hand. Why should your prince want to marry a girl he has never seen?"
"He will," said Mr. Scobell confidently.
"How do you know?"
"Because I know he's a sensible young skeesicks. That's how. See here,
Betty, you've gotten hold of wrong ideas about this place. You don't
understand the position of affairs. Your aunt didn't till I put her
wise."
"He bit my head off, my dear," murmured Miss Scobell, knitting
placidly.
"You're thinking that Mervo is an ordinary state, and that the Prince
is one of those independent, all-wool, off-with-his-darned-head rulers
like you read about in the best sellers. Well, you've got another guess
coming. If you want to know who's the big noise here, it's me - me! This
Prince guy is my hired man. See? Who sent for him? I did. Who put him
on the throne? I did. Who pays him his salary? I do, from the profits
of the Casino. Now do you understand? He knows his job. He knows which
side his bread's buttered. When I tell him about this marriage, do you
know what he'll say? He'll say 'Thank you, sir!' That's how things are
in this island."
Betty shuddered. Her face was white with humiliation. She half-raised
her hands with an impulsive movement to hide it.
"I won't. I won't. I won't!" she gasped.
Mr. Scobell was pacing the room in an ecstasy of triumphant rhetoric.
"There's another thing," he said, swinging round suddenly and causing
his sister to drop another stitch. "Maybe you think he's some kind of a
Dago, this guy? Maybe that's what's biting you. Let me tell you that
he's an American - pretty near as much an American as you are yourself."
Betty stared at him.
"An American!"
"Don't believe it, eh? Well, let me tell you that his mother was born
and raised in Jersey, and that he has lived all his life in the States.
He's no little runt of a Dago. No, sir. He's a Harvard man, six-foot
high and weighs two hundred pounds. That's the sort of man he is. I
guess that's not American enough for you, maybe? No?"
"You do shout so, Bennie!" murmured Miss Scobell. "I'm sure there's no
need."
Betty uttered a cry. Something had told her who he was, this Harvard
man who had sold himself. That species of sixth sense which lies
undeveloped at the back of our minds during the ordinary happenings of
life wakes sometimes in moments of keen emotion. At its highest, it is
prophecy; at its lowest, a vague presentiment. It woke in Betty now.
There was no particular reason why she should have connected her
stepfather's words with John. The term he had used was an elastic one.
Among the visitors to the island there were probably several Harvard
men. But somehow she knew.
"Who is he?" she cried. "What was his name before he - when he - ?"
"His name?" said Mr. Scobell. "John Maude. Maude was his mother's name.
She was a Miss Westley. Here, where are you going?"
Betty was walking slowly toward the door. Something in her face checked
Mr. Scobell.
"I want to think," she said quietly. "I'm going out."
* * * * *
In days of old, in the age of legend, omens warned heroes of impending
doom. But to-day the gods have grown weary, and we rush unsuspecting on
our fate. No owl hooted, no thunder rolled from the blue sky as John
went up the path to meet the white dress that gleamed between the
trees.
His heart was singing within him. She had come. She had not forgotten,
or changed her mind, or willfully abandoned him. His mood lightened
swiftly. Humility vanished. He was not such an outcast, after all. He
was someone. He was the man Betty Silver had come to meet.
But with the sight of her face came reaction.
Her face was pale and cold and hard. She did not speak or smile. As she
drew near she looked at him, and there was that in her look which set a
chill wind blowing through the world and cast a veil across the sun.
And in this bleak world they stood silent and motionless while eons
rolled by.
Betty was the first to speak.
"I'm late," she said.
John searched in his brain for words, and came empty away. He shook his
head dumbly.
"Shall we sit down?" said Betty.
John indicated silently the sandstone rock on which he had been
communing with himself.
They sat down. A sense of being preposterously and indecently big
obsessed John. There seemed no end to him. Wherever he looked, there
were hands and feet and legs. He was a vast blot on the face of the
earth. He glanced out of the corner of his eye at Betty. She was gazing
out to sea.
He dived into his brain again. It was absurd! There must be something
to say.
And then he realized that a worse thing had befallen. He had no voice.
It had gone. He knew that, try he never so hard to speak, he would not
be able to utter a word. A nightmare feeling of unreality came upon
him. Had he ever spoken? Had he ever done anything but sit dumbly on
that rock, looking at those sea gulls out in the water?
