I
LANNY spent a whole week thinking about submarines. It was the time when the German campaign reached its high point; they were sinking thirty thousand tons a day, and one of every four vessels which left the British Isles never returned. Lanny didn't have to imagine a submarine rising from the sea — he had seen it. From eyewitnesses he had heard how torpedoes exploded, and people rushed into lifeboats, and men gave their lives to save women and children. Robbie was the sort of man who would do that, and Lanny felt as if he were tossing a coin every hour for his father's life.
At last a telegram from Le Havre. Thank God, he was on land! He was writing; and next day Lanny received the most important letter of his young life. Robbie was proposing to take him to Connecticut!
“I think the time has come when you ought to know your own country,” wrote the father. “It appears certain that we are going into the war, and whatever part you take ought to be in America. My wife invites you to stay with us this summer; I will get you a tutor and you will study hard, and be able to enter prep school this fall and get ready for college.” That meant Yale, which was Robbie's own college, and that of his forefathers for a hundred years or more.
There was a letter for Beauty also. Robbie hoped she would agree with him that a lad ought to have a chance to know his own people. Beauty had now had him to herself for thirty-two months — Robbie had an arithmetical mind. He said that if the war lasted, it would be better for Lanny to be in Connecticut, where Robbie could arrange for him to render service in the production of munitions. “You may put your mind at ease on one subject,” he wrote. “Lanny will not go into the trenches. He is too valuable to me, and I will be valuable to the government.” Bella gerant alii!
“What do you want to do?” asked the mother, after they had shared these letters.
“Well, of course, I'd like to see America,” said the youth; and the mother's heart sank. Such a lovely safe nest she had made here, but of course he wouldn't stay in it; the last thing in the world that men wanted appeared to be safety.
“I suppose I'll have to give you up,” she said. “The cards are all stacked against a woman.”
“Don't worry, Beauty, I'll take good care of myself, and come back when the war's over. I don't think I'll want to live anywhere but here.”
“You'll meet some girl over there, and she'll tell you what to do.”
“I'm going to get tough,” replied the boy; but he didn't look it.
“I knew this had to come, Lanny. But I hoped Robbie would wait till the sea was safe.”
“Plenty of people are getting through; and he and I are pretty good swimmers.” Lanny thought for a moment, then added: “I wonder what he's going to do about telling his friends the bad news about me.”
“He told his wife about us both before they were married. I imagine he'll tell other people that you're his son, and let it go at that. Don't let it worry you.”
“If anybody doesn't want me around,” said the boy, “I can always go somewhere else. Shall you miss me too terribly, Beauty?”
“It'll be all right if I know you're happy. I ought to tell you a bit of news that I've just learned — I'm going to have a baby.”
“Oh, gosh!” A wide smile spread over Lanny's face. “That's grand, Beauty! It will tickle Marcel, won't it?”
“Frenchmen are like that,” she answered.
“ALL men are, aren't they?” After a while he inquired: “Was it another accident, or did you decide to do it?”
“Marcel and I decided.”
“It's a grand place to bring up a child, Beauty — I can tell you that.” He kissed her on both cheeks until she cried with happiness and sorrow mingled.
II
It seemed cruel that a youth should be so excited at the idea of leaving his mother; but he couldn't help it, and she understood. To be with Robbie in Paris, and travel on a great steamer, and see that city of New York which he knew from motion pictures, and the marvelous plant of Budd's, the economic foundation of his life. It was a center of his imaginings, a forge of Vulcan a million times magnified, a Fafnir and Fasolt cave where monstrous forces were generated. And to meet that mysterious family, so many of them that you couldn't keep their names straight, and all different and queer. Robbie didn't often talk about them, but behaved as if they were a dark secret. Or perhaps it was Lanny who was the dark secret!
