into an unexpected half-million; men like Rupert Smith, who had been at
Harvard with him and was now a reporter on the _News_; men like
Baker, Faraday, Williams--he could name half-a-dozen, all men who were
_doing_ something, who were out on the firing line.

He was not a man who worried. He had not that temperament. But
sometimes he would wonder in rather a vague way whether he was not
allowing life to slip by him a little too placidly. An occasional
yearning for something larger would attack him. There seemed to be
something in him that made for inaction. His soul was sleepy.

If he had been told of the identity of his father, it is possible that
he might have understood. The Princes of Mervo had never taken readily
to action and enterprise. For generations back, if they had varied at
all, son from father, it had been in the color of hair or eyes, not in
character--a weak, shiftless procession, with nothing to distinguish
them from the common run of men except good looks and a talent for
wasting money.

John was the first of the line who had in him the seeds of better
things. The Westley blood and the bracing nature of his education had
done much to counteract the Mervo strain. He did not know it, but the
American in him was winning. The desire for action was growing steadily
every day.

It had been Mervo that had sent him to the polo grounds on the previous
day. That impulse had been purely Mervian. No prince of that island had
ever resisted a temptation. But it was America that was sending him now
to meet his uncle with a quiet unconcern as to the outcome of the
interview. The spirit of adventure was in him. It was more than