He shot another swift glance at Betty, and a thrill went through him.
There were tears in her eyes.
The next moment - the action was almost automatic - his left hand was
clasping her right, and he was moving along the rock to her side.
She snatched her hand away.
His brain, ransacked for the third time, yielded a single word.
"Betty!"
She got up quickly.
In the confused state of his mind, John found it necessary if he were
to speak at all, to say the essential thing in the shortest possible
way. Polished periods are not for the man who is feeling deeply.
He blurted out, huskily, "I love you!" and finding that this was all
that he could say, was silent.
Even to himself the words, as he spoke them, sounded bald and
meaningless. To Betty, shaken by her encounter with Mr. Scobell, they
sounded artificial, as if he were forcing himself to repeat a lesson.
They jarred upon her.
"Don't!" she said sharply. "Oh, don't!"
Her voice stabbed him. It could not have stirred him more if she had
uttered a cry of physical pain.
"Don't! I know. I've been told."
"Been told?"
She went on quickly.
"I know all about it. My stepfather has just told me. He said - he said
you were his - " she choked - "his hired man; that he paid you to stay
here and advertise the Casino. Oh, it's too horrible! That it should be
you! You, who have been - you can't understand what you - have been to
me - ever since we met; you couldn't understand. I can't tell you - a
sort of help - something - something that - I can't put it into words.
Only it used to help me just to think of you. It was almost impersonal.
I didn't mind if I never saw you again. I didn't expect ever to see you
again. It was just being able to think of you. It helped - you were
something I could trust. Something strong - solid." She laughed
bitterly. "I suppose I made a hero of you. Girls are fools. But it
helped me to feel that there was one man alive who - who put his honor
above money - "
She broke off. John stood motionless, staring at the ground. For the
first time in his easy-going life he knew shame. Even now he had not
grasped to the full the purport of her words. The scales were falling
from his eyes, but as yet he saw but dimly.
She began to speak again, in a low, monotonous voice, almost as if she
were talking to herself. She was looking past him, at the gulls that
swooped and skimmed above the glittering water.
"I'm so tired of money - money - money. Everything's money. Isn't there a
man in the world who won't sell himself? I thought that you - I suppose
I'm stupid. It's business, I suppose. One expects too much."
She looked at him wearily.
"Good-by," she said. "I'm going."
He did not move.
She turned, and went slowly up the path. Still he made no movement. A
spell seemed to be on him. His eyes never left her as she passed into
the shadow of the trees. For a moment her white dress stood out
clearly. She had stopped. With his whole soul he prayed that she would
look back. But she moved on once more, and was gone. And suddenly a
strange weakness came upon John. He trembled. The hillside flickered
before his eyes for an instant, and he clutched at the sandstone rock
to steady himself.
Then his brain cleared, and he found himself thinking swiftly. He could
not let her go like this. He must overtake her. He must stop her. He
must speak to her. He must say - he did not know what it was that he
would say - anything, so that he spoke to her again.
He raced up the path, calling her name. No answer came to his cries.
Above him lay the hillside, dozing in the noonday sun; below, the
Mediterranean, sleek and blue, without a ripple. He stood alone in a
land of silence and sleep.
CHAPTER VIII
AN ULTIMATUM FROM THE THRONE
At half-past twelve that morning business took Mr. Benjamin Scobell to
the royal Palace. He was not a man who believed in letting the grass
grow under his feet. He prided himself on his briskness of attack.
Every now and then Mr. Crump, searching the newspapers, would discover
and hand to him a paragraph alluding to his "hustling methods." When
this happened, he would preserve the clipping and carry it about in his
vest-pocket with his cigars till time and friction wore it away. He
liked to think of himself as swift and sudden - the Human Thunderbolt.
In this matter of the royal alliance, it was his intention to have at
it and clear it up at once. Having put his views clearly before Betty,
he now proposed to lay them with equal clarity before the Prince. There
was no sense in putting the thing off. The sooner all parties concerned
understood the position of affairs, the sooner the business would be
settled.
That Betty had not received his information with joy did not distress
him. He had a poor opinion of the feminine intelligence. Girls got their
minds full of nonsense from reading novels and seeing plays - like Betty.