He packed the few things he would take with him; that required only a couple of hours, and he was ready to go on the evening train. Beauty broke down and wept — it was such short notice. He was a mother's darling; and who else would love him as she had? The world was cruel, so many wicked people in it, women especially — she understood their hearts, the cold and selfish ones, the gold diggers, the harpies! So many things she ought to have taught him, and now it was too late, he couldn't remember them; he was crazy with eagerness to get out into that world which seemed to her so full of pain. She gave him many warnings, extracted many promises — and all the time aware that she was boring him a little.
Lanny had a good-by talk with Marcel, and this was more to the point. Marcel had left his family, respectable bourgeois in a provincial town; they had wanted him to be a lawyer, perhaps a judge, and instead he had come to Paris to dab paint on canvas. They gave him a small allowance, but didn't pretend to like his work. “You are lucky,” Marcel said; “your parents are sympathetic, they'll stand by you even if you don't succeed. But don't be surprised if you don't like your relatives. Don't bare your heart to the hawks.”
“What makes you say that?” asked the boy, puzzled.
“Rich people are pretty much the same all over the world. They believe in money, and if you don't make money they think there's something wrong with you. If you don't see life as they do, they take it as a criticism, and right away you're an outsider. If I were taking you to meet my family, that's how I'd have to warn you.”
“Well, I'll write and let you know what I find, Marcel.”
“If you like it, all right. I'm just putting you on guard. You've had a happy life so far, everything has been easy — but it can hardly be like that all the way through.”
“Anyhow,” remarked the boy, “Robbie says that America's going to help France.”
“Tell them to hurry,” replied the painter. “My poor country is bleeding at every vein.”
III
Lanny was seventeen, and had grown nearly a foot in those thirty-two months since he had seen his father. For many youths it is an awkward age, but he was strongly knit, brown with sunshine and red with well-nourished blood. He came running from the train to welcome Robbie, and there was something in the sight of him which made the man's heart turn over. Flesh of my flesh-but better than I am, without my scars and my painful secrets! So Robbie thought, as the lad seized him and kissed him on both cheeks. There was a trace of down on Lanny's lips, light brown and soft; his eyes were clear and his look eager.
He wanted to know everything about his father in the first moment. That grand rock of a man, that everybody could depend on; he would solve all the problems, relieve all the anxieties — all in the first moment! Robbie looked just the same as ever; he was in his early forties, and his vigor was still unimpaired; whatever clouds might be in his moral sky showed no trace. He looked handsome in brown tweeds, with tie and shoes to match; Lanny, whose suit was gray, decided at once that he would look better in brown.
“Well, what do you think about the war?” The first question every man asked then.
The father looked grave immediately. “We're going in; not a doubt of it.”
“And are you going to support it?”
“What can I do? What can anybody do?”
It was nearing the end of March. Relations with Germany had been severed for many weeks, and President Wilson had declared a state of what he called “armed neutrality.” America was going to arm its merchant vessels, and in the meantime Germany was going on sinking them, day after day. Shipping was delayed, the vessels in American harbors were afraid to venture out.
“What can we do?” repeated Robbie. “The only alternative is to declare an embargo, and abandon our European trade entirely.”
“What would that do?”
“It would bring a panic in a week. Budd's would have to shut down, and throw twenty thousand men out of work.”
Driving to their hotel in a horse-drawn cab, Robbie explained this situation. A large-scale manufacturing enterprise was geared to a certain schedule. A quantity of finished goods came off the conveyors every day, and was boxed and put into freight cars or trucks — or, in the case of Budd's, which had its own river frontage, onto ships. Vessels were loaded and moved away, making room for others. If for any reason that schedule was interrupted, the plant would be blockaded, because its warehouses could hold only a few days' output. The same thing would happen at the other end, because raw materials came on a fixed schedule — they had been ordered and had to be taken and paid for, but there was place to store only a limited supply; they were supposed to go through the plant and be moved on.
