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
vulgar brawling which its neighbor, France, had found necessary in
similar circumstances, it had struck his name off the pay-roll, and
declared itself a republic. The royalist party, headed by General
Poineau, had been distracted but impotent. The army, one hundred and
fifteen strong, had gone solid for the new regime, and that had settled
it. Mervo had then gone to sleep again. It was asleep when Mr. Scobell
found it.

The financier's scheme was first revealed to M. d'Orby, the President
of the Republic, a large, stout statesman with even more than the
average Mervian instinct for slumber. He was asleep in a chair on the
porch of his villa when Mr. Scobell 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 the
growling of distant thunder. When at length he opened his eyes, he
perceived the nightmare-like form of Mr. Scobell standing before him,
talking. The financier, impatient of delay, had begun to talk some
moments before the great awakening.

"Sir," Mr. Scobell was saying, "I gotta proposition to which I'd like
you to give your complete attention. Shake him some more, 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 change. What's money, Crump?
_Arjong_? There's _arjong_ in it, Squire. Get that? Oh, shucks!
Hand it to him in French, Crump."