WORLD'S END

He talked interestingly about his work. He said that the slum denizens were in a state close to madness, with hunger, the fever of war, and the vision of sudden power. It couldn't be said that they were without training for power, for they had a sort of discipline of their own; in fact, they had a whole culture, which they called "proletarian," and which was to replace our present culture, called "bourgeois." A truly frightening thing, said the officer, who before the war had been a rising young architect in Chicago. "I was never afraid of the Huns," he declared, "but I admit that I'm afraid of these Reds."

Just recently, he went on to tell, he had come upon evidence of the activities of a press on which had been printed leaflets addressed to the denizens of the Paris slums, calling upon them to rise against the profiteers and seize the food which was in the depots, and which the bureaucrats were refusing to release. The captain had one of these leaflets with him; it ended with a string of slogans followed by exclamation points, and was signed by the Conseils des Ouvriers de St.-Denis. "They don't say Soviets," remarked the officer. "But that's what the word means."

Then even more startling news: he expected to have proof that these agitators were preparing an appeal to the American troops to break ranks and go home. These troops had enlisted to oust the Kaiser, and why should they stay to hold the workers of Europe in slavery to landlords and money barons? It was a plausible argument.

"Surely you're going to stop that!" exclaimed one of the professors.

"We'll have to," replied the officer. "But it's a bit awkward, because the fellow who is most active in the matter happens to be an American."

"What difference does that make?"

"Well, my God, if you arrest an American Red in Paris, you can't keep it away from the newspapers; then all the agitators at home will be swarming like hornets."

Professor Davisson, who specialized in the Balkan languages, and had just come back from a mission to the Bulgarian front, .expressed the opinion that the unprintable scoundrel ought to be dealt with by military law at once. To this Alston interposed a question: "What's the use of having licked the Germans if you have to sacrifice American free speech in the procиss?"

"Do you think that free speech means the right to overthrow the government which protects your free speech?" demanded Davisson "Free speech doesn't overthrow governments," answered the other. "It's the lack of free speech."

"You mean you'd let Bolsheviks incite our troops to mutiny?"

"They wouldn't get anywhere, Davisson - not unless there was something wrong with what the army was doing."

So they argued, and got rather hot about it, as men were apt to do these days; until one of them, wishing to dissipate the storm clouds, asked of Captain Stratton: "What sort of fellow is it that's printing the leaflets?"

"He calls himself a painter, but I don't know if he works at it. He's lived most of his life over here, and I guess he's absorbed what the Reds call their 'ideology."

"Budd knows a lot of painters here," said Lanny's employer. "What's the man's name?"

"I don't think I'm at liberty to tell that," replied the captain. "Perhaps I shouldn't have said as much as I have."

"It'll all be confidential," said Professor Davisson, and the others nodded their confirmation. As for Lanny, he kept up a pretense of interest in his food, and prayed that nobody would notice the blood that had been stealing into his cheeks and throat, and even, so he felt, to the roots of his hair.

VII

When the party broke up, Lanny said to his chief: "I wish you'd take me upstairs to your room for a minute. There's something important I want to tell you." When they were alone, he explained: "I can't be sure, but I think the man Captain Stratton was talking about is my uncle, Jesse Blackless."

"The heck you say!" exclaimed the startled professor.

"I thought you ought to know right away, because it might prove embarrassing if it comes out."

Lanny told briefly about this "red sheep" of his mother's family. "There aren't apt to be two American painters who are such active Reds. I know he's in Paris now, because he came to see my mother, to advise her about the best way to arrange for an exhibition of my stepfather's paintings."

"Well, well!" said the professor. "A trifle awkward, I must admit."

"It could be terribly so. I'm afraid there's nothing for me but to quit before the story breaks."

The older man smiled. "No, you don't get off so easily! I assure you, I need you too badly. We'll work out some other solution."

"But what can it be?"

"Let me think. Do you suppose you could get hold of this uncle of yours?"

"I suppose he'll have left his address with my mother."

"Well, we'll have to be quick, before the army people grab him."

"What do you want to do with him?"