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very small fraction of a second. He did it again to show them that it was no accident. He

couldn't do it a third time, because the block of wood had so much lead in it that it sank.

Lanny couldn't perform stunts like that, but he was good enough to hit any Nazi, Bub said.

All the targets were either Nazis or Fascists; for the guard had made up his mind that trouble

was coming and no good fooling yourself. He wanted Hansi to learn to shoot, but Hansi said

he would never use his bowing hand for such a nerve-shattering performance. Bess would have

to protect him; she had learned to shoot when a child, and proved that she had not forgotten.

Then it was Freddi's turn, and he tried it, but had a hard time keeping his eyes open when he

pulled the trigger. The consequences of this pulling upon a Budd automatic were really quite

alarming, and to a gentle-souled idealist it didn't help matters to imagine a member of the

National Socialist German Workingmen's Party in the line of the sights.

Lanny, who had been used to guns all his life, had no idea of the effect of these

performances upon two timid shepherd boys out of ancient Judea. Hansi declared that his

music didn't sound right for a week afterward; while as for the younger brother, the experiment

had produced a kind of moral convulsion in his soul. To be sure, he had seen guns being

carried in Berlin and elsewhere by soldiers, policemen, S.S.'s and S.A.'s; but he had never held

one in his hand, and had never realized the instantaneous shattering effect of an automatic.

Calling the targets a portion of the human anatomy had been a joke to an ex-cowboy, but

Freddi's imagination had been filled with images of mangled bodies, and he kept talking about it

for some time afterward. "Lanny, do you really believe we are going to see another war? Do

you think you can live through it?"

Freddi even talked to Fanny Barnes about the problem, wondering if it mightn't be possible

to organize some sort of society to teach children the ideal of kindness, in opposition to the

dreadful cruelty that was now being taught in Germany. The stately Queen Mother was touched

by a young Jew's moral passion, but she feared that her many duties at home would leave her no

time to organize a children's peace group in New York. And besides, wasn't Germany the

country where it needed to be done?

VI

Fanny set up a great complaint concerning the heat at Bienvenu; she became exhausted and

had to lie down and fan herself and have iced drinks brought to her. But Beauty Budd, that old

Riviera hand, smiled behind her embonpoint, knowing well that this was one more effort—and

she hoped the last—to carry Baby Frances away. Beauty took pleasure in pointing out the

great numbers of brown and healthy babies on the beaches and the streets of Juan; she

pointed to Lanny and Marceline as proof that members of the less tough classes could be

raised here successfully. Baby herself had developed no rashes or "summer complaints," but on

the contrary rollicked in the sunshine and splashed in the water, slept long hours, ate everything

she could get hold of, and met with no worse calamity than having a toe nipped by a crab.

So the disappointed Queen Mother let her bags be packed and stowed in the trunk of Lanny's

car, and herself and maid stowed in the back seat, from which she would do as much driving

as her polite son-in-law would permit. On the evening of the following day they delivered her

safely in London, and obtained for her a third-row seat on the aisle for the opening

performance of The Dress-Suit Bribe, a play of which she wholly disapproved and did not hesitate

to say so. Next day when most of the London critics agreed with her, she pointed out that

fact to the author, who, being thirty-four years of age, ought to have sowed his literary wild

oats and begun to realize the responsibilities he owed to his class which had built the mighty

British Empire. The daughter of the Vandringhams and daughter-in-law of the Barneses was

as Tory as the worst "diehard" in the House of Lords, and when she encountered a

propagandist of subversion she wanted to say, in the words of another famous queen: "Off

with her head!"—or with "his."

But not all the audience agreed with her point of view. The house divided horizontally;

from the stalls came frozen silence and from the galleries storms of applause. The critics

divided in the same way; those with a pinkish tinge hailed the play as an authentic picture of the

part which fashionable society was playing in politics, an indictment of that variety of

corruption peculiar to Britain, where privileges which would have to be paid for in cash in France

or with office in America, go as a matter of hereditary right or of social prestige. In any case it

was power adding to itself, "strength aiding still the strong."

It was the kind of play which is automatically labeled propaganda and therefore cannot be

art. But it was written from inside knowledge of the things which were going on in British

public life and it told the people what they needed to know. From the first night the theater

became a battleground, the high-priced seats were only half filled but the cheap ones were

packed, and Rick said: "It's a question whether we can pay the rent for two or three weeks,

until it has a chance to take hold."

Lanny replied: "We'll pay, if I have to go and auction off some pictures." No easy matter raising

money with hard times spreading all over the world; but he telephoned all the fashionable

people he knew, begging them to see the play, and he cajoled Margy, Dowager Lady Eversham-

Watson, to have a musicale and pay the Robin family a couple of hundred pounds to come and

perform: the money to go for the play. Irma "chipped in," even though in her heart she

didn't like the play. As for Hansi, he wrote to his father, who put five hundred pounds to his

son's credit with his London bankers—a cheap and easy way to buy peace in his family, and to

demonstrate once again how pleasant it is to have money, heigh ho!

In one way or another they kept the play going. Gracyn, to whom it gave such a "fat" part,

offered to postpone taking her salary for two weeks. Lanny wrote articles for the labor papers,

pointing out what the production meant to the workers, and so they continued to attend and

cheer. The affair grew into a scandal, which forced the privileged classes to talk about it, and

then to want to know what they were talking about. In the end it turned out that Eric Vivian

Pomeroy-Nielson had a "hit"—something he had been aiming at for more than ten years. He

insisted on paying back all his friends, and after that he paid off some of the mortgages of "the

Pater," who had been staking him for a long time. The main thing was that Rick had managed

to say something to the British people, and had won a name so that he would be able to say

more.

VII

The Robins were begging the Budds to take a little run into Germany. Yachting time was at

hand, and they had persuaded Papa to put the Bessie Budd into commission again; they

wanted so much to get him away from the worries of business—and who could do it so well as

the wonderful Lanny Budd and his equally wonderful wife? Lanny might even be able to

persuade him to retire for good; or perhaps to take a long cruise around the world, where he

couldn't be reached by friends or foes.

Germany was in the midst of a hot election campaign. A new Reichstag was being chosen; the