WORLD'S END

The Pomeroy-Nielsons thanked him for his good deed, and Rick took the trouble to explain matters further. The land on which those cottages stood belonged to the family, but the tenants worked for other people. "Most of them are behind with their rent," said Rick, "because the pater's reluctant to press them as other landlords do. The old tenements are nothing but a nuisance, and he has often thought of razing them and plowing the land." The son of the family added, with one of his dry smiles, that of course that wouldn't go very far toward solving the housing question; but you couldn't expect a man to be an authority on both art and economics.

Lady Pomeroy-Nielson was a stoutish, motherly person who looked after the boys and made them change their shoes when they got wet. She was kind, and told Lanny that she would take the poor child a basket of food. "But I fear it won't do much good," she added, "unless I stay and see it eaten. That Higgs is a rough fellow, and he'll take anything he can get his hands on and sell it for a drink."

Rick discussed with his guest the problem of poverty in England's green and pleasant land. He declared that when human beings got below a certain level, it was very difficult to help them; drink and drugs took the place of food and they finished themselves off. Lanny said his father had explained that to him, but he had thought it applied only to city slums; it had never occurred to him that there might be slums in the country. Rick said there could be little difference between country and city; if there was an over-supply of labor in one it shifted immediately to the other. In the hop-picking season, hundreds of thousands of people from London's East End spread out over the country looking for work, and if they found conditions a bit better on the land, some of them would stay.

It was an insoluble problem - as Rick, and Rick's father, and Lanny's father agreed; but all the same Lanny couldn't forget the feel of the pitiful thin body that he had lifted, the waxen skin, and the frantic look in the girl's eyes when food was held out to her. Nor could he drive from his mind the impolite thought that, if he were an English landed gentleman, he would have his lovely green lawn a trifle less perfectly manicured, and spend the money on keeping the roofs of his cottages in repair.

VII

There had come a cablegram from Robbie; he was sailing from New York on the Lusitania, and would be at the Hotel Cecil on a certain day. Of course a summons from Robbie took precedence over all other affairs. Lanny went to town the night before, and telephoned the steamship office to find out at what hour the steamer was due. The boy was sitting in the lobby, reading a book, but looking up every few minutes, and when the familiar sturdy figure appeared in the doorway, he sprang up to welcome his father. It was a hot July morning, and perspiration glistened on Robbie's forehead, but he looked well and vigorous as always, and everything he wore was fresh and spotless.

It had been four or five months since his last trip, and they had a lot of news to swap. At lunch Lanny told about Greece and Africa, and the scene on board the Bluebird. Then he told about his adventures in the slums of London and of Berkshire. The father said: "That's the curse of England. The most depressing thing I ever saw in my life was the people of London's slums spread out on Hamp-stead Heath on a bank holiday; men and women lying together on the ground in broad daylight."

Robbie Budd had come on an interesting errand. The firm had completed a new gun on high-angle mountings, to be used for protection against airplanes; the season's best-seller in the armaments trade, he predicted. It would mean another battle with Zaharoff, because Vickers already had one, but it wasn't nearly so good and couldn't be fired so fast. "Are we going to wipe him out?" asked the boy. eagerly; and Robbie said they would if there was such a thing as justice in the world. He said this with one of his boyish grins, and added his fear that there wouldn't be any in England for Budd's.

They made themselves comfortable in their suite. Robbie got a bottle of whisky out of his suitcase, and ordered soda and ice - the London hotels were quite "American" now, and ice was one of the signs. For Lanny there was ginger beer, the father having asked him to wait many years before he touched liquor, or smoked, or learned to play poker. He said he wished he had waited longer himself. Lanny was interested to note in how many ways parents expected their children to be wiser than themselves.