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Hitler and his party too seriously; in spite of his triumph he was still the clown, the pasty-
faced, hysterical tub-thumper, such as you could hear in Hyde Park any Sunday afternoon; "a
jumped-up house-painter," one of the country squires called him. They were not sorry to
have some effective opposition to France on the continent, for it irked them greatly to see that
rather shoddy republic of politicians riding on the gold standard while Britain had been
ignominiously thrown off. They were interested in Lanny's account of Adolf, but even more
interested in Göring, who was a kind of man they could understand. In his capacity as
Reichsminister, he had come to Geneva and laid down the law as to Germany's claim to arms
equality. Wickthorpe had been impressed by his forceful personality, and now was amused to
hear about the lion cub from the Berlin zoo and the new gold velvet curtains in the reception
room of the Minister-Präsident's official residence.
Lanny said: "The important thing for you gentlemen to remember is that Göring is an air
commander, and that rearmament for him is going to mean fleets of planes. They will all be new
and of perfected models."
Eric Vivian Pomeroy-Nielson, ex-aviator, had laid great stress upon this, but Lanny found it
impossible to interest a representative of the British Foreign Office. To him airplanes were like
Adolf Hitler; that is to say, something "jumped-up," something cheap, presumptuous, and
altogether bad form. Britannia ruled the waves, and did it with dignified and solid "ships of the
line," weighing thirty-five thousand tons each and costing ten or twenty million pounds. An
American admiral had written about the influence of sea power upon history, and the
British Admiralty had read it, one of the few compliments they had ever paid to their
jumped-up cousins across the seas. Now their world strategy was based upon it, and when
anyone tried to argue with them it was as if they all burst into song: "Britannia needs no
bulwarks, no towers along the steep!"
Irma listened to the discussions, and afterward, as they drove back to London, they talked
about it, and Lanny discovered that she agreed with her host rather than with her husband.
She was irresistibly impressed by the dignity, stability, and self-confidence of this island
nation; also by Lord Wickthorpe as the perfect type of English gentleman and statesman.
Lanny didn't mind, for he was used to having people disagree with him, especially his own
family. But when he happened to mention the matter to his mother, she minded it gravely, and
said: "Doesn't it ever occur to you that you're taking an awful lot for granted?"
"How do you mean, old darling?"
"Take my advice and think seriously about Irma. You're making her a lot unhappier than
you've any idea."
"You mean, by the company I keep?"
"By that, and by the ideas you express to your company, and to your wife's."
"Well, dear, she surely can't expect me to give up my political convictions as the price of her
happiness."
"I don't know why she shouldn't—considering how we're all more or less dependent upon her
bounty."
"Bless your heart!" said Lanny. "I can always go back to selling pictures again."
"Oh, Lanny, you say horrid things!"
He thought that she had started the horridness, but it would do no good to say so. "Cheer up,
old dear—I'm taking my wife off to New York right away."
"Don't count on that too much. Don't ever forget that you've got a treasure, and it calls for
a lot of attention and some guarding."
BOOK FIVE
This Is the Way the World Ends
21
In Friendship's Name
I
IRMA and Lanny guessed that the feelings of Fanny Barnes were going to be hurt because
they weren't bringing her namesake to see her; to make up for it they had cabled that they
would come first to Shore Acres. The Queen Mother was at the steamer to meet them with a
big car. She wanted the news about her darling grandchild, and then, what on earth had they
been doing all that time in Germany? Everybody was full of questions about Hitlerland, they
discovered; at a distance of three thousand miles it sounded like Hollywood, and few could
bring themselves to believe that it was real. The newspapers were determined to find out what
had happened to a leading German-Jewish financier. They met him at the pier, and when he
wouldn't talk they tried everyone who knew him; but in vain.
