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ought to be having some serious concern about life, and doing something to make it easier for

others! They ought to be feeling for one another some of the pity which Lanny was feeling for

Irma!

VII

The door to the street opened, and there entered a tall, vigorous-appearing American of thirty-

five or so, having red hair and a cheerful smile: Lanny's one-time tutor and dependable friend,

Jerry Pendleton from the state of Kansas, now proprietor of a tourist bureau in Cannes. Beauty

had phoned to him: "Do go over there and stop his worrying." Jerry was the fellow for the job,

because he had been through this himself, and had three sturdy youngsters and a cheerful

little French wife as evidence that la nature wasn't altogether out of her wits. Jerry knew

exactly how to kid his friend along and make him take it; he seated himself in the next chair and

commanded: "Cheer up! This isn't the Meuse-Argonne!"

Yes, ex-Lieutenant Jerry Pendleton, who had enlisted and begun as a machine-gun expert,

knew plenty about blood and suffering. Mostly he didn't talk about it; but once on a long motor

ride, and again sitting out in the boat when the fish didn't happen to be biting, he had opened

up and told a little of what he had seen. The worst of it was that the men who had suffered and

died hadn't accomplished anything, so far as a survivor could see; France had been saved, but

wasn't making much use of her victory, nor was any other nation. This battle that Irma was

fighting in the other room was of a more profitable kind; she'd have a little something for her

pains, and Lanny for his—so said the former doughboy, with a grin.

More than once Lanny had been glad to lean on this sturdy fellow . That dreadful time when

Marcel Detaze had leaped from a stationary balloon in flames it had been Jerry who had driven

Lanny and his mother up to the war zone and helped to bring the broken man home and nurse

him back to life. So now when he chuckled and said: "You ain't seen nothin' yet," Lanny

recognized the old doughboy spirit.

The tourist agent had troubles of his own at present. He mentioned how fast business was

falling off, how many Americans hadn't come to the Riviera that season. Apparently the hard

times were going to spread to Europe. Did Lanny think so? Lanny said he surely did, and told

how he had argued the matter with his father. Maybe the money values which had been wiped out

in Wall Street were just paper, as so many declared; but it was paper that you had been able to

spend for anything you wanted, including steamship tickets and traveler's checks. Now you

didn't have it, so you didn't spend it. Lanny and his wife could have named a score of people

who had braved the snow and sleet of New York the past winter and were glad if they had the

price of meal tickets.

Jerry said he'd been hard up more than once, and could stand it again. He'd have to let his

office force go, and he and Cerise would do the work. Fortunately they had their meal tickets,

for they still lived in the Pension Flavin, owned and run by the wife's mother and aunt. "You'll

have to take me fishing some more and let me carry home the fish," said the ex-tutor; and

Lanny replied: "Just as soon as I know Irma's all right, we'll make a date." The moment he said

this his heart gave a jump. Was he ever going to know that Irma was all right? Suppose her heart

was failing at this moment, and the nurses were frantically trying to restore it!

VIII

The surgeon arrived at last: a middle-aged Englishman, smooth-shaven, alert, and precise; his

cheeks were rosy from a "workout" in the sunshine followed by a showerbath. He had talked

with the head nurse over the telephone; everything was going excellently. Lanny could

understand that a surgeon has to take his job serenely; he cannot suffer with all his patients;

whatever others may do, he has to accept la nature and her ways. He said he would see Mrs.

Budd and report.

Lanny and his friend resumed their discussion of depressions and their cause. Lanny had a

head full of theories, derived from the Red and Pink papers he took. Jerry's reading was

confined mostly to the Saturday Evening Post and the Paris edition of the New York Tribune;

therefore he was puzzled, and couldn't figure out what had become of all the money that people

had had early in October 1929, and where it had gone by the end of that month. Lanny explained

the credit structure: one of those toy balloons, shining brightly in the sunshine, dancing merrily

in the breeze, until someone sticks a pin into it. Jerry said: "By heck, I ought to study up on

those things!"

The surgeon reappeared, as offensively cheerful as ever. Mrs. Budd was a patient to be

proud of; she was just the way a young woman ought to keep herself. The "bearing-down

pains," as they were called, might continue for some little time yet. Meanwhile there was

nothing to be done. Lanny was dismayed, but knew there was no use exhibiting his feelings; he too