thful account of the transaction
with Mr Felix Babylon. 'I suppose,' he added, 'you find a difficulty in
appreciating my state of mind when I did the deal.'

'Not a bit,' said Mr Levi. 'I once bought an electric launch on the
Thames in a very similar way, and it turned out to be one of the most
satisfactory purchases I ever made. Then it's a simple accident that you
own this hotel at the present moment?'

'A simple accident--all because of a beefsteak and a bottle of Bass.'

'Um!' grunted Mr Sampson Levi, stroking his triple chin.

'To return to Prince Eugen,' Racksole resumed. 'I was expecting His
Highness here. The State apartments had been prepared for him. He was
due on the very afternoon that young Dimmock died. But he never came,
and I have not heard why he has failed to arrive; nor have I seen his
name in the papers. What his business was in London, I don't know.'

'I will tell you,' said Mr Sampson Levi, 'he was coming to arrange a
loan.'

'A State loan?'

'No--a private loan.'

'Whom from?'

'From me, Sampson Levi. You look surprised. If you'd lived in London a
little longer, you'd know that I was just the person the Prince would
come to. Perhaps you aren't aware that down Throgmorton Street way I'm
called "The Court Pawnbroker", because I arrange loans for the minor,
second-class Princes of Europe. I'm a stockbroker, but my real business
is financing some of the little Courts of Europe. Now, I may tell you
that the Hereditary Prince of Posen particularly wanted a million, and
he wanted it by a certain date, and he knew that if the affair wasn't
fixed up by a certain time here he wouldn't be able to get it by that
certain date. That's why I'm surprised he isn't in London.'

'What did he need a million for?'

'Debts,' answered Sampson Levi laconically.

'His own?'

'Certainly.'

'But he isn't thirty years of age?'

'What of that? He isn't the only European Prince who has run up a
million of debts in a dozen years. To a Prince the thing is as easy as
eating a sandwich.'

'And why has he taken this sudden resolution to liquidate them?'

'Because the Emperor and the lady's parents won't let him marry till he
has done so! And quite right, too! He's got to show a clean sheet, or
the Princess Anna of Eckstein-Schwartzburg will never be Princess of
Posen. Even now the Emperor has no idea how much Prince Eugen's debts
amount to. If he had--!'

'But would not the Emperor know of this proposed loan