At Shore Acres, things were going along much as usual. The employees of the estate were
doing the same work for no wages; but with seventeen million unemployed in the country,
they were thankful to be kept alive. As for Irma's friends, they were planning the customary
round of visits to seashore and mountains; those who still had dividends would play host to
those who hadn't, and everybody would get along. There was general agreement that business
was picking up at last, and credit for the boom was given to Roosevelt. Only a few diehards like
Robbie Budd talked about the debts being incurred, and when and how were they going to
be paid. Most people didn't want to pay any debts; they said that was what had got the country
into trouble. The way to get out was to borrow and spend as fast as possible; and one of the
things to spend for was beer. Roosevelt was letting the people buy it instead of having to make
it in their bathtubs.
Robbie came into the city by appointment, and in the office of the Barnes estate, he and Irma
and Lanny sat down to a conference with Uncle Joseph Barnes and the other two trustees.
Robbie had a briefcase full of figures setting forth the condition of Budd Gun makers, a list of
directors pledged to him, the voting shares which he controlled, and those which he could
purchase, with their prices. The trustees presented a list of their poorest-paying shares, and
weighed them in the balance. Under the will the trustees had the right to say no; but they
realized that this was a family matter, and that it would be a distinguished thing to have Irma's
father-in-law become president of a great manufacturing concern. Also, Irma had developed
into a young lady who knew what she wanted, and said it in the style of the days before
parliamentary control of the purse had been established.
"There's no use going into it unless you go heavily enough to win," cautioned Uncle Joseph.
"Of course not," said Irma, promptly. "We have no idea of not winning." L'état, c'est moi!
"If you pay more than the market for Budd stocks, it will mean that you are reducing the
principal of your estate; for we shall have to list them at market value."
"List them any way you please," said Irma. "I want Robbie to be elected."
"Of course," said Mr. Barnes, timidly, "you might make up the principal by reducing your
expenditures for a while."
"All right," assented Her Majesty—"but it will be time enough to do that when you get me a
bit more income."
II
Johannes went to Newcastle to visit the Robbie Budds. The firm of R and R had many
problems to talk out, and when Irma and Lanny arrived the pair were deeply buried in business.
Robbie considered Johannes the best salesman he had ever known, bar none, and was
determined to make a place for him with Budd's. If Robbie won out, Johannes would become
European representative; if Robbie lost, Johannes would become Robbie's assistant on some sort
of share basis. Robbie had a contract with the company which still had nearly three years to
run and entitled him to commissions on all sales made in his territory. These matters Robbie
put before his friend without reserve; he did it for medico-psychological reasons as well as
financial—he wanted to get Johannes out of his depression, and the way to do it was to put him
to work.
Robbie added: "Of course, provided there's anything left of business." America was in the
throes of an extraordinary convulsion known as "the New Deal," which Robbie described as
"government by college professors and their graduate students." They were turning the
country upside down under a scheme called "N.R.A." You had to put a "blue eagle" up in your
window and operate under a "code," bossed by an army general who swore like a trooper
and drank like the trooper's horse. New markets for goods were being provided by the simple
process of borrowing money from those who had it and giving it to those who hadn't. One lot
of the unemployed were put to work draining swamps to plant crops, while another lot were
making new swamps for wild ducks. And so on, for as long as Robbie Budd could find anybody to
listen to him.
Everybody in Newcastle was glad to see the young couple again; excepting possibly Uncle
Lawford, who wasn't going to see them. The only place they had met was in church, and Irma
and Lanny were going to play golf or tennis on Sunday mornings—Grandfather being out of
the way. Or was he really out of the way? Apparently he could only get at them if they went to
a medium! Lanny remarked: "I'd like to try the experiment of sleeping in his bed one night and
see if I hear any raps." Irma said: "Oh, what a horrid thought!" She had come to believe in the
spirits about half way. Subtleties about the subconscious mind didn't impress her very much,
because she wasn't sure if she had one.
The usual round of pleasure trips began. They motored to Maine, and then to the
Adirondacks. So many people wanted to see them; Irma's gay and bright young old friends.