Betty objected to those who were wiser than herself providing a perfectly
good prince for her to marry. Some fool notion of romance, of course. Not
that he was angry. He did not blame her any more than the surgeon blames
a patient for the possession of an unsuitable appendix. There was no
animus in the matter. Her mind was suffering from foolish ideas, and he
was the surgeon whose task it was to operate upon it. That was all. One
had to expect foolishness in women. It was their nature. The only thing
to do was to tie a rope to them and let them run around till they were
tired of it, then pull them in. He saw his way to managing Betty.
Nor did he anticipate trouble with John. He had taken an estimate of
John's character, and it did not seem to him likely that it contained
unsuspected depths. He set John down, as he had told Betty, as a young
man acute enough to know when he had a good job and sufficiently
sensible to make concessions in order to retain it. Betty, after the
manner of woman, might make a fuss before yielding to the inevitable,
but from level-headed John he looked for placid acquiescence.
His mood, as the automobile whirred its way down the hill toward the
town, was sunny. He looked on life benevolently and found it good. The
view appealed to him more than it had managed to do on other days. As a
rule, he was the man of blood and iron who had no time for admiring
scenery, but to-day he vouchsafed it a not unkindly glance. It was
certainly a dandy little place, this island of his. A vineyard on the
right caught his eye. He made a mental note to uproot it and run up a
hotel in its place. Further down the hill, he selected a site for a
villa, where the mimosa blazed, and another where at present there were
a number of utterly useless violets. A certain practical element was
apt, perhaps, to color Mr. Scobell's half-hours with nature.
The sight of the steamboat leaving the harbor on its journey to
Marseilles gave him another idea. Now that Mervo was a going concern, a
real live proposition, it was high time that it should have an adequate
service of boats. The present system of one a day was absurd. He made a
note to look into the matter. These people wanted waking up.
Arriving at the Palace, he was informed that His Highness had gone out
shortly after breakfast, and had not returned. The majordomo gave the
information with a tinkle of disapproval in his voice. Before taking up
his duties at Mervo, he had held a similar position in the household of
a German prince, where rigid ceremonial obtained, and John's cheerful
disregard of the formalities frankly shocked him. To take the present
case for instance: When His Highness of Swartzheim had felt inclined to
enjoy the air of a morning, it had been a domestic event full of stir
and pomp. He had not merely crammed a soft hat over his eyes and
strolled out with his hands in his pockets, but without a word to his
household staff as to where he was going or when he might be expected
to return.
Mr. Scobell received the news equably, and directed his chauffeur to
return to the villa. He could not have done better, for, on his
arrival, he was met with the information that His Highness had called
to see him shortly after he had left, and was now waiting in the
morning-room.
The sound of footsteps came to Mr. Scobell's ears as he approached the
room. His Highness appeared to be pacing the floor like a caged animal
at the luncheon hour. The resemblance was heightened by the expression
in the royal eye as His Highness swung round at the opening of the door
and faced the financier.
"Why, say, Prince," said Mr. Scobell, "this is lucky. I been looking
for you. I just been to the Palace, and the main guy there told me you
had gone out."
"I did. And I met your stepdaughter."
Mr. Scobell was astonished. Fate was certainly smoothing his way if it
arranged meetings between Betty and the Prince before he had time to do
it himself. There might be no need for the iron hand after all.
"You did?" he said. "Say, how the Heck did you come to do that? What
did you know about Betty?"
"Miss Silver and I had met before, in America, when I was in college."
Mr. Scobell slapped his thigh joyously.
"Gee, it's all working out like a fiction story in the magazines!"
"Is it?" said John. "How? And, for the matter of that, what?"
Mr. Scobell answered question with question. "Say, Prince, you and
Betty were pretty good friends in the old days, I guess?"
John looked at him coldly.
"We won't discuss that, if you don't mind," he said.
His tone annoyed Mr. Scobell. Off came the velvet glove, and the iron
hand displayed itself. His green eyes glowed dully and the tip of his
nose wriggled, as was its habit in times of emotion.
"Is that so?" he cried, regarding John with disfavor. "Well, I guess!
Won't discuss it! You gotta discuss it, Your Royal Texas League
Highness! You want making a head shorter, my bucko. You - "
John's demeanor had become so dangerous that he broke off abruptly, and
with an unostentatious movement, as of a man strolling carelessly about
his private sanctum, put himself within easy reach of the door handle.
