CHAPTER XVI
O'MALLY SUGGESTS
In a bedroom in one of the cheap little pensiones which shoulder one another along the Riva degli Schiavoni, from the ducal palace to the public gardens, sat three men. All three were smoking execrable tobacco in ancient pipes. Now and then this one or that consulted his watch (grateful that he still possessed it), as if expecting some visitor. The castaways of the American Comic Opera troupe were on the anxious seat this morning.
"Well, what do you think?" asked Smith.
"Think? Why, she'll be here this morning, or I know nothing about women. That ring was worth a cool thousand." O'Mally shook the nicotine from his pipe. "She'll be here, never you worry. But," with a comic grimace, "it's dollars to doughnuts that both of 'em will be stone-broke. I know something about that innocent little game called roulette."
"But if she's broke, what the devil shall we do?" Smith put this question in no calm frame of mind.
"Forty dollars; it's a heap just now."
"She said she had another plan," said Worth.
"If it's a plan which needs no investments, all well and good. But, on my word, I wouldn't dare advance another cent." Smith's brow wore many wrinkles.