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the speaker's platform stood the new Chancellor, looking over a vast sea of faces. He stood under

the spotlight, giving the Nazi salute over and over, and when at last he spoke, the amplifiers

carried his voice to every part of the airfield, and wireless and cables carried it over the world.

The new Chancellor's message was that "the German people must learn to know one another

again." The divisions within Germany had been invented "by human madness," and could be

remedied "by human wisdom." Hitler ordained that from now on the First of May should be a

day of universal giving of hands, and that its motto was to be: "Honor work and have respect

for the worker." He told the Germans what they wanted most of all to hear: "You are not a

second-rate nation, but are strong if you wish to be strong." He became devout, and prayed:

"O Lord, help Thou our fight for liberty!"

Nothing could have been more eloquent, nothing nobler. Did Adi wink to his journalist and

say: "Well, Juppchen, we got away with it," or some German equivalent for that slang? At any

rate, on the following morning the labor unions of Germany, representing four million workers

and having annual incomes of nearly two hundred million marks