He then became satirical.
"Maybe Your Serene, Imperial Two-by-Fourness would care to suggest a
subject we can discuss?"
John took a step forward.
"Yes, I will," he said between his teeth. "You were talking to Miss
Silver about me this morning. She told me one or two of the things you
said, and they opened my eyes. Until I heard them, I had not quite
understood my position. I do now. You said, among other things, that I
was your hired man."
"It wasn't intended for you to hear," said Mr. Scobell, slightly
mollified, "and Betty shouldn't oughter have handed it to you. I don't
wonder you feel raw. I wouldn't say that sort of thing to a guy's face.
Sure, no. Tact's my middle name. But, since you have heard it, well - !"
"Don't apologize. You were quite right. I was a fool not to see it
before. No description could have been fairer. You might have said much
more. You might have added that I was nothing more than a steerer for a
gambling hell."
"Oh, come, Prince!"
There was a knock at the door. A footman entered, bearing, with a
detached air, as if he disclaimed all responsibility, a letter on a
silver tray.
Mr. Scobell slit the envelope, and began to read. As he did so his eyes
grew round, and his mouth slowly opened till his cigar stump, after
hanging for a moment from his lower lip, dropped off like an exhausted
bivalve and rolled along the carpet.
"Prince," he gasped, "she's gone. Betty!"
"Gone! What do you mean?"
"She's beaten it. She's half-way to Marseilles by now. Gee, and I saw
the darned boat going out!"
"She's gone!"
"This is from her. Listen what she says:
"_By the time you read this I shall be gone. I am going back
to America as quickly as I can. I am giving this to a boy to
take to you directly the boat has started. Please do not try
to bring me back. I would sooner die than marry the Prince._"
John started violently.
"What!" he cried.
Mr. Scobell nodded sympathy.
"That's what she says. She sure has it in bad for you. What does she
mean? Seeing you and she are old friends - "
"I don't understand. Why does she say that to you? Why should she think
that you knew that I had asked her to marry me?"
"Eh?" cried Mr. Scobell. "You asked her to marry you? And she turned
you down! Prince, this beats the band. Say, you and I must get together
and do something. The girl's mad. See here, you aren't wise to what's
been happening. I been fixing this thing up. I fetched you over here,
and then I fetched Betty, and I was going to have you two marry. I told
Betty all about it this morning."
John cut through his explanations with a sudden sharp cry. A blinding
blaze of understanding had flashed upon him. It was as if he had been
groping his way in a dark cavern and had stumbled unexpectedly into
brilliant sunlight. He understood everything now. Every word that Betty
had spoken, every gesture that she had made, had become amazingly
clear. He saw now why she had shrunk back from him, why her eyes had
worn that look. He dared not face the picture of himself as he must
have appeared in those eyes, the man whom Mr. Benjamin Scobell's Casino
was paying to marry her, the hired man earning his wages by speaking
words of love.
A feeling of physical sickness came over him. He held to the table for
support as he had held to the sandstone rock. And then came rage, rage
such as he had never felt before, rage that he had not thought himself
capable of feeling. It swept over him in a wave, pouring through his
veins and blinding him, and he clung to the table till his knuckles
whitened under the strain, for he knew that he was very near to murder.
A minute passed. He walked to the window, and stood there, looking out.
Vaguely he heard Mr. Scobell's voice at his back, talking on, but the
words had no meaning for him.
He had begun to think with a curious coolness. His detachment surprised
him. It was one of those rare moments in a man's life when, from the
outside, through a breach in that wall of excuses and self-deception
which he has been at such pains to build, he looks at himself
impartially.
The sight that John saw through the wall was not comforting. It was not
a heroic soul that, stripped of its defenses, shivered beneath the
scrutiny. In another mood he would have mended the breach, excusing and
extenuating, but not now. He looked at himself without pity, and saw
himself weak, slothful, devoid of all that was clean and fine, and a
bitter contempt filled him.
Outside the window, a blaze of color, Mervo smiled up at him, and
suddenly he found himself loathing its exotic beauty. He felt stifled.
This was no place for a man. A vision of clean winds and wide spaces
came to him.
And just then, at the foot of the hill, the dome of the Casino caught
the sun, and flashed out in a blaze of gold.
