WORLD'S END

"But what harm can it do to give them advice? Professor Alston says" - and Lanny would repeat some of his new friend's statistics regarding the economic unity of Europe, which was being crippled in so many ways by its political subdivisions. Robbie didn't deny the facts, but he didn't want to take them from a "scholar in politics." The scholar's place was the classroom, or his own cloistered study, where he would be free to write books - which Robbie wouldn't read!

III

However, the scholar was in politics - and no way to get him out until the next election. The former president of Princeton University had got the whole civilized world for his classroom, with hundreds of reporters eagerly collecting every word that he might speak, and paying fortunes to cable it to China and Peru. He had caused to be assembled a troop of his kind, a sort of general staff of peace, which, under the name of "The Inquiry," had been working more than a year to prepare for the time when the war drums throbbed no longer and the battle flags were furled.

The task of organizing this "Inquiry" had been passed on by the President to his Texas friend, Colonel House, who in turn had put the president of another college in charge. Some two hundred scholars had been selected and set to work accumulating a huge mass of data. Elaborate detail maps had been prepared, covering every square mile of Europe; statistics had been dug up, both in libraries and in the "field," as to populations, languages, industries, resources - every question which might arise during the making over of the world. Several carloads of material had been boxed and loaded onto the transport George Washington, together with many of the learned persons who had helped to prepare it, and all had been conveyed to the harbor of Brest under the escort of a battleship and half a dozen destroyers.

Professor Alston had been left behind, laid up with the dreadful "flu" which had come in the wake of war; a mysterious scourge which science was powerless to explain, and which many looked upon as a judgment of Providence upon the disorderly nations. The frail professor was hardly well enough to travel, but was worrying himself because of what might appear a shirking of all-important duties. Robbie Budd consoled him by saying: "You won't find all the problems settled when you get to Paris. You may not find them settled when you leave. Your learning may be saved for the next conference."

The professor didn't have his feelings hurt. "Yes, Budd," he answered, patiently. "That's what makes our task so hard - the dreadful weight of skepticism which rests upon so many minds."

IV

The curtain was about to rise upon the last act of the great world melodrama which Lanny Budd had been watching through four and a half impressionable years. During the eight days of the steamer voyage his new friend helped him to peep through the curtain and see the leading characters taking their positions. This melodrama differed from others in that it was not written, it was to be played impromptu, and only once; after that it would be precedent, and would determine the destinies of mankind perhaps for centuries. Each of the actors hoped to write it his way, and no living man could say what the dйnouement would be.

Professor Alston talked about history, geography, and those racial and language differences which made such a complex. As a scientist, he was dedicated to the truth; he said that he had but one thought, to understand men and nations, and help to bring about a peace that could endure because it was just and sound.

That was the "way Lanny wanted things to be; that was his dream, to find some method which would bring his friend Rick and his friend Kurt together, now that the war was over. For hours on end, helping the professor to practice his French, the youth asked questions, and showed himself so eager and understanding that on the last day of the voyage, when the steamer was in sight of the lighthouse of Pointe de St.-Mathieu, the frail scholar was moved to inquire: "Lanny, how would you like to have a job?"

"What sort of job?" asked the other, surprised.

"The State Department, which is my employer, has not seen fit to allow me the services of a secretary; but the nearer I get to France, the more I realize how I shall need one. It's going to be some time before I recover my full strength, and the duties before me are certain to be heavy."

"But a secretary has to know shorthand and typing, doesn't he?"

"Your knowledge of languages and of European ways would count far more with me."

"Don't you think I'm rather young for such a task?"

"You are older than you look. The main thing is that I can trust you. I couldn't pay you what you would consider an adequate salary - "

"Oh, I wouldn't let you pay me, Professor Alston!"