a
Frenchman wants to please."

"You think he'd give the preference to you!"

"Not to me. But to Mr. and Miss Moore. And"--the man glanced at his
employer--"Mrs. Shuster." She flushed at the immense, the inconceivable
compliment, for Marcel Moncourt, I suppose (don't you?), is as grand a
_chef_ as there is in the world, almost a classic figure of his kind,
and a gentleman by birth, they say. Even Mrs. Shuster, who doesn't know
much outside her own immediate circle of interests, had managed to catch
some vague echo of the great Moncourt's fame. As for Larry, he became
suddenly alert as a schoolboy who learns that the best "tuck box" ever
packed is destined for him.

"Good lord!" he exclaimed. "You don't mean you can get the one and only
Marcel to take charge at Kidd's Pines?"

"I know--or used to know--a person who can certainly persuade him to do
so, and on very short notice," said the S. M.

"That _settles_ it, then!" cried Larry. "Can you guess what I was doing?
'Ruling passion strong in death'--and that sort of thing! I was betting
with myself which of you two would come out ahead in the argument and
gain his point over the other. I thought--I must say--the odds were with
Mr. Caspian, for gold weighs down the scales. But Marcel is worth his
weight in gold. Put him in the balance, and the argument's ended. I
didn't mean to take a hand in the game! I felt so confident it would
work out all right either way. But with Marcel and Mr. Storm on one
side, and Mr. Caspian with a gold-mine on the other, we choose
Marcel--don't we, girlie?"

"Who is Marcel?" inquired girlie, thus appealed to.

Larry laughed. "She's just out of a convent," he apologized for his
child's abysmal ignorance. "Marcel Moncourt, my dear," he enlightened
her, "was the _making_ of a millionaire, who would never have been
anybody without him. Once upon a time there was an old man named
Stanislaws, not particularly interesting nor intelligent except as a
money grubber--oh, I beg your pardon, Mr. Caspian, I forgot he was
related to you!--but he was lucky, and the best bit of luck he ever had
was getting hold of this Marcel as _chef_ and general manager of his
establishment. No one had bothered about Mr. Stanislaws before, rich as
he was, but with Marcel at the helm, he could have any one he liked as
his guest, from a foreign prince or an American President to a Pierpont
Morgan. Of course they all tried to get Marcel away; but he was like
iron to the