That, said Robbie, was the situation not merely with steel mills and munitions plants, but with meat packing and flour milling, making boots and saddles, automobiles and trucks, anything you could think of. Rightly or wrongly, wisely or unwisely, American business had geared itself to the task of supplying the need of the nations of Europe. American finance had geared itself to taking and marketing their bonds. If all this were suddenly stopped, there would be such a breakdown as had never been known in the world before — “ten or twenty million men out of work,” declared the representative of Budd Gunmakers Corporation.
Lanny had heard many persons express disapproval of those who were making money out of this war; Kurt, and Rick, and Beauty, Sophie, Marcel, and M. Rochambeau. But when he listened to his father, all that vanished like mist before the morning sun. He saw right away that things had to be like this; if you were going to have machinery, and produce goods on a big scale, you had to do it in a fixed way. The artists and dreamers and moralists were just talking about things they didn't understand.
At least that was the way it seemed until Lanny got off by himself. Then he began to have troubles in his thinking. Robbie was all for Budd's, and defended the right of Budd's to get all the business it could, and to keep its workers employed. But Robbie didn't like Zaharoff, and had a tendency to resent the business that Vickers got. Robbie blamed Schneider-Creusot because it sold goods to neutral countries which resold them to Germany; he objected to the French de Wendels' protecting their properties in Germany. But suppose that Budd's had owned plants in Germany — wouldn't Robbie be trying to take care of them, and pointing out the harm it would do if they were bombed?
In short, wasn't there as much to be said for one set of businessmen as for another? As much for Germans as for British or French or Americans? Lanny felt in duty bound to be fair to his friend Kurt, and to Kurt's family who had been so kind to him. He could not forget having heard Herr Meissner using these very same arguments about the need of German manufacturers to get raw materials and to win foreign markets, in order to keep their workers employed and their plants running on schedule. It was extremely puzzling; but Lanny didn't say much about it, because for two years and a half he had been learning to keep his ideas to himself. In wartime it appeared that nobody wanted to see both sides of any question.
IV
Of course the father and son didn't spend all their time discussing world politics. Lanny had to tell about Beauty and Marcel; about the painter's wounds, and his way of life, and his work; about the new baby they were going to have, on purpose — a somewhat rare event nowadays, so Robbie remarked. And about Sophie and her Eddie Patterson and his ambulance driving; about Mrs. Emily and Les Forêts, and old M. Priedieu and how he had died; about Sept Chênes, and the war victims who were being re-educated, including Lanny's gigolo, who would never jig again. And about Mr. Robin, and the letters to Kurt, and the little Robins, and the Jews, and didn't Robbie like them, and why not? And about Rosemary — a large subject in herself; and Rick and his flying — as soon as Lanny learned that he was to have a few days in Paris he got off a card to Rick, on the chance that he might be able to get a day's leave and visit his friend.
Robbie would ask questions, and Lanny would think of details he had left out. There was Marcel's painting; he was getting better and better, everybody agreed; he was doing an old peasant woman who grew roses on the Cap, and had lost three sons, one after another, and it showed in her face, and still more in the portrait that Marcel was making of her. The one he had done of Beauty, called “Sister of Mercy,” was to be shown at a salon in the Petit Palais, and one of the things Lanny wanted to do was to find out about it. If Robbie went to view it he would find a new woman, one much more serious, and really sad. “Of course she's not that way all the time,” added the boy; “but that's how Marcel sees things. He can't forgive fate for what it's done to his face — nor for what it's doing to France.”
Robbie also had things to tell. For the most part they had to do with business; for he was not one of those persons who have states of soul which require explanation. He had been making money hand over fist, and it kept him in good humor; he found it pleasant, not only for himself, but for many other people. He was troubled because Lanny's wants were so modest in that regard; he seemed to think they ought to celebrate their réunion by buying something handsome. The only thing Lanny could think of was one of Marcel's paintings to take to America. But Robbie didn't think that would be such a good idea — no use to say anything about a stepfather right at the outset!
