The Pothunters

ried Mr. Ben

om the view to his sister Marion; losing by the action, for t

nean. Mr. Scobell did not read poetry except that which advertised certain breakfast foods in which he was interested, or he might have been reminded of the Island of Flowers in Tennyson's "Voyage of Maeldive." Violets, pinks, crocuses, yellow and purple mesembryanthemum, lavender, myrtle, and rosemary … his two-mile view contained them all. The hillside below hi

outh, a hooked nose, liquid green eyes and a sallow complexion. He was rarely seen without a half-smoked cigar between his lips. This at intervals he would relight, only to allow it to go

*

s Mr. Scobell's way to consider nothing as lying outside his sphere. In a financial sense he might have taken Terence's Nihil humanum alienum as his motto. He was interested in innumerable enterprises, great and small. He was the power behind a company which was endeavoring, without much success, to extract gold from the

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

d 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 vul

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

ore, 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

nked, and intimated that he would hear more. Mr.

esicks if he's ever heard of Mersyaw Blonk, Crump, th

He said he had heard of M. Blanc. Mr. Crump caught the reply and sent it on to

l relighte

uch 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,

more. A gleam of inte

He nodded once or twic

p, who responded i

o strike him, sir

started to relight his cigar, but after scorching the tip o

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,

. Crump, supplemented on the part of the "old gin

ing now?" aske

nts to

t sort of a rake-off he and the other somnambul

id that that

ve hundred thousand francs a year-that's somewhere around a hundred thousand dollars in real mo

mp inve

ly, on behalf of the Rep

by rising, dodging the cigar, and

t of the clinch. "We'll take the Apache Dance as read.

and reducing to insignificance the palace of the late Prince, once a passably i

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 th

uicker 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

stening absently to his sister Marion as she read stray items of interest from the columns of the N

*

"Read that again, Ma

ect 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

cried Mr

en born in Carbondale, South

rsed the five-

r that piece you read before. The one about t

something of that sort, I think. Yes. A fish with 'telescope e

l thumped

d out what's the matter

asino hasn't st

costume before. It doesn't seem right. I'm sure people don't like those nasty Hindoo

nd 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-e

which she had been reading with absor

he said e

again," said Mr. Scobell, a little

re quite righ

island, His Highness, the Prince of Mervo. I'm goin

t, dear.

he son I'm going to send for. I got it all from General Poineau. He's a royalist. He'll be tickled to pieces when Johnny comes marching home again. Old man Poineau told me all about it. The Prince married a g

er comfortably. "I'm sure we don't want any horrid revol

o. Pretty near every adult on this island is dependent on my Casino for his weekly envelope, and what I say goes-without argumen

turned to her

aid. "Just as you please

e a good guesser. I'll go and be