WORLD'S END

Lanny motored up to the school to pack his belongings, and say good-by to his masters and his fellow-pupils, who thought he was the luckiest youth in the state. Then he came home and started saying farewell to people at the country club and to the many members of the family. Most of all he wanted to see the Reverend Eli Budd; but fate had other plans about that. There came a telegram saying that the patriarch had passed away peacefully in his sleep, and that the funeral would be held two days later.

Lanny motored up to Norton with Robbie and his wife and an elderly widowed cousin who was visiting them. The Budd tribe had assembled from all over New England - there must have been two hundred of them in the little Unitarian church, where the deceased had been the minister for fifty years of his life. The Budd men were all grave and solid-looking, all dressed pretty much alike, whether they were munitions magnates or farmers, bankers or clergymen. They listened in silence while the present minister extolled the virtues of the departed, and when they came outside, where the first snowflakes of the year were falling, the older ones agreed that the Budd line was producing no more great men. When the will was opened, everyone was puzzled because the old man had left his library to his great-grandnephew, Lanning Prescott Budd. Some of them didn't know who that was, till the whisper went round that it was Robert Budd's bastard, who was now going back to France and would probably take the books with him.

Robbie had got the passports, and the steamer sailed two days later. The son went over to the office and said good-by to all the executives and secretaries who had been kind to him. He had had to see a good deal of his Uncle Lawford in the office, and he now went in and shook hands with that morose and silent man, who unbent sufficiently to say that he wished him well. Lanny called on his grandfather at his home, and the old gentleman, who had aged a lot under the strain of the war, didn't make any attempt to seem cheerful. He said he didn't know how Robbie could be expecting to drum up any more business in Europe now; they had munitions enough on hand to blow up the whole continent, and he wasn't sure but what they might just as well do so.

"There's going to be hell to pay at home," he warned. "All our workingmen have got too big for their breeches, and we've got to turn a lot of them off when we finish these government contracts. They've been watching that lunatic asylum in Russia, and they'll be ready to try it here when they find we've nothing more to give them. Better take my advice and learn something about business, so you can take care of yourself in a dangerous time."

"I'm planning to stick close to my father, sir, and learn all that he'll teach me."

"Well, if you listen to me you'll forget all this nonsense about music and stage plays. There are temptations enough in a young man's life without going out to hunt for them."

"Yes, Grandfather," said the youth, humbly. This was a rebuke, and he had earned it. "I don't think there'll be much pleasure-seeking in France for quite a while. They are a nation of widows and cripples, and most of the people I know are working hard trying to help them."

"Humph!" said Grandfather Samuel, who wasn't going to believe anything good about France if he could help it. He went on to talk about the world situation, which was costing him a lot of sleep. Forces apparently beyond control had drawn America into the European mess, and it wasn't going to be easy getting her out again. American businessmen would be compelled to sell more and more to foreigners. "We Budds have always been plain country people," declared the grandfather. "Not many of us know any foreign languages, and we distrust their manners and their morals. We can use someone who knows them, and can advise us - that is, if it's possible for anybody to live among them and not become as corrupt as they are."

"I'll bear your advice in mind, sir," replied the youth. "I have learned a great deal from my visit here, and I mean to profit by it."

That was all, but it was enough, according to the old gentleman's code. He wouldn't try to pin anyone down. Lanny had been to Bible class, and had had his chance at Salvation; whether he took it or not was up to him, and whatever he did would be what the Lord had predestined him to do. The Lord would be watching him and judging him - and so would the Lord's deputy, the president of Budd Gunmakers.

XII