Lanny told how seriously Beauty was taking the re-education of the mutilés, and so Robbie sent her a check for a couple of thousand dollars, telling her she might use it for that purpose if she pleased. He added a friendly message for Mrs. Emily, knowing that Beauty would take it to her; in this way the money would win credit for Beauty with that socially powerful lady. Robbie explained this procedure, so that his son might learn how to make his way in the world. No use to have money unless you knew how to use it, and how to handle people. There were some to whom you gave it with a careless gesture, and others to whom you doled it out carefully.
Robbie remarked with a smile that there had been personal reasons for his opposition to America's entering the war; Budd's would now begin manufacturing for the United States government, and Robbie would get no commissions on that. “It will be a great satisfaction to my brother Lawford,” he added. “It has pained him to see me making more money than himself.”
Lanny was going to meet this brother, so the time had come for Robbie to tell about him. “He will be polite to you, but don't expect him to be anything more, because nature hasn't made him that way. He's all right if you let him alone; but unfortunately I haven't — not since the day I was born, and attracted too much attention in the nursery. I was better-looking than he, and mother made too much fuss over me.”
Robbie spoke playfully, but made it plain that there was something of a feud between his older brother and himself. When Robbie had come of age, he had offered to learn the selling end of the business, and the father had given him a chance, working on commission, plus an expense account. This latter had made much trouble, because Lawford objected to one item or another; when Robbie lost money to Captain Bragescu, his brother called it paying his gambling debts at the company's expense!
“And then came this war,” said Robbie. “That was my good fortune, but surely not my fault. It resulted in my having an income two or three times his own — and he works hard running the plant, while I don't have to do another lick of work in my life unless I feel like it.”
V
Just before Lanny left the Riviera a world-shaking event took place — the Russian revolution and the overthrow of the Tsar. Everybody was speculating as to what it meant, and what would be its effect upon the war. Most people in France believed it would help the Allies; the Russians would fight harder, now that they were free. But Robbie said that Russia was out, because of graft, incompetence, and the breakdown of her railroads. He said that freight had been landed from hundreds of steamers at Archangel in the far north, and at Vladivostok on the Pacific, and there was no way to get it to the war zones. Tens of millions of dollars' worth of goods was piled along the railroad tracks for miles, without more than a single tarpaulin to cover the boxes. Included in the stacks were Budd machine guns, and of course they were rusting and would soon be useless; meanwhile the Russian peasant-soldiers were expected to defend themselves with clubs and march to the attack with five men to one rifle.
“What is going to happen,” said Robbie, “is breakdown and chaos; the country may be pillaged, or the Germans may take it. The German troops will be moved to the west, and may well be in Paris before the Americans can raise an army or get it across the ocean. That is what the German General Staff is reckoning on.”
The father revealed the purpose which had brought him to Europe. The War Department of the United States government had sent an emissary to the president of Budd's, asking him to consider proposals for the licensing of Budd patents to various firms such as Vickers and Schneider, which were working day and night making munitions for the Allied governments. Under such licenses they would be permitted to make Budd machine guns, Budd anti-aircraft guns, and so on, paying a royalty to be agreed upon. If America should enter the war, Budd's itself would no longer be in position to manufacture for European nations, and it was desirable that our Allies should have the benefit of Yankee ingenuity and skill.
This question of patent licensing had been a subject of controversy inside the Budd organization for years. Foreign governments were always proposing it, offering handsome royalties. Robbie had opposed the policy, while Lawford had favored it, and each had labored to persuade the father to his point of view. The older brother insisted that it was dangerous to expand the plant any further; they would have to borrow money — and then some day the pacifists would impose a scheme of disarmament, Budd's wouldn't be able to meet its obligations, and some Wall Street banking syndicate would gobble it up. Robbie, on the other hand, argued that European manufacturers would make the most generous offers and sign on as many dotted lines as you prepared for them; but who was going to watch them, and know how many shell fuses they really made?
Lanny got from this a clearer realization of the situation between his father and his oldest uncle. The uncle was morose and jealous, and a dispute which had begun in the nursery had been transferred to the office of the company. Lawford opposed everything that Robbie advocated, and attributed selfish motives to him; as for Robbie, he seemed convinced that the chief motive of the brother's life was not to let Robbie have his way in anything. Now the War Department had stepped in and given Lawford a victory. Licenses would be issued to several European munitions firms, and in order to salve Robbie's feelings, his father had sent him to do the negotiating.
VI
Robbie telephoned to the home of Basil Zaharoff, which was on the Avenue Hoche. Lanny was in the room and heard one-half the conversation; the munitions king said something which caused Robbie to smile, and reply: “Yes, but he's not so little now.” Robbie turned his eyes on Lanny as he listened. “Very well,” he said. “He'll be happy to come, I'm sure.”
The father hung up the receiver and remarked: “The old devil asked if I had that very intelligent little boy with me. He says to bring you along. Want to go?”
“Do I!” exclaimed the intelligent little boy. “But what does he want with me?”
“Don't let your vanity be flattered. We've got something he wants, and he'd like to make it a social matter, not one of business. Watch him and see how an old Levantine trader works.”
“Doesn't he have an office?” inquired the boy.
“His office is where he happens to be. People find it worth while to come to him.”
Lanny dressed for this special occasion, and late in the afternoon of a day which promised spring they drove to 53, Avenue Hoche, just off the Parc Monceau. It was one of a row of stately houses, with nothing to make it conspicuous; a home for a gentleman who didn't want to attract attention to himself, but wanted to stay hidden and work out plans to appeal to other men's fears and greeds. A discreet and velvet-footed man in black opened the door, and escorted them into the reception room, which had furniture and paintings in excellent taste — no doubt the duquesa's. Presently they were invited to a drawing room on the second floor, where the first thing they saw was an elaborate silver tea service ready for action. The windows were open, and a soft breeze stirred the curtains, and birds sang in trees just outside. Presently the munitions king entered, looking grayer and more worn — one does not make a quarter of a billion dollars without some cares.
He had hardly finished greeting them when a lady entered behind him. Had she heard the story of the boy who had had such an odd idea about helping his father's business? Or was it the special importance of the contracts which Robert Budd was bringing? Anyhow, here she came, and Zaharoff said: “The Duquesa de Villafranca,” with a tone of quiet pride. The duquesa bowed but did not give her hand; she said, very kindly: “How do you do, Messieurs?” and seated herself at the tea table.
She had been only seventeen when she had met this munitions salesman, and they had been waiting twenty-seven years for her lunatic husband to die. She was a rather small and inconspicuous person, gracious, but even more reserved than her companion. His blue eyes were watching the visitors, and her dark eyes for the most part watched him. She had the olive complexion of a Spaniard, and wore a teagown of purple, with a double rope of pearls nearly to her waist. “You have had a dangerous journey, M. Budd,” she remarked.
“Many men are facing danger these days, Madame,” replied Robbie.
“Do you think that your country will help us to end this dreadful war?”
“I think so; and if we come in, we shall do our best.”
“It will have to be done quickly,” put in the munitions king; to which Robbie answered that large bodies took time to get in motion, but when they moved, it was with force.
They talked about the military situation. Zaharoff set forth the extreme importance to civilization of overcoming the German menace. He told about what he had done to set up Venizelos in Greece and bring that country in on the side of the Allies; he didn't say how much money he had spent, but that he had moved heaven and earth.
“Greece is my native land,” he said. “Love of Greece has been the first passion of my life, and hatred of Turkish cruelty and fanaticism has been the second.” As he talked about these matters his voice trembled a little, and Lanny thought, was all that playacting? If so, it was a remarkable performance. But Robbie told him afterward that it was genuine; the munitions king did really hate the Turks, and had spent millions buying newspapers and politicians, pulling wires against King Constantine and his German wife. Zaharoff had gone in for oil, and wanted Mesopotamia for his British companies. He used his money for things which the Allied governments wanted done, but which were too discreditable for them to do directly.
VII
Presently they were talking about President Wilson, who had said that Americans were “too proud to fight,” and had been reelected with the slogan, “He kept us out of war.” Robbie explained the Presbyterian temperament, which would find some high moral basis for whatever it decided to do, and would then do it under divine direction. Now this President was talking about “war for democracy,” and Zaharoff asked if that was supposed to be a moral slogan.
Robbie replied: “The founders of our nation didn't believe in democracy, M. Zaharoff, but it is supposed to be good politics now.”.
“Well, I should want to write the definition somewhat carefully.” The old man smiled one of those strange smiles, in which his watchful eyes never took part.
“It is playing with fire,” said the other, unsmiling. “We have seen in Russia what it may lead to, and not even Wilson wishes the war to end that way.”
“God forbid!” exclaimed the munitions king; and no one could doubt the sincerity of that.
When you are having a lady of ancient lineage to pour tea for you, it is necessary to pay some attention to her. So presently Robbie remarked: “That is a lovely tea service you have, Duquesa.”
“It is an heirloom of my family,” replied Maria del Pilar Antonia Angela Patrocino Simon de Muguiro y Berute, Duquesa de Marqueni y Villafranca de los Caballeros.
“I had a gold one,” put in the host. “But I have given it to the government, to help save the franc.”
Was there just the trace of a frown on the gentle visage of the Spanish king's cousin? She had been laboring for a quarter of a century to make a gentleman out of a Levantine trader; and perhaps it cannot be done in one lifetime; perhaps in the midst of wars and revolutions one must excuse lapses from a much-burdened mind.
After they had had their tea, the old man remarked: “And now about that matter of business, Mr. Budd.”
The hostess rose. “I am sure you gentlemen don't want an audience for your conference,” she said; and added sweetly to Lanny: “Wouldn't you like to come and see my beautiful tulips?”
Of course Lanny went, and so lost his chance to observe the old trader in action. He was taken into a fine garden, and introduced to a pair of snow-white poodles, beautifully groomed and shaved to resemble lions. He learned about the tulips, which were just unfolding their beauties: the bizarres, which are yellow marked with purple and red; the bybldemen, which are white marked with violet or purple; also a new kind from Turkestan. The Dutch people had cultivated them for centuries, and once they had been the basis of a great financial boom.
“Do you really love flowers?” asked the duquesa; and Lanny told about Bienvenu, and the court full of daffodils and bougainvillaea where he did his reading. He was used to ladies with titles, and not awed by them. He suspected that one who had the munitions king for a companion didn't feel entirely safe or happy, so he was moved to be kind. He mentioned Mrs. Emily, and found that the duquesa knew her, and had aided her war work; so Lanny told what she was doing at Sept Chênes, and added the story of M. Pinjon, the gigolo, which the duquesa found sympathique. She remarked that she would like to send a present to that poor man; since he played the flute, perhaps he might like to have a good one.
Time passed, and the two men of business did not appear. Lanny didn't want to be a nuisance to his hostess, who must have other things to do than to entertain a casually met youth. He told her he was used to getting along by himself, and she offered to take him to the library. He had seen many large rooms in fine homes, having walls lined with volumes de luxe which were rarely touched save to be dusted. The munitions king's were all behind glass, but on the table were magazines, and he said he would be happy with those. So the gentle lady excused herself. Lanny understood that she was far too rich to ask him to call again; and besides, maybe this was all just a matter of business, as Robbie had said!
VIII
At last the two emerged from their conference; both suave as ever — but you couldn't tell anything from that. The father and son strolled down the street, and Lanny said: “Well, what happened?”
Robbie answered, with one of his grins: “I thought he was going to cry, but he didn't quite.”
“Why should he cry?” The boy knew that he was supposed to be naive, so that his father would have the fun of telling it.
“I hurt his feelings by suggesting that we should require observers in the Vickers plants, to check their production under our licenses.”
“Is he going to let you?”
“He said it was a very serious matter to admit strangers to a munitions factory in wartime. I answered that they wouldn't be strangers very long; he would know how to become acquainted with them.” Robbie began to laugh; he enjoyed nothing more than such a battle over property rights — especially when he held the good cards close to his chest. “They really need our patents,” he said; “and, believe me, they won't get them without paying. Why should they?”
Lanny didn't know any reason, and said so.
“Well, the old devil thought he knew a number of them. He was horrified at the schedule of royalties I put before him; he said he had been given to understand that America wanted to help the Allies, not to bleed them to death, or drive them to bankruptcy. I said I hadn't heard of any bankruptcies among the hundred and eighty Vickers companies in England, or the two hundred and sixty of them abroad. He said they had cut their prices to the bone as a patriotic duty to the British and French governments. I told him it was generally understood that his companies were getting the full twenty percent profit allowed them by British law.
You can see it wasn't a conversation for a duquesa to hear. Was she nice to you?”
“Very,” said Lanny. “I liked her.”
“Oh, sure,” said the father. “But you can't like the consort of a wolf beyond a certain point.”
Lanny saw that his father was not going to like Basil Zaharoff under any circumstances. He said so, and Robbie replied that a wolf didn't want to be liked; what he wanted was to eat, and when it was a question of dividing up food with him, you had to have a sharp-pointed goad in hand. “We have paid out good American money, financing inventions and perfecting complicated machines. We're not going to give those secrets to Zaharoff, not even in return for a tea party and a smile from a duquesa. We're going to have our share of the profits, paid right on the barrel-head, and I'm sent here to tell him so, and to put before him a contract which our lawyers have constructed like a wolf trap. I said that very politely, but in plain language.”
“And what did you decide?”
“Oh, I left him the contracts, and he'll weep over them tonight, and tomorrow morning I'm to see his French factotum, Pietri, and he'll plead and argue, and demand this change and that, and I'll tell him to take it as it's written, or the Allies can get along with a poorer grade of machine guns.”
“Will they, Robbie?”
“Just stick by me the next few days, son, and learn how we businessmen pull wires. If they turn down my contracts, I know half a dozen journalists in Paris and London who will make a story out of it for a reasonable fee. I can find a way to have the merits of the Budd products brought to the attention of a dignified and upright member of Parliament, who wouldn't take a bribe for anything, but will endeavor to protect his country against the greed of munitions magnates and the bungling of War Office bureaucrats.”
IX
Robbie's next conference was with Bub Smith, the ex-cowboy with the broken nose who had come down to Juan three or four years previously and demonstrated the Budd automatic for Captain Bragescu. Bub had given up his job in Paris to work for Robbie, and had made a couple of trips to America in spite of the submarines. It was he who had brought letters for Lanny into France.
Now Robbie told his son that Bub had proved himself an “ace” at confidential work, and was going to have the job of keeping track of the lessees of Budd patents. “Of course Zaharoff himself is a man of honor,” said Robbie, with a smile. “But there's always the possibility that some of the men who run his companies might be tempted to try tricks. Bub is to watch the French plants for me.”
“Can one man keep track of them all?” asked the youth.
“I mean that he'll be the one to watch the watchers.”
Robbie went on to explain that it wasn't possible to carry on an industry without workers; and there were always some of these glad to give information in exchange for a pourboire. Bub would build an organization for knowing what was going on in munitions factories.
“Isn't it a rather dangerous job?” asked Lanny. “I mean, mayn't they take him for a spy?”
“He'll have a letter from me, and the embassy will identify him.”
“And won't the munitions people find out about him?”
“Oh, sure. They know we're bound to watch them.”
“That won't hurt their feelings?”
Robbie was amused. “In our business you don't have feelings — you have cash.”