And now one had come to him as he stood looking at the view from the window of his morning-room, listening absently to his sister Marion as she read stray items of interest from the columns of the _New York Herald_, and had caused him to utter the exclamation recorded at the beginning of the chapter. * * * * * "By Heck!" he said. "Read that again, Marion. I gottan idea." Miss Scobell, deep in her paper, paid no attention. Few people would have taken her for the sister of the financier. She was his exact opposite in almost every way. He was small, jerky and aggressive; she, tall, deliberate and negative. She was one of those women whom nature seems to have produced with the object of attaching them to some man in a peculiar position of independent dependence, and who defy the imagination to picture them in any other condition whatsoever. One could not see Miss Scobell doing anything but pour out her brother's coffee, darn his socks, and sit placidly by while he talked. Yet it would have been untrue to describe her as dependent upon him. She had a detached mind. Though her whole life had been devoted to his comfort and though she admired him intensely, she never appeared to give his conversation any real attention. She listened to him much as she would have listened to a barking Pomeranian. "Marion!" cried Mr. Scobell. "A five-legged rabbit has been born in Carbondale, Southern Illinois," she announced. Mr. Scobell cursed the five-legged rabbit. "Never mind about your rabbits. I want to hear that piece you read before. The one about the Prince of Monaco. Will--you--listen, Marion!" "The Prince of Monaco, dear? Yes. He has caught another fish or something of that sort, I think. Yes. A fish with 'telescope eyes,' the paper says. And very convenient too, I should imagine." Mr. Scobell thumped the table. "I've got it. I've found out what's the matter with this darned place. I see why the Casino hasn't struck its gait." "_I_ think it must be the _croupiers_, dear. I'm sure I never heard of _croupiers_ in fancy costume before. It doesn't seem right. I'm sure people don't like those nasty Hindoos. I am quite nervous myself when I go into the Indian room. They look at me so oddly."