the hour we have left we can see nothing, positively
nothing. And even now we had better start for the station to get a
compartment before the rush. St. Peter's and the Vatican! You talk like
the Englishman who wanted to run over to San Francisco and back to
Philadelphia in the morning."

A grin now spread over Merrihew's face. Hillard scratched his chin
reflectively.

"I'll pay for the luncheon myself," he said.

"You had better. It was great sport to watch your face. I'll be in a
happy frame of mind all day now."

After luncheon Merrihew secretly bought two boxes of cigars to carry
along. They were good cigars and cost him fifteen dollars. He covered
them with some newspapers, and at the station succeeded by some
legerdemain in slipping them into one of his cases. Hillard would have
lectured him on his extravagance, and this was a good way to avoid it.
But some hours later he was going to be very sorry that he had not made
a confidant of his guide. Merrihew had never heard of the town of
Ventimiglia, which straddles the frontiers of France and Italy. As they
were boarding the train they noticed two gentlemen getting into the
forward compartment of the carriage.

"Humph! Our friend with the scar," said Hillard. "We do not seem able to
shake him."

"I'd like to shake him. He goes against the grain, somehow." Merrihew
swung into the compartment. "I wonder why the Sandfords dropped him?"

"For some good reason. They are a liberal pair, and if our friend
forward offended them, it must have been something deliberate and
outside the pale of forgiveness. But I should like to know where old
Giovanni is. I miss him."

"Poor devil!" said Merrihew with careless sympathy. It is easy to be
sympathetic with persons whose troubles are remote from our own.

The train started, and again they had the compartment.

"Monte Carlo! Gold, gold, little round pieces of gold!" Merrihew rubbed
his hands like the miser in _The Chimes of Normandy_.

"Hard to get and heavy to hold!" quoted Hillard. "I suppose that you
have a system already worked out."

"Of course. I shall win if I stick to it."

"Or if the money lasts. Bury your system, my boy. It will do you no
good. Trust to luck only. Monte Carlo is the graveyard of systems."

"But maybe my system is the one. You can't tell till I have tried it."

Merrihew lighted a cigar, and Hillard smiled secretly. After some time
the conductor came in to examine the tickets. When the exam