped. "I wish you would listen."
"I think you're quite right, dear. Who?"
"The Prince. Do listen, Marion. The Prince of this island, His Highness,
the Prince of Mervo. I'm going to send for him and put him on the
throne again."
"You can't, dear. He's dead."
"I know he's dead. You can't faze me on the history of this place. He

died in ninety-one. But before he died he married an American girl, and
there's a son, who's in America now, living with his uncle. It's the son
I'm