WORLD'S END

Over at the Hotel Majestic was the British staff, almost as large as the American; and from the outset they had been coming over to make friends. The Americans did their best to keep on their guard, but it was difficult when they found how well informed and apparently sincere the Englishmen were. They had such excellent manners and soft agreeable voices - and, furthermore, you could understand what they said! A Frenchman, or a European speaking French, talked very rapidly, and was apt to become excited and wave his hands in front of you; but the well-chosen words of a cultivated Oxford graduate slid painlessly into your mind and you found yourself realizing how it had come about that they were the managers of so large a portion of the earth. If a territory was placed in the hands of such men, it stood a chance to be well governed; but what would happen if the Italians got it - to say nothing of the Germans or the Bolsheviks!

The British members of commissions of course had young secretaries and translators carrying heavy portfolios, and Lanny met them. They reminded him of Rick and those jolly English lads with whom he had punted on the Thames. One of them invited him to lunch at their hotel, an ornate structure which seemed to be built entirely of onyx; the dining room was twice as big as the Crillon's, and in it you saw the costumes of every corner of the empire on which the sun never set. The English youth, whose name was Fessenden, had been born in Gibraltar, and was here because of his fluent Spanish and French. He was gay, and had the usual bright pink cheeks, and Lanny exchanged eager confidences with him; each was "pumping" the other, of course, but that was fair exchange and no robbery.

What was this business about Prinkipo? Lanny told how anxiously Dr. Herron was trying to find out. The English youth said his government hadn't appointed any delegates, so presumably they thought it was going to fizzle. One more of those "trial balloons." Fessenden's chief had said that the only way it might be made to work would be for President Wilson to drop everything else and go there and put it through. But of course he couldn't do that. "Don't you think perhaps he's a bit too afraid of delegating authority? One man just can't make so many decisions by himself."

That was the talk all over Paris; three of the peace commissioners were figureheads, and Colonel House had been weakened by an attack of flu. That was no secret, and Lanny admitted it.

"All of us," said the Englishman, "at least all the younger crowd, were hoping Wilson could put it over. Now we're a bit sick about it."

Lanny answered cautiously. "One hears so many things, one doesn't know what to believe."

"But there are definite things that you can be sure of. It seems as if your President just doesn't know enough about Europe; he does things without realizing what they mean. At the outset he agreed to let the Italians have the Brenner! Shouldn't he have asked somebody about that before he spoke? Of course it's important for the defense of Italy, but if you're going to distribute the world on the basis of strategic needs, where will you stop?"

"I don't know much about the Brenner," admitted Lanny.

"It's a pass inhabited almost entirely by German people; and what is going to happen to them when the Italians take them over? Will they be compelled to send their children to Italian schools, and all that sort of rot?"

Lanny smiled, and said: "Well, you know it wasn't we who signed that treaty with the Italians."

"True enough," admitted Fessenden. "But then it wasn't we who brought up those Fourteen Points!"

That was why it was a pleasure to meet the English; you could speak frankly, and they didn't flare up and deliver orations. It was true they wanted the Americans to pull some chestnuts out of the fire for them, but it was also true that they would meet you halfway in an effort to be decent. The best of them had really hoped that the American President was going to bring in a new order and were saddened now as they discovered how ill equipped he was for the tremendous task.

Lanny didn't tell his English friend an appalling story which Alston's associates were whispering. The Supreme Council was planning to recognize a new state in Central Europe called Czechoslovakia, to consist principally of territories taken from Germany and Austria. The Czechs, previously known as Bohemians, had a patriotic leader named Masaryk, who had been a professor at the University of Chicago and a personal friend of Wilson. An American journalist talking with Wilson had said: "But, Mr. President, what are you going to do about the Germans in this new country?"

"Are there Germans in Czechoslovakia?" asked Wilson, in surprise.

The answer was: "There are three million of them."

"How strange!" exclaimed the President. "Masaryk never told me that!"

IV