Dave Darrin on Mediterranean Service Part 9

"Will he make good?" asked Danny Grin wistfully, as he peered after the departing form.

"It's an even chance," Dave replied. "Either that young man will go steadily up, or else he will go rapidly down. It is sometimes a terrible thing to be born a gentleman--in the European sense. Few of the Count's friends will appreciate him if he starts in upon a career of effort. But, even though he goes down, he will struggle bravely at the outset. Of that I feel certain."

"I wonder what has become of Gortchky?" remarked Ensign Dalzell.

That industrious spy, however, was no longer the pursued; he had become the pursuer.

From a little distance Gortchky had espied Dave and the Count chatting, and had witnessed the introduction to Dalzell. A man of Mr.

Green Hat's experience with the world did not need many glances to a.s.sure himself that the Count had lost his last franc at the gambling table.

Gortchky was not at Monte Carlo without abundant a.s.sistance. So, as the Count, head down, and reflecting hard, strolled along one of the paths, a man b.u.mped into him violently.

"Ten thousand pardons, Monsieur!" cried the b.u.mper, in a tone of great embarra.s.sment. "It was stupid of me. I--"

"Have no uneasiness, my friend," smiled the Count. "It was I who was stupid. I should have looked where I was going."

Courteous bows were exchanged, and the two separated. But the man who had b.u.mped into the Count now carried inside his sleeve the Count's empty wallet, which was adorned with the crest of Surigny.

This wallet was promptly delivered to another. Five minutes later, as the Count strolled along, Emil Gortchky called out behind him:

"Monsieur! Pardon me, but I think you must have dropped your wallet."

"If I have, the loss is trifling indeed," smiled the Count, turning.

Gortchky held out the wallet, then struck a match. By the flame the Count beheld his own crest.

"Yes, it is mine," replied the Count, "and I thank you for your kindness."

"Will Monsieur do me the kindness, before I leave him, to make sure that the contents of the wallet are intact?" urged Gortchky.

"It will take but an instant," laughed the Count of Surigny. "See! I will show you that the contents are intact!"

As he spoke he opened the wallet. A packet of paper dropped to the ground. In astonishment the Count bent over to pick up the packet. M.

Gortchky struck another match.

"Let us go nearer to an electric light, that you may count your money at your ease, Monsieur," suggested Gortchky.

Like one in a daze the Count moved along with Gortchky. When sufficiently in the light, Surigny, with an expression of astonishment, found that he was the possessor of thirty twenty-franc notes.

"I did not know that I had this!" cried the Count. "How did I come to overlook it?"

"It is but a trifle to a man of your fortune," cried M. Gortchky gayly.

"It is all I have in the world!" sighed the young man. "And I am still amazed that I possess so much."

"Poor?" asked Gortchky, in a voice vibrating with sympathy. "And you so young, and a gentleman of old family! Monsieur, it may be that this is a happy meeting. Perhaps I may be able to offer you the employment that befits a gentleman."

Then Gortchky lowered his voice, almost whispering:

"For I am in the diplomatic service, and have need of just such an attache as you would make. Young, a gentleman, and of charming manners! Your intellect, too, I am sure, is one that would fit you for eminence in the diplomatic service."

"The mere mention of the diplomatic service attracts me," confessed M.

le Comte wistfully.

"Then you shall have your fling at it!" promised M. Gortchky. "But enough of this. You shall talk it over with me to-morrow. Diplomacy, you know, is all gamble, and the gambler makes the best diplomat in the world. For to-night, Monsieur, you shall enjoy yourself! If I know anything of gaming fate, then you are due to reap a harvest of thousands with your few francs to-night. I can see it in your face that your luck is about to turn. An evening of calm, quiet play, Monsieur, and in the morning you and I will arrange for your entrance into the diplomatic world. _Faites votre jeux!_ (Make your wagers.) Wealth to-night, and a career to-morrow! Come! To the Casino!"

CHAPTER V

DANNY GRIN FIGHTS A SMILE

Side by side Dave and Dan strolled through the vast main salon of the Casino.

Here at tables were groups of men and women. Each player hoped to quit the tables that night richer by thousands. Most of them were doomed to leave poorer, as chance is always in favor of the gambling inst.i.tution and always against the player.

"It's a mad scene," murmured Dan, in a low voice.

"You are looking on now at an exhibition of what is probably the worst, and therefore the most dangerous, human vice," Dave replied.

"Bad as drunkenness is, gambling is worse."

"What is at the bottom of the gambling mania?" Dan asked thoughtfully.

"Greed," Dave responded promptly. "The desire to possess property, and to acquire it without working for it."

"Some of these poor men and women look as if they were working hard indeed," muttered Dan, in almost a tone of sympathy.

"They are not working so much as suffering," Dave rejoined. "Study their faces, Danny boy. Can't you see greed sticking out all over these countenances? Look at the hectic flush in most of the faces.

And--look at that man!"

A short, stout man sprang up from a table, his face ghastly pale and distorted as though with terror. His eyes were wild and staring. He chattered incoherently as he hastened away with tottering steps. Then his hands gripped his hair, as though about to tear it from his head.

A few of the players in this international congress of greed glanced at the unfortunate man, who probably had just beggared himself, shrugged their shoulders, and turned their fascinated eyes back to the gambling table.

One woman, young and charming, reached up to her throat, unfastening and tossing on the table a costly diamond necklace and pendant.

"Now," she laughed hysterically, "I may go on playing for another hour."

The Casino's representative in charge at that table smiled and shook his head.

"We accept only money, madame," he said, with a grave bow.

"But I have no more money--with me," flashed back the young woman, her cheeks burning feverishly.

"I regret, madame," insisted the Casino's man. Then an attendant, at a barely perceptible sign from the _croupier_, as the man in charge of the table is called, stepped up behind the young woman, bent over her and murmured: