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 institution
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:
"If you care to leave the table for a few minutes, madame, there are
those close at hand who will advance you money on your necklace."
The young woman pouted at first. In another instant there was a
suppressed shout at the table. A player had just won four thousand
francs.
"I must have money!" cried the young woman, springing from her chair.
"This is destined to be my lucky night, and I must have money!"
As though he had been waiting for his prey, the attendant was quickly
by the woman's side. Bowing, he offered his arm. The man, attendant
though he was, was garbed in evening dress. Without a blush the woman
moved away on this attendant's arm.
"Shall we move on?" asked Dan.
"Not just yet," urged Darrin, in an undertone. "I am interested in the
further fate of that foolish young woman."
Within five minutes she had returned. Her former seat had been
reserved for her; the young woman dropped into it.
"You have enough money now?" asked the woman at her left.
"I have money," pouted the pretty young woman, "but be warned by me.
The pawnbrokers at Monte Carlo are robbers. The fellow would advance
me only six thousand francs, whereas my husband paid a hundred
thousand for that necklace."
A moment later the young woman was absorbed in the wild frenzy of
play.
"And that attendant undoubtedly gets a handsome commission from the
pawnbroker," murmured Darrin in his chum's ear. "Greed here is in the
very air; none can escape it who lingers."
"How much have you lost, Darrin?" called a bantering voice in Dave's
ear.
The speaker was Lieutenant Totten.
"About as much, I imagine, as you have, sir," was Darrin's smiling
answer.
"Meaning that you now have as much money as when you entered the
place?" answered the lieutenant, banteringly.
"Exactly," returned Darrin. "I have only to study the faces here to
know better than to risk even a franc-piece at one of these tables."
"And you, Dalzell?" inquired Totten.
"I haven't any French money, anyway," grinned Dan.
"Not at all necessary to have French money," laughed Totten. "Any kind
of real money is good here--as long as it lasts. Every nation on earth
is represented here to-night, and the attendants know the current
exchange rate for any kind of good money that is coined or printed.
Look closely about you and you will see other things that are worth
nothing. There are men here, some of them limping, others showing the
pallor of illness, who are undoubtedly French, English or Italian
officers, injured at the front and sent home to hospitals. Being still
unfitted to return to their soldier duties at the front, they are
passing time here and indulging in their mania for gambling. And here,
too, you will see wealthy French, Italian, English or Russian
civilians who have returned to Monte Carlo to gamble, though later on
they are pretty certain to be held up to contempt at home for gambling
money away here instead of buying government war bonds at home."
"You have been here before?" Dave asked.
"Oh, yes," nodded Totten, "and as I do not play, and would not do so
in any circumstances, this place has not much interest for me."
"I can hardly imagine," said Ensign Darrin, gravely, "that I shall
ever bother to pay a second visit here."
"It's a good deal of a bore," yawned Lieutenant Totten, behind his
hand. "I am glad to note that most of the people here look like
Europeans. I should hate to believe that many Americans could be
foolish enough to come here."
At that moment a stout, red-faced man rose from a table near by, his
voice booming as he laughed:
"I have lost only sixteen thousand francs. I shall be sure to come
back and have my revenge. In Chicago my signature is good at any time
for a million dollars--for five million francs!"
Many eyes, followed this speaker wistfully. With such wealth as his
how many months of frenzied pleasure they might have at Monte Carlo!
"One American idiot, at least," muttered Totten, in disgust. "Or else
he's a liar or braggart."
Madly the play went on, the faces of the players growing more flushed
as the hour grew later.
Totten moved along with a bored air.
"I guess he's going," said Dan. "I don't blame him for being tired of
the place. It's like a human menagerie."
"We'll go, then," agreed Dave. "Surely I have seen enough of the
Casino. I shall never care to revisit it."
"Ah, here you are, my dear fellows!" exclaimed a musical voice. "And
the Countess Ripoli has asked me to present you to her. She is eager
to know if you American officers are as wonderful as I have told her."
The speaker was Dandelli, a handsome, boyish-looking, frank-faced
young Italian naval officer with whom Darrin and Dalzell had become
acquainted at Gibraltar.
The Countess Ripoli, to whom Dandelli now presented the two young
ensigns, was a woman in the full flower of her beauty at twenty-five
or so. Tall, willowy, with a perfect air, her wonderful eyes, in which
there was a touch of Moorish fire, were calculated to set a young
man's heart to beating responses to her mood. Attired in the latest
mode of Paris, and wearing only enough jewels to enhance her great
beauty, the Countess chose to be most gracious to the young ensigns.
Dave thought her a charming young woman; Dan Dalzell nearly lost his
head.
From a distance Emil Gortchky looked on, a quiet smile gleaming in his
eyes.
"Dandelli is a fool, who will do any pretty woman's bidding," mused
the spy. "Madame Ripoli can play with him. Also I believe she will
surely ensnare for me at least one of the Americans. Which, I wonder?
But then why should I care which? The Ripoli knows how to manage such
affairs far better than I do."
For the Countess was another of the many dangerous tools with which
Mr. Green Hat plied his wicked trade.
If the Countess, as unscrupulous as Gortchky himself, could ensnare
either of these young officers with her fascinations, he was likely
to be that much the weaker, and a readier prey for the trap that Emil
Gortchky was arranging.
"Dandelli," murmured the Countess sweetly, in French, "you will wish,
I know, to talk with your dear friend, Mr. Darrin, so I must look to
Mr. Dalzell to offer me his arm."
Dan was ready, with a bow, to offer the Countess Ripoli his arm, and
to escort her in the direction which she indicated.
It was to one of the verandas that the Countess led the way. As she
chatted she laughed and looked up at Dan with her most engaging
expression. There were other promenaders on the veranda, though not
many, for the furious fascination of gambling tables kept nearly all
the frequenters of the place inside.
"You have played to-night?" asked the Countess, again glancing sweetly
up into the young naval officer's face.
"Not to-night," Dan replied.
"But you will doubtless play later?" she insisted.
"I haven't gambled to-night, nor shall I gamble on any other night,"
Dan replied pleasantly.
"But why?" demanded the Countess, looking puzzled.
"Gambling does not fit in with my idea of honesty," replied Dalzell
quite bluntly.