around a candle--well, he himself had lit
many candles. The process of singeing their wings intrigued him vastly.

Olive explained the game to him with a flush of excitement on her
cheeks. He noted that flush and made a mental note to use it for his own
ends. She took a seat at a roulette table and asked him to advise her
where to stake her money. Sir Francis preferred _trente-et-quarante_,
and went off to another table.

"I can see you've been born lucky," she whispered to Larssen.

"I'll try to share it with you," he answered, and suggested some numbers
with firm, decisive confidence. Though he had keen pride in his
intellect and his will, he had also firm reliance on his intuitive
sense. With Lars Larssen, all three worked hand in hand.

Olive began to win. Her eyes sparkled, and she exchanged little gay
pleasantries and compliments with the shipowner.

"We've made all the loose hay out of _this_ sunshine," said Larssen
after an hour or so, when a spell of losing set in. "Now we'll move to
another table."

Olive obeyed him with alacrity. She liked his masterful orders. Here was
a man to whom one could give confidence.

"Five louis on _carre_ 16-20," he advised suddenly when they had found
place at another table.

Without hesitation she placed a gold hundred-franc piece on the
intersecting point of the four squares 16, 17, 19, 20. The croupier
flicked the white marble between thumb and second finger, and it whizzed
round the roulette board like an echo round the whispering gallery of St
Paul's. At length it slowed down, hit against a metal deflector, and
dropped sharply into one of the thirty-seven compartments of the
roulette board. A croupier silently touched the square of 16 with his
rake to indicate that this number had won, and the other croupier
proceeded to gather in the stakes.

Forty louis in notes were pushed over to Olive.

At this moment Sir Francis' valet came up to Larssen with a telegram in
his hand. The latter opened and scanned it quickly.

"What is it?" asked Olive.

"A tip to gamble the limit on number 14," replied Larssen smilingly.

Olive placed nine louis, the limit stake, on number 14, and two minutes
later a pile of bank-notes aggregating 6300 francs came to her from the
croupier's metal box.

"You're Midas!" she whispered exultantly.

"Midas has a hurry call to the 'phone," he answered.

For the telegram was from Sylvester, and it read:--

"Fourteen replies to hand. Fourt