Chapter X The Crusade
“I will tell you with great pleasure, dear Miss Dolphin,” he said, in his sad, rather sweet voice.
He sat down, stroked his clean-shaven chin, drew up his trousers that their elegant appearance might not be spoiled by his sharp, thin knees, and then spoke:
“Your brother and I are engaged in a crusade. Is not that the word, Mr. Dolphin?”
“As good as any other,” said my grandpapa.
“Better than any other. You have doubtless heard of Monte Carlo, Miss Dolphin? It is a plague-spot on the fair face of France. God made the Riviera; man is responsible for Monte Carlo. The Prince of Monaco is the landlord, so I understand; the Prince of Darkness is the tenant. Miss Dolphin, it is often necessary to fight the Devil with his own weapons. We are going to Monte Carlo with a golden sword. Your brother finds the sword—I wield it.”
“In plain English, Martha, Montague’s worked out a dead snip——”
“A system, pardon me.”
“Well, a ‘system,’ that will take the stuffing out of the strongest bank that ever robbed innocents. We are both going.”
“Grandf—! Daniel! Going to Monte Carlo!”
“Yes. Don’t want you. It’s simply a matter of business.”
“Let me explain,” said Mr. Montague. “You are rather startled, dear Miss Dolphin, and I cannot wonder at it.”
He blew his nose. His handkerchiefs and shirt-cuffs and so on were always beautiful. He said:
“The facts are these. I have had an inspiration. Heaven has from my earliest youth been pleased to bestow upon me certain mathematical gifts denied to most men. This power of dealing with figures was not given me for nothing. It is a talent not to be hidden in a napkin.”
“No fear,” said grandpapa.
“I have long been seeking some outlet for my peculiar ability, and I have at length found it. In my hand is a power, that rightly exercised, will extinguish one of the greatest evils of the present day. Under Heaven I have been mercifully permitted to discover a system which rises naturally from certain processes in the higher mathematics. This system applied to the laws which govern chance produces a most startling result. It annihilates chance altogether, and substitutes certainty. Do I make myself clear?”
“Clear as crystal,” said grandpapa, chuckling.
“A lady can hardly be interested in my deductions, but their conclusions, their practical results, will not fail to interest her,” continued Mr. Montague. “My system, once grasped and accepted, becomes a law, and the effect of that law must be a revolution in human society. Think, dear Miss Dolphin, of a world from which all element of chance is eliminated! The vices of gambling and betting vanish. Mathematics will rise superior to human roguery. We know when to expect red or black—I refer to card-playing; we know which horse ought to win every race, and if it doesn’t we know where to throw the blame; we know everything; we are become as gods!”
“But what has that to do with Monte Carlo, sir?” I ventured to ask.
“Good old Martha! Go up one,” said grandpapa.
Then Mr. Montague turned to me and answered my question.
“I expected you would ask that, Miss Dolphin, and I gladly explain. Monte Carlo is the headquarters of this pestilential passion, this love of gambling which dominates mankind. We are going to begin a crusade there, and fight against the most powerful troops the enemy has at command.”
“That’s so! I’m planking down a thousand; and we’re goin’ to play a big game and make some of ’em hop, and wish they had never been born,” said grandpapa.
“In other and more seemly words, Miss Dolphin, we design to crush Monte Carlo, to wipe that blot from the fair face of France. The gambling hell shall be no more; treachery, falsehood, knavery shall cease out of the land.”
“And we’ll come home with flags flying, in a triumphal car drawn by oof-birds,” said grandpapa.
“That, of course, is a circumstance incidental to the scheme,” explained Mr. Montague to me. “You do not understand your brother, naturally enough, but what he means is that a large sum of money will accrue to us. With this wealth we shall develop my system, and place it within the reach of the misguided speculators of all countries.”
Grandpapa exploded with noisy laughter, and patted Mr. Montague on the back.
“Why not do so first?” I asked. “Why not publish this great discovery at once in the papers?”
“Give it away! Good Lord, Martha—and you a lawyer’s daughter!” said grandpapa.
“I would do so willingly enough,” answered Mr. Montague, “but advertisement is a costly business. To make the system sufficiently known would require an expenditure of many thousands of pounds. You see no better advertisement of it could be hit upon than breaking the bank at Monte Carlo. We shall go on breaking that bank until the proprietors are ruined and the place is shut up. Then we shall return home.”
“By way of Paris,” said grandpapa. “If you like to meet us there,” he added, with his real affection for me bubbling up to the surface of his nature, “you may; and we’ll make a bit of a splash among the frogs.” But I had never been out of England in my life, and did not like the picture of splashing with grandpapa in Paris. At the same time the thought of him splashing there alone was even less pleasant.
Mr. Montague said a few more words, promised never to lose sight of my grandfather and then took his leave, kissing my hand on his departure, in a stately, old-fashioned way which was very pleasing to me.
I could not help contrasting him with grandpapa, to the disadvantage of the latter. They looked about the same age, yet how different in their conduct, language, and attitude towards the gentler sex! One behaved, and thought, and acted as though he was forty-five; the other, who ought, heaven knows, to have been old-fashioned, and staid, and sensible, conducted himself like a fast, silly boy of twenty-one. For about this time grandfather began to grow young for his years, even on the New Scheme.
He bought some showy clothes, cloth caps, and knickerbockers, a meerschaum pipe, a spirit-flask, and several other things at the Army and Navy Stores. For these he certainly paid, but he gave the people who served him an imaginary name and ticket number. Rather than spend five shillings in a member’s voucher, he told a lie to the officials of-the Co-operative Society; which I should think was very unusual. Then the old man drew another precious thousand pounds out of Government securities, and went away with Mr. Montague to wipe out Monte Carlo.
I was fearful of the entire concern, but he told me to “keep up my pecker and watch the papers,” and so departed in roaring spirits. The only thing which troubled him was that his time for “blueing the booty” would be so short. To this day I have never met anybody who could explain the meaning of the expression “blueing the booty.”