After luncheon Merrihew secretly bought two boxes of cigars to carry along. They were good cigars and cost him fifteen dollars. He covered them with some newspapers, and at the station succeeded by some legerdemain in slipping them into one of his cases. Hillard would have lectured him on his extravagance, and this was a good way to avoid it. But some hours later he was going to be very sorry that he had not made a confidant of his guide. Merrihew had never heard of the town of Ventimiglia, which straddles the frontiers of France and Italy. As they were boarding the train they noticed two gentlemen getting into the forward compartment of the carriage.
"Humph! Our friend with the scar," said Hillard. "We do not seem able to shake him."
"I'd like to shake him. He goes against the grain, somehow." Merrihew swung into the compartment. "I wonder why the Sandfords dropped him?"
"For some good reason. They are a liberal pair, and if our friend forward offended them, it must have been something deliberate and outside the pale of forgiveness. But I should like to know where old Giovanni is. I miss him."
"Poor devil!" said Merrihew with careless sympathy. It is easy to be sympathetic with persons whose troubles are remote from our own.
The train started, and again they had the compartment.
"Monte Carlo! Gold, gold, little round pieces of gold!" Merrihew rubbed his hands like the miser in The Chimes of Normandy.
"Hard to get and heavy to hold!" quoted Hillard. "I suppose that you have a system already worked out."
"Of course. I shall win if I stick to it."
"Or if the money lasts. Bury your system, my boy. It will do you no good. Trust to luck only. Monte Carlo is the graveyard of systems."