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slumped in the car seat, and his tone was bitter as he said: "Our Nazi revolution is kaput. We

haven't accomplished a thing. The Führer has put himself completely into the hands of the

reactionaries. They tell him what to do—it's no longer certain that he could carry out his own

program, even if he wanted to. He doesn't see his old friends any more, he doesn't trust them.

The Reichswehr crowd are plotting to get rid of the Stormtroopers altogether."

"You don't really mean all that, Hugo!" Lanny was much distressed.

"Haven't you heard about our vacation?"

"I only entered Germany yesterday."

"All the S.A. have been ordered to take a vacation during the month of July. They say we've

been overworked and have earned a rest. That sounds fine; but we're not permitted to wear

our uniforms, or to carry our arms. And what are they going to do while we're disarmed? What

are we going to find when we come back?"

"That looks serious, I admit."

"It seems to me the meaning is plain. We, the rank and file, have done our job and they're

through with us. We have all been hoping to be taken into the Reichswehr; but no, we're not

good enough for that. Those officers are Junkers, they're real gentlemen, while we're common

trash; we're too many, two million of us, and they can't afford to feed us or to train us, so we

have to be turned off—and go to begging on the streets, perhaps."

"You know, Hugo, Germany is supposed to have only a hundred thousand in its regular

army. Mayn't it be that the Führer doesn't feel strong enough to challenge France, and

Britain on that issue?"

"What was our revolution for, but to set us free from their control? And how can we ever

become strong, if we reject the services of the very men who have made National Socialism?

We put these leaders in power—and now they're getting themselves expensive villas and big

motor-cars, and they're afraid to let us of the rank and file even wear our uniforms! They talk

of disbanding us, because the Reich can't afford our magnificent salaries of forty-two pfennigs

a day."

"Is that what you get?"

"That is what the rank and file get. What is that in your money?"

"About ten cents."

"Does that sound so very extravagant?"

"The men in our American army get about ten times that. Of course both groups get food and

lodgings free."

"Pretty poor food for the S.A.; and besides, there are all the levies, which take half what

anybody earns. Our lads were made to expect so much, but now all the talk is that the Reich

is so poor. The propaganda line has changed; Herr Doktor Goebbels travels over the land

denouncing the Kritikaster and the Miessmacher and the Nörgler and the Besserwisser—"

Hugo gave a long list of the depraved groups who dared to suggest that the Nazi Regierung

was anything short of perfect. "In the old days we were told there would be plenty, because

we were going to take the machinery away from the Schieber and set it to work for the benefit

of the common folk. But now the peasants have been made into serfs, and the workingman

who asks for higher pay or tries to change his job is treated as a criminal. Prices are going up

and wages falling, and what are the people to do?"

"Somebody ought to point these things out to the Führer," suggested Lanny.

"Nobody can get near the Führer. Göring has taken charge of his mind—Göring, the

aristocrat, the friend of the princes and the Junker landlords and the gentlemen of the steel

Kartell. They are piling up bigger fortunes than ever; I'm told that Göring is doing the same—

and sending the money abroad where it will be safe."

"I've heard talk about that in Paris and London," admitted Lanny; "and on pretty good

authority. The money people know what's going on."

VI

They were high up in the foothills, close to the Austrian border. Auf die Berge will ich

steigen, wo die dunkeln Tannen ragen! The air was crystal clear and delightfully cool, but it

wasn't for the air that Lanny had come, nor yet on account of Heine's Harzreise. They sat on an

outdoor platform of a little inn looking up a valley to a mountain that was Austria; Lanny saw

that the slopes about him were not too precipitous, nor the stream in the valley too deep. He

remarked to his companion: "There's probably a lot of illegal traffic over these mountain

paths."

"Not so much as you might think," was the reply. "You don't see the sentries, but they're

watching, and they shoot first and ask questions afterward."

"But they can't do much shooting on a stormy night."

"They know where the paths are, and they guard them pretty closely. But I've no doubt some

of the mountaineers take bribes and share with them. The Jews are running money out of

Germany by every device they can think of. They want to bleed the country to death."

That didn't sound so promising; but Lanny had to take a chance somewhere. When they

were back in the car, safe from prying ears, he said: "You know, Hugo, you're so irritated with