WORLD'S END

What was needed was new inventions, creating new demands. Some lay in the future, but they hadn't yet come over the horizon - and meanwhile there was only the junk business. Oddly enough, the most promising deal that Robbie had been able to make since the armistice was the one with Johannes Robin, who was setting out to prove himself a first-class businessman. What he was doing and planning was going to bring in a large sum; but because it consisted of a number of small items, Robbie would never be proud of it, and to the end it would remain in his mind the sort of business for a Jew.

VII

Just before sailing, Robbie called up his son and inquired: "Would you like to meet Zaharoff again? I've an appointment with him, and he always asks about you."

The old gray wolf was still on his way up in the world. Last year he had been made a Grand Officer of the Legion of Honor, and he was soon to receive the Grand Cross, usually reserved for kings. He had invited Robbie to call, and father and son drove to the palace on the Avenue Hoche, close to where President Wilson was being housed. The duquesa served tea again; only this time, since Lanny was a grown young gentleman and budding diplomat, she did not take him out into the garden but left him to attend the business conference.

Robbie had guessed that the Greek ex-fireman was still haunted by his dream of monopolizing the armaments industry of the world; and it turned out that this guess was correct. He said that now had come the time of the seven lean years, and those whose barns were small would be well advised to make friends with those whose barns were capacious. Zaharoff had taken the trouble to accumulate a lot of information about Budd's; he knew what dividends they had paid and what reserves they had kept; he seemed to know about the different plans which the president of the concern had been considering for the conversion of the plants, and the approximate cost of such procedure. Old Samuel Budd never came to Europe, either for business or pleasure, but Zaharoff had seen a picture of him; he even knew about the men's Bible class, and spoke of it with urbanity as an original and charming hobby.

The aging Greek with the velvet-soft voice explained that Budd's was in munitions alone, whereas the several hundred Vickers companies were in everything basic in modern industry: iron and steel, copper, nickel, and all the non-ferrous metals, coal and oil and electric power, shipping and finance. "When you have such an organization, Mr. Budd, you can turn quickly from war to peace, and back again at will; you have the money, the connections, the techniques. Whereas a small concern like Budd's, off in a corner by itself, is at the mercy of the financiers, who don't do anything for love."

"I know," said Robbie; and didn't ask whether Zaharoff was going to do it for love.

The American was more cautious than he had been five years ago. He knew that his people were in a dangerous position, and he knew that Zaharoff knew it. He listened while the old man with the white imperial suavely explained that such things as family and national pride were out of date nowadays; what counted was money. The really big kind was international, and was without prejudice; it did, not what it chose, but what it had to do. In times of stress, such as lay ahead of them, little business was swept into the discard and factories went on the bargain-counter like - "Well, like field-guns right now," said Zaharoff.

The munitions king seemed actually on the way to realizing his life's dream. Vickers now completely controlled Schneider-Creusot in France, Skoda in Bohemia, and the Austrian, the Turkish, the Italian plants. Its biggest rival, Krupp, was to be put out of the trade entirely. If Lanny had ever been uncertain as to why Zaharoff was standing so valiantly by the demand for war to a finish, he had the answer now.

"How unwise for you, Mr. Budd, with your isolated small business, to stand outside the great world movement! You might come in on terms that would be both honorable and profitable" - the speaker showed his delicacy of feeling by the order in which he placed these two words. "You have done us an important service in the war, and this is a way we can show our gratitude. It had better be done at once, before the stresses of business competition begin to weaken the ties of friendship. You will understand what I mean, I am sure."

"Yes," said Robbie, "I understand." And he did. He promised to go back and put the proposition before his father and brothers. "I'd rather not attempt to guess what their reaction will be," he added.