WORLD'S END

Johannes Robin was somewhat stouter than Lanny remembered him; he had spent money on his clothes and looked the picture of prosperity. He was the same exuberant fellow, who liked to talk about himself; but Lanny, more observant now, got the feeling that he was not entirely at ease. He wanted very much to please these two rich Americans, and was never quite sure whether he was doing it. His handsome dark eyes moved from Lanny's face to Robbie's and back again, and his smile was deprecating and hesitant, as if to say: "I hope you don't mind if I am so proud to know you."

He was genuinely glad to see the youth and exclaimed over how big he had got. Of course he wanted to tell about those two boys at home, and he had some more snapshots of his family group, which he presented apologetically - they wouldn't take up much room. They talked about Kurt Meissner; Lanny had had no answer to his last letter, and was worried about it. A captain of artillery could have been killed during the last days of the war just as well as at any other time. Robbie said that the Americans had been attacking just as hard between seven in the morning when the armistice was signed and eleven when it went into effect.

With Lanny's father Mr. Robin became the businessman, who had traveled over Europe and knew its affairs, and could tell interesting stories about money-making in wartime. From his safe retreat in the Low Countries he had made quite a lot, in spite of the British blockade; nothing to compare with Mr. Budd's affairs, he said modestly, but enough to constitute success for one who had been born in a ghetto hut with a mud floor. Robbie liked that attitude - he liked people to be what they were and not pretend to be something else; so he and the Jewish importer got along pleasantly. They agreed that business would pick up again, if only the diplomats would quit their stalling; they agreed on many things that ought to be done - and Lanny listened, picking up bits of information which he could take back to his chief, to atone for taking a couple of hours off in the middle of a busy day.

VIII

Before those two had finished their bottle of wine they knew each other well enough for Jascha Rabinowich, alias Robin, to make a confession. " Mr. Budd, I have some ideas in my head that just don't let me rest. You know the feeling perhaps: there is money to be made, so much money, and I see how it can be done at once, but later on it will be too late."

Yes, Robbie knew the feeling, and gave permission for his new acquaintance to tell him what he had in mind. It turned out to be the same thing that had been interfering with Robbie's sleep: all that mass of munitions and other supplies which had been manufactured at enormous cost, and which were now lying about - "Have you seen them, Mr. Budd?"

Robbie smiled. "My son sees them on the Place in front of his hotel." It was packed with rows of cannon of every type, howitzers, mortars, field-guns - captured German pieces with the marks of war on them, and now rusting in the rain.

"It is terrible, Mr. Budd, all those goods which cannot even be covered up: shells that they were ready to fire, boots they were going to wear. Now they do not know what to do with it all. To take things back to England - that is possible; but all the way to America - will it pay the cost of crating and shipping?"

"We have been figuring on it, and it won't," said Robbie Budd. "The army has a commission here, trying to dispose of the stuff."

"Well, Mr. Budd, I am a man who knows how to sell things. I know dealers all over Europe. And I have ideas. I wake up in the middle of the night, because one has stung me, like it might be - what is it? - abeille - "

"A bee," said Lanny.

"For example?" said Robbie.

"Well, hand grenades; there are millions of them - "

"We made a quarter of a million for our army."

"And now they are somewhere out in the mud of Lorraine. You know what they look like; I don't need to describe them."

"What would you do with them?"

"First I unload them. I have a mass of black powder, which I put up in bags. I know a man who supplies mining companies in Chile, Peru, all those countries. Then I cut off the handles; tomorrow I will find something to do with them. Then I have a little round metal box; it has a pretty shape, it sits up on end; I cut a slot in the top, and there you are."

"What is it?"

"It is a children's bank, where they drop their pennies, their pfennigs, their sous, their soldi - in every country they have little coins for the poor."

Robbie and his son couldn't keep from laughing. Such an odd idea: a hand grenade, the quintessence of destructiveness, made into a children's bank, the symbol of thrift. Swords into plowshares and spears into pruning hooks!

Mr. Robin laughed too, but only for a moment. "You don't know what a market it is, Mr. Budd. You don't know the homes of the poor, as I do."

"But they have no money now."