He swung round and faced Mr. Scobell. He had made up his mind.
The financier was still talking.
"So that's how it stands, Prince," he was saying, "and it's up to us to
get busy."
John looked at him.
"I intend to," he said.
"Good boy!" said the financier.
"To begin with, I shall run you out of this place, Mr. Scobell."
The other gasped.
"There is going to be a cleaning-up," John went on. "I've thought it
out. There will be no more gambling in Mervo."
"You're crazy with the heat!" gasped Mr. Scobell. "Abolish gambling?
You can't."
"I can. That concession of yours isn't worth the paper it's written on.
The Republic gave it to you. The Republic's finished. If you want to
conduct a Casino in Mervo, there's only one man who can give you
permission, and that's myself. The acts of the Republic are not binding
on me. For a week you have been gambling on this island without a
concession and now it's going to stop. Do you understand?"
"But, Prince, talk sense." Mr. Scobell's voice was almost tearful.
"It's you who don't understand. Do, for the love of Mike, come down off
the roof and talk sense. Do you suppose that these guys here will stand
for this? Not on your life. Not for a minute. See here. I'm not blaming
you. I know you don't know what you're saying. But listen here. You
must cut out this kind of thing. You mustn't get these ideas in your
head. You stick to your job, and don't butt in on other folks'. Do you
know how long you'd stay Prince of this joint if you started in to
monkey with my Casino? Just about long enough to let you pack a
collar-stud and a toothbrush into your grip. And after that there
wouldn't be any more Prince, sonnie. You stick to your job and I'll
stick to mine. You're a mighty good Prince for all that's required of
you. You're ornamental, and you've got get-up in you. You just keep
right on being a good boy, and don't start trying stunts off your own
beat, and you'll do fine. Don't forget that I'm the big noise here. I'm
old Grayback from 'way back in Mervo. See! I've only to twiddle my
fingers and there'll be a revolution and you for the Down-and-Out Club.
Don't you forget it, sonnie."
John shrugged his shoulders.
"I've said all I have to say. You've had your notice to quit. After
to-night the Casino is closed."
"But don't I tell you the people won't stand for it?"
"That's for them to decide. They may have some self-respect."
"They'll fire you!"
"Very well. That will prove that they have not."
"Prince, talk sense! You can't mean that you'll throw away a hundred
thousand dollars a year as if it was dirt!"
"It is dirt when it's made that way. We needn't discuss it any more."
"But, Prince!"
"It's finished."
"But, say - !"
John had left the room.
He had been gone several minutes before the financier recovered full
possession of his faculties.
When he did, his remarks were brief and to the point.
"Bug-house!" he gasped. "Abso-lutely bug-house!"
CHAPTER IX
MERVO CHANGES ITS CONSTITUTION
Humor, if one looks into it, is principally a matter of retrospect. In
after years John was wont to look back with amusement on the revolution
which ejected him from the throne of his ancestors. But at the time its
mirthfulness did not appeal to him. He was in a frenzy of restlessness.
He wanted Betty. He wanted to see her and explain. Explanations could
not restore him to the place he had held in her mind, but at least they
would show her that he was not the thing he had appeared.
Mervo had become a prison. He ached for America. But, before he could
go, this matter of the Casino must be settled. It was obvious that it
could only be settled in one way. He did not credit his subjects with
the high-mindedness that puts ideals first and money after. That
military and civilians alike would rally to a man round Mr. Scobell and
the Casino he was well aware. But this did not affect his determination
to remain till the last. If he went now, he would be like a boy who
makes a runaway ring at the doorbell. Until he should receive formal
notice of dismissal, he must stay, although every day had forty-eight
hours and every hour twice its complement of weary minutes.
So he waited, chafing, while Mervo examined the situation, turned it
over in its mind, discussed it, slept upon it, discussed it again, and
displayed generally that ponderous leisureliness which is the Mervian's
birthright.
Indeed, the earliest demonstration was not Mervian at all. It came from
the visitors to the island, and consisted of a deputation of four,
headed by the wizened little man, who had frowned at John in the Dutch
room on the occasion of his meeting with Betty, and a stolid individual
with a bald forehead and a walrus mustache.
The tone of the deputation was, from the first, querulous. The wizened
man had constituted himself spokesman. He introduced the party - the
walrus as Colonel Finch, the others as Herr von Mandelbaum and Mr.
Archer-Cleeve. His own name was Pugh, and the whole party, like the
other visitors whom they represented, had, it seemed, come to Mervo, at
great trouble and expense, to patronize the tables, only to find these
suddenly, without a word of warning, withdrawn from their patronage.
And what the deputation wished to know was, What did it all mean?
"We were amazed, sir - Your Highness," said Mr. Pugh. "We could not - we
cannot - understand it. The entire thing is a baffling mystery to us. We
asked the soldiers at the door. They referred us to Mr. Scobell. We
asked Mr. Scobell. He referred us to you. And now we have come, as the
representatives of our fellow visitors to this island, to ask Your
Highness what it means!"
"Have a cigar," said John, extending the box. Mr. Pugh waved aside the
preferred gift impatiently. Not so Herr von Mandelbaum, who slid
forward after the manner of one in quest of second base and retired
with his prize to the rear of the little army once more.
Mr. Archer-Cleeve, a young man with carefully parted fair hair and the
expression of a strayed sheep, contributed a remark.
"No, but I say, by Jove, you know, I mean really, you know, what?"
That was Mr. Archer-Cleeve upon the situation.
"We have not come here for cigars," said Mr. Pugh. "We have come here,
Your Highness, for an explanation."
"Of what?" said John.
Mr. Pugh made an impatient gesture.
"Do you question my right to rule this massive country as I think best,
Mr. Pugh?"
"It is a high-handed proceeding," said the wizened little man.
The walrus spoke for the first time.
"What say?" he murmured huskily.
"I said," repeated Mr. Pugh, raising his voice, "that it was a
high-handed proceeding, Colonel."
The walrus nodded heavily, in assent, with closed eyes.
"Yah," said Herr von Mandelbaum through the smoke.
John looked at the spokesman.
"You are from England, Mr. Pugh?"
"Yes, sir. I am a British citizen."
"Suppose some enterprising person began to run a gambling hell in
Piccadilly, would the authorities look on and smile?"
"That is an entirely different matter, sir. You are quibbling. In
England gambling is forbidden by law."
"So it is in Mervo, Mr. Pugh."
"Tchah!"
"What say?" said the walrus.
"I said 'Tchah!' Colonel."
"Why?" said the walrus.
"Because His Highness quibbled."
The walrus nodded approvingly.
"His Highness did nothing of the sort," said John. "Gambling is
forbidden in Mervo for the same reason that it is forbidden in England,
because it demoralizes the people."
"This is absurd, sir. Gambling has been permitted in Mervo for nearly a
year."
"But not by me, Mr. Pugh. The Republic certainly granted Mr. Scobell a
concession. But, when I came to the throne, it became necessary for him
to get a concession from me. I refused it. Hence the closed doors."
Mr. Archer-Cleeve once more. "But - " He paused. "Forgotten what I was
going to say," he said to the room at large.
Herr von Mandelbaum made some remark at the back of his throat, but was
ignored.
John spoke again.
"If you were a prince, Mr. Pugh, would you find it pleasant to be in
the pay of a gambling hell?"
"That is neither here nor - "
"On the contrary, it is, very much. I happen to have some self-respect.
I've only just found it out, it's true, but it's there all right. I
don't want to be a prince - take it from me, it's a much overrated
profession - but if I've got to be one, I'll specialize. I won't combine
it with being a bunco steerer on the side. As long as I am on the
throne, this high-toned crap-shooting will continue a back number."
"What say?" said the walrus.
"I said that, while I am on the throne here, people who feel it
necessary to chant 'Come, little seven!' must do it elsewhere."
"I don't understand you," said Mr. Pugh. "Your remarks are absolutely
unintelligible."
"Never mind. My actions speak for themselves. It doesn't matter how I
describe it - what it comes to is that the Casino is closed. You can
follow that? Mervo is no longer running wide open. The lid is on."
"Then let me tell you, sir - " Mr. Pugh brought a bony fist down with a
thump on the table - "that you are playing with fire. Understand me,
sir, we are not here to threaten. We are a peaceful deputation of
visitors. But I have observed your people, sir. I have watched them
narrowly. And let me tell you that you are walking on a volcano.
Already there are signs of grave discontent."
"Already!" cried John. "Already's good. I guess they call it going some
in this infernal country if they can keep awake long enough to take
action within a year after a thing has happened. I don't know if you
have any influence with the populace, Mr. Pugh - you seem a pretty warm
and important sort of person - but, if you have, do please ask them as a
favor to me to get a move on. It's no good saying that I'm walking on a
volcano. I'm from Missouri. I want to be shown. Let's see this volcano.
Bring it out and make it trot around."
"You may jest - "
"Who's jesting? I'm not. It's a mighty serious thing for me. I want to
get away. The only thing that's keeping me in this forsaken place is
this delay. These people are obviously going to fire me sooner or
later. Why on earth can't they do it at once?"
"What say?" said the walrus.
"You may well ask, Colonel," said Mr. Pugh, staring amazed at John.
"His Highness appears completely to have lost his senses."
The walrus looked at John as if expecting some demonstration of
practical insanity, but, finding him outwardly calm, closed his eyes
and nodded heavily again.
"I must say, don't you know," said Mr. Archer-Cleeve, "it beats me,
what?"
The entire deputation seemed to consider that John's last speech needed
footnotes.
John was in no mood to supply them. His patience was exhausted.
"I guess we'll call this conference finished," he said. "You've been
told all you came to find out, - my reason for closing the Casino. If it
doesn't strike you as a satisfactory reason, that's up to you. Do what
you like about it. The one thing you may take as a solid fact - and you
can spread it around the town as much as ever you please - is that it is
closed, and is not going to be reopened while I'm ruler here."
The deputation then withdrew, reluctantly.
* * * * *
On the following morning there came a note from Mr. Scobell. It was
brief. "Come on down before the shooting begins," it ran. John tore it
up.
It was on the same evening that definite hostilities may be said to
have begun.
Between the Palace and the market-place there was a narrow street of
flagged stone, which was busy during the early part of the day but
deserted after sundown. Along this street, at about seven o'clock, John
was strolling with a cigarette, when he was aware of a man crouching,
with his back toward him. So absorbed was the man in something which he
was writing on the stones that he did not hear John's approach, and the
latter, coming up from behind was enabled to see over his shoulder. In
large letters of chalk he read the words: _"Conspuez le Prince."_
John's knowledge of French was not profound, but he could understand
this, and it annoyed him.
As he looked, the man, squatting on his heels, bent forward to touch
up one of the letters. If he had been deliberately posing, he could
not have assumed a more convenient attitude.
John had been a footballer before he was a prince. The temptation was
too much for him. He drew back his foot -
There was a howl and a thud, and John resumed his stroll. The first gun
from Fort Sumter had been fired.
* * * * *
Early next morning a window at the rear of the palace was broken by a
stone, and toward noon one of the soldiers on guard in front of the
Casino was narrowly missed by an anonymous orange. For Mervo this was
practically equivalent to the attack on the Bastille, and John, when
the report of the atrocities was brought to him, became hopeful.
But the effort seemed temporarily to have exhausted the fury of the
mob. The rest of that day and the whole of the next passed without
sensation.
After breakfast on the following morning Mr. Crump paid a visit to the
Palace. John was glad to see him. The staff of the Palace were loyal,
but considered as cheery companions, they were handicapped by the fact
that they spoke no English, while John spoke no French.
Mr. Crump was the bearer of another note from Mr. Scobell. This time
John tore it up unread, and, turning to the secretary, invited him to
sit down and make himself at home.
Sipping a cocktail and smoking one of John's cigars, Mr. Crump became
confidential.
"This is a queer business," he said. "Old Ben is chewing pieces out of
the furniture up there. He's mad clean through. He's losing money all
the while the people are making up their minds about this thing, and it
beats him why they're so slow."
"It beats me, too. I don't believe these hook-worm victims ever turned
my father out. Or, if they did, somebody must have injected radium into
them first. I'll give them another couple of days, and, if they haven't
fixed it by then, I'll go, and leave them to do what they like about
it."
"Go! Do you want to go?"
"Of course I want to go! Do you think I like stringing along in this
musical comedy island? I'm crazy to get back to America. I don't blame
you, Crump, because it was not your fault, but, by George! if I had
known what you were letting me in for when you carried me off here, I'd
have called up the police reserves. Hello! What's this?"
He rose to his feet as the sound of agitated voices came from the other
side of the door. The next moment it flew open, revealing General
Poineau and an assorted group of footmen and other domestics.
Excitement seemed to be in the air.
General Poineau rushed forward into the room, and flung his arms above
his head. Then he dropped them to his side, and shrugged his shoulders,
finishing in an attitude reminiscent of Plate 6 ("Despair") in "The
Home Reciter."
"_Mon Prince!"_ he moaned.
A perfect avalanche of French burst from the group outside the door.
"Crump!" cried John. "Stand by me, Crump! Get busy! This is where you
make your big play. Never mind the chorus gentlemen in the passage.
Concentrate yourself on Poineau. What's he talking about? I believe
he's come to tell me the people have wakened up. Offer him a cocktail.
What's the French for corpse-reviver? Get busy, Crump."
The general had begun to speak rapidly, with a wealth of gestures. It
astonished John that Mr. Crump could follow the harangue as apparently
he did.
"Well?" said John.
Mr. Crump looked grave.
"He says there is a large mob in the market-place. They are talking - "
"They would be!"
" - of moving in force on the Palace. The Palace Guards have gone over
to the people. General Poineau urges you to disguise yourself and
escape while there is time. You will be safe at his villa till the
excitement subsides, when you can be smuggled over to France during the
night - "
"Not for mine," said John, shaking his head. "It's mighty good of you,
General, and I appreciate it, but I can't wait till night. The boat
leaves for Marseilles in another hour. I'll catch that. I can manage it
comfortably. I'll go up and pack my grip. Crump, entertain the General
while I'm gone, will you? I won't be a moment."
But as he left the room there came through the open window the mutter
of a crowd. He stopped. General Poineau whipped out his sword, and
brought it to the salute. John patted him on the shoulder.
"You're a sport, General," he said, "but we sha'n't want it. Come
along, Crump. Come and help me address the multitude."
The window of the room looked out on to a square. There was a small
balcony with a stone parapet. As John stepped out, a howl of rage burst
from the mob.
John walked on to the balcony, and stood looking down on them, resting
his arms on the parapet. The howl was repeated, and from somewhere at
the back of the crowd came the sharp crack of a rifle, and a shot, the
first and last of the campaign, clipped a strip of flannel from the
collar of his coat and splashed against the wall.
A broad smile spread over his face.
If he had studied for a year, he could not have hit on a swifter or
more effective method of quieting the mob. There was something so
engaging and friendly in his smile that the howling died away and fists
that has been shaken unclenched themselves and fell. There was an
expectant silence in the square.
John beckoned to Crump, who came on to the balcony with some
reluctance, being mistrustful of the unseen sportsman with the rifle.
"Tell 'em it's all right, Crump, and that there's no call for any fuss.
From their manner I gather that I am no longer needed on this throne.
Ask them if that's right?"
A small man, who appeared to be in command of the crowd, stepped
forward as the secretary finished speaking, and shouted some words
which drew a murmur of approval from his followers.
"He wants to know," interpreted Mr. Crump, "if you will allow the
Casino to open again."
"Tell him no, but add that I shall be tickled to death to abdicate, if
that's what they want. Speed them up, old man. Tell them to make up
their minds on the jump, because I want to catch that boat. Don't let
them get to discussing it, or they'll stand there talking till sunset.
Yes or no. That's the idea."
There was a moment's surprised silence when Mr. Crump had spoken. The
Mervian mind was unused to being hustled in this way. Then a voice
shouted, as it were tentatively, "_Vive la Republique!"_ and at
once the cry was taken up on all sides.
John beamed down on them.
"That's right," he said. "Bully! I knew you could get a move on as
quick as anyone else, if you gave your minds to it. This is what I call
something like a revolution. It's a model to every country in the
world. But I guess we must close down the entertainment now, or I shall
be missing the boat. Will you tell them, Crump, that any citizen who
cares for a drink and a cigar will find it in the Palace. Tell the
household staff to stand by to pull corks. It's dry work
revolutionizing. And now I really must be going. I've run it mighty
fine. Slip one of these fellows down there half a dollar and send him
to fetch a cab. I must step lively."
* * * * *
Five minutes later the revolutionists, obviously embarrassed and ill at
ease, were sheepishly gulping down their refreshment beneath the stony
eye of the majordomo and his assistants, while upstairs in the state