They had got used to her husband's eccentricities, and if he wanted to pound the piano while they
played bridge, all right, they would shut the doors between. He didn't talk so "Pink" as he had,
so they decided that he was getting sensible. They played games, they motored and sailed and
swam, they flirted a bit, and some couples quarreled, some traded partners as in one of the
old-fashioned square dances. But they all agreed in letting the older people do the worrying
and the carrying of burdens. "I should worry," —meaning that I won't—and "Let George do it,"
—so ran the formulas. To have plenty of money was the indispensable virtue, and to have to go
to work the one unthinkable calamity. "Oh, Lanny," said Irma, after a visit where an ultra-
smart playwright had entertained them with brilliant conversation—"Oh, Lanny, don't you
think you could get along over here at least part of the time?"
She wanted to add: "Now that you're being more sensible." She didn't really think he had
changed his political convictions, but she found it so much pleasanter when he withheld
them, and if he would go on doing this long enough it might become a habit. When they passed
through New York he didn't visit the Rand School of Social Science, or any of those summer
camps where noisy and mostly Jewish working people swarmed as thick as bees in a hive. He
was afraid these "comrades" might have learned what had been published about him in the Nazi
papers; also that Nazi agents in New York might report him to Göring. He stayed with his wife,
and she did her best to make herself everything that a woman could be to a man.
It worked for nearly a month; until one morning in Shore Acres, just as they were getting
ready for a motor-trip to a "camp" in the Thousand Islands, Lanny was called to the telephone to
receive a cablegram from Cannes, signed Hansi, and reading: "Unsigned unidentifiable letter
postmarked Berlin text Freddi ist in Dachau."
III
Their things were packed and stowed in the car, and the car was waiting in front of the mansion.
Irma was putting the last dab of powder on her nose, and Lanny stood in front of her with a
frown of thought upon his face: "Darling, I don't see how I can possibly take this drive."
She knew him well, after four years of wifehood, and tried not to show her disappointment.
"Just what do you want to do?"
"I want to think about how to help Freddi."
"Do you suppose that letter is from Hugo?"
"I had a clear understanding with him that he was to sign the name Boecklin. I think the
letter must be from one of Freddi's comrades, some one who has learned that we helped
Johannes. Or perhaps some one who has got out of Dachau."
"You don't think it might be a hoax?"
"Who would waste a stamp to play such a trick upon us?"
She couldn't think of any answer. "You're still convinced that Freddi is Göring's prisoner?"
"Certainly, if he's in the concentration camp, Göring knows he's there, and he knew it when
he had Furtwaengler tell me that he couldn't find him. He had him sent a long way from
Berlin, so as to make it harder for us to find out."
"Do you think you can get him away from Göring if Göring doesn't want to let him go?"
"What I think is, there may be a thousand things to think of before we can be sure of the best
course of action."
"It's an awfully nasty job to take on, Lanny."
"I know, darling—but what else can we do? We can't go and enjoy ourselves, play around, and
refuse to think about our friend. Dachau is a place of horror—I doubt if there's any so dreadful
in the world today, unless it's some other of the Nazi camps. It's an old dilapidated barracks,
utterly unfit for habitation, and they've got two or three thousand men jammed in there.
They're not just holding them prisoners—they're doing what Göring told me with his own
mouth, applying modern science to destroying them, body, mind, and soul. They're the best
brains and the finest spirits in Germany, and they're going to be so broken that they can
never do anything against the Nazi regime."
"You really believe that, Lanny?"
"I am as certain of it as I am of anything in human affairs. I've been studying Hitler and his
movement for twelve years, and I really do know something about it."
"There's such an awful lot of lying, Lanny. People go into politics, and they hate their
enemies, and exaggerate and invent things."
"I didn't invent Mein Kampf, nor the Brownshirts, nor the murders they are committing
night after night. They break into people's homes and stab them or shoot them in their beds,
before the eyes of their wives and children; or they drag them off to their barracks and beat
