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with bourgeois ladies, and knew their minds, and just when they were engaged in

manipulating him, and what for. He tried to play fair about it, and not give too much of Irma's

money to the refugees, and not so much of his own that he would be caught without funds.

This meant that he, too, had to do a lot of dodging and making of excuses to the unfortunates;

and then he would feel ashamed of himself, and more sick at heart than ever, because the

world wasn't what he wanted it to be, norwas he the noble and generous soul he would have

preferred to believe himself.

III

In spite of the best efforts in the world, Lanny found it impossible to keep out of arguments

with the people he met. Political and economic affairs kept forcing themselves upon him.

People who came to the house wanted to talk about what was happening in Germany, and to

know what he thought—or perhaps they already knew, and were moved to challenge him.

Nobody had been better trained in drawing-room manners than Beauty Budd's son, but in

these times even French urbanity would fail; people couldn't listen to ideas which they

considered outrageous without giving some signs of disapproval. Gone were the old days when

it was a gossip tidbit that Mr. Irma Barnes was a Pink and that his wife was upset about it;

now it was a serious matter, and quite insufferable.

"I thought you said you were not a Communist," remarked Madame de Cloisson, the

banker's wife, with acid in her tone.

"I am not, Madame. I am only defending those fundamental liberties which have been the

glory of the French Republic."

"Liberties which the Communists repudiate, I am told!"

"Even so, Madame, we do not wish to make ourselves like them, or to surrender what we

hold dear."

"That sounds very well, but it means that you are doing exactly what they would wish to have

done."

That was all, but it was enough. Madame de Cloisson was a grande dame, and her influence

might mean success or failure to an American woman with social ambitions. Irma didn't hear

this passage at arms, but some kind friend was at pains to tell her about it, and she knew that

it might cancel the efforts she had been making during the past year. But still she didn't say

anything; she wanted to be fair, and she knew that Lanny had been fair—he had told her about

his eccentricities before he asked for her, and she had taken him on his own terms. It was

her hard luck that she hadn't realized what it would mean to have a husband dyed a shade

of Pink so deep thatthe bourgeois mind couldn't tell it from scarlet.

IV

The new Reichstag was summoned promptly. It met in Potsdam, home of the old glories of

Prussia, and Hitler applied his genius to the invention of ceremonies to express his patriotic

intentions and to arouse the hopes of the German Volk. All the land burst out with flags—the

new Hakenkreuz flag, which the Cabinet had decreed should replace that of the dying

Republic. Once more the beacons blazed on the hilltops, and there were torchlight parades of

all the Nazi organizations, and of students and children. Hitler laid a wreath on the tomb of his

dead comrades. Hindenburg opened the Reichstag, and the ceremonies were broadcast to all the

schools. The "Bohemian corporal" delivered one of his inspired addresses, in which he told his

former Field Marshal that by making him Chancellor he had "consummated the marriage

between the symbols of ancient glory and of young might."

Hitler wanted two things: to get the mastery of Germany, and to be let alone by the outside

world while he was doing it. When the Reichstag began its regular sessions, in the Kroll Opera

House in Berlin, he delivered a carefully prepared address in which he declared that it was the

Communists who had fired the Reichstag building, and that their treason was to be "blotted

out with barbaric ruthlessness." He told the rich that "capital serves business, and business the

people"; that there was to be "strongest support of private initiative and the recognition of

property." The rich could have asked no more. To the German peasants he promised "rescue," and

to the army of the unemployed "restoration to the productive process."

To enable him to carry out this program he asked for a grant of power in a trickily worded

measure which he called a "law for the lifting of want from the people and empire." The

purpose of the law was to permit the present Cabinet, and the present Cabinet alone, to

make laws and spend money without consulting the Reichstag; but it didn't say that; it

merely repealed by number those articles in the Constitution which reserved these crucial

powers to the Reichstag. The new grant was to come to an end in four years, and sooner if any

other Cabinet came into office. Nobody but Adolf was ever to be the Führer of Germany!

This device was in accord with the new Chancellor's "legality complex"; he would get the

tools of power into his hands by what the great mass of the people would accept as due process of

law. His speech in support of the measure was shrewdly contrived to meet the prejudices of all

the different parties, except the Communists, who had been barred from their seats, and the

Socialists, who were soon to share that fate. A mob of armed Nazis stood outside the building,

shouting their demands that the act be passed, and it carried by a vote of 441 to 94, the

dissenters being Socialists. Then Goring, President of the Reichstag, declared the session

adjourned, and so a great people lost their liberties while rejoicing over gaining them.

V

During this period there were excitements in the United States as well as in Germany. Crises

and failures became epidemic; in one state after another it was necessary for the governor to

decree a closing of all the banks. Robbie Budd wrote that it was because the people of the

country couldn't contemplate the prospect of having their affairs managed by a Democrat.

When the new President was inaugurated—which fell upon the day before the Hitler elections

— his first action was to order the closing of all the banks in the United States—which to

Robbie was about the same thing as the ending of the world. His letter on the subject was so

pessimistic that his son was moved to send him a cablegram: "Cheer up you will still eat."

Really it wasn't as bad as everybody had expected. People took it as a joke; the richest man in

the country might happen to have only a few dimes in his pocket, and that was all he had,

and his friends thought it was funny, and he had to laugh, too. But everybody trusted him, and

took his checks, so he could have whatever he wanted, the same as before. Robbie didn't miss a

meal, nor did any other Budd. Meanwhile they listened to a magnificent radio voice telling

them with calm confidence that the new government was going to act, and act quickly, and that

all the problems of the country were going to be solved. The New Deal was getting under way.

The first step was to join Britain and the other nations off the gold standard. To Robbie it

meant inflation, and that his country was going to see what Germany had seen. The next thing

was to sort out the banks, and decide which were sound and in position to open with

government backing. The effect of that was to move Wall Street to Washington; the

government became the center of power, and the bankers came hurrying with their lawyers

and their brief-cases. A harum-scarum sort of affair, in which all sorts of blunders were made;