n a Capri hotel with flagstones
for a floor and overhanging vine-trellises for a roof. Chance had thrown
this young stranger across their path, and luncheon had cemented an
acquaintanceship.

"Who can say?" suggested Benton. "Why hunt Trouble under the alias of
Romance? Vesuvius, across there, is as vague and noiseless to-day as a
wraith, but to-morrow his demon may run amuck over all this end of
Italy! And then--" His laugh finished the speculation.

"And yet," went on the boy, after a moment's pause, "I was just thinking
of a chap I met in Algiers a while back and later on the boat to Malta.
I ran across him in one of those vile little twisting alleys in the
Kasbah quarter where dirty natives sit cross-legged on shabby rugs and
eye the 'Infidel dogs' just as spiders watch flies from loathsome
webs--ugh, you know the sort of place!" He paused with a slight shudder
of reminiscent disgust. "I fancy he has had adventures. We had a glass
of wine later down at one of the sidewalk cafes in the _Boulevard de la
Republique_. He showed me lots of things that a regular guide would have
omitted. The fellow was on his uppers, yet he had been something else,
and still knew genteel people. Up on the driveway by the villas, where
fashion parades, he excused himself to speak with a magnificently
dressed woman in a brougham, and she chatted with him in a manner almost
confidential. He told me later she might some day occupy a throne; I
think her name was the Countess Astaride."

Benton looked up quickly and his eyes met those of the Spaniard with a
swiftly flashed message which excluded Harcourt.

"This fellow and I were on the same boat coming over to Valetta,"
continued the young tourist. "One night in the smoke-room, the steward
was filling the glasses pretty frequently. At last he became
confidential."

"Yes?" prompted Benton.

"Well, he told me he had once held a commission in the British Army and
had seen service in diplomacy as military attache. Then he got
cashiered. He didn't go into particulars, and of course I didn't
cross-question. He recited some weird experiences. He had been a cattle
man in Australia and a horse-trader in Syria and had served the Sultan
in Turkey. There were lots of things that would have made a good book."
The boy's voice took on a note of young ardor. "But the great story was
the one he told last. He had stood to win a title of nobility in this
two-by-four Kingdom of Galavia, but it had slipped