WORLD'S END

"He was a 'barb,' and I didn't know him well," added the father. "I remember him as a rather frail chap with big spectacles. He was an awful grind, and most of us considered it unfair competition. However, he's made good, I suppose."

December is apt to be a rude month on the Atlantic, and there were vacant seats in the dining saloon, and one or two at the captain's table. Robbie glanced at the place card alongside him, and read "Professor Alston." He asked the captain, and learned that his former classmate was an adviser to the peace delegation, but had been unable to sail with the presidential staff because of an attack of influenza.

The third day out, the sea was quieter, and the professor appeared on deck; the same frail little man, wearing his large spectacles. The only thing Robbie didn't recall was that his complexion was yellow with a slight tinge of green; perhaps that would change when he was able to keep food on his stomach. The professor was glad to see his classmate; it appeared that when you had known somebody in college, you felt a peculiar sentimental bond. Alston had looked up to the handsome, rich, and popular Budd as to a shining light on a mountain top; so now to have him sitting in a deckchair asking questions about the coming peace conference and listening with deference to his replies - that was a sort of promotion.

Also the professor was interested in a fresh incarnation of the handsome, rich, and popular Budd; a youth of nineteen, resembling in many ways the one whom Alston remembered. Lanny was lighter in build and faster in mind, more accessible than his father and more eager to learn. The fact that Charles T. Alston had never "made" a fraternity in college and had earned a scant living by waiting on table in a students' boarding house - that didn't mean anything to Lanny. But that he was a storehouse of vital facts, and had been chosen to help the American peace commissioners in their efforts to make Europe a saner place to live in - that made him a great personage in Lanny's eyes. He listened to the conversations between the two elders, and at other times, "when Robbie was exchanging shop talk with the "big men" of steel and copper and banking, Lanny would be strolling the deck with the specialist in geography, keeping one hand under his arm to steady him when the ship gave a lurch.

II

It wasn't long before the professor entrusted the youth with his confidence; he was troubled by doubts whether his linguistic equipment - so he called it - was adequate to the task he had before him. "My knowledge of French is that of a student," he explained. "I have read it a great deal, but, as you know, it is a different language to listen to."

Lanny perceived what the shy little man wanted, and presently made the suggestion that they carry on their conversations in French. After that Lanny could have all the professor's time and all his stock of information. Once more he had found something that was better than going to college.

Professor Alston found that he could understand nearly everything that Lanny said; but would it be as easy to understand a Frenchman? Lanny knew that it was a common experience of his American friends to be able to understand American French but not French French. So he undertook to talk like a Frenchman - a matter of running his words together, taking many syllables for granted. The professor braced himself for the shock, and every now and then would ask him to stop and say it over again.

Toward this suddenly developing intimacy the older Budd felt something less than enthusiasm, and Lanny was interested to probe into his attitude. What was wrong with Professor Alston? Well, for one thing, he was a Democrat with a capital D, and his success was political. Alston was one of the crowd whom Woodrow Wilson had brought in, as part of his program to make over the world. Before the war had come along to divert his mind, the Presbyterian President had put forward a program of national reform which, if you would believe Robbie Budd, amounted to taking control of business out of the hands of businessmen and turning it over to politicians. And of course the least hint of this caused sparks to dance before Robbie's eyes.

Now the President was carrying his attitude into international affairs; he was going to settle Europe's problems for it, and to that end had picked out a bunch of theorists like himself, men whose knowledge of the world had been derived from books. The diplomats, the statesmen, the businessmen of Europe were going to be preached at and lectured and put in their places. In America this had been called "the New Freedom," and in Europe it was "the Fourteen Points," but by any other name it smelled as sour to the salesman of Budd Gunmakers.

"But, Robbie," argued his son, "a lot of the Fourteen Points are what you yourself say ought to be done."

"Yes, but Europe isn't going to do them, and it's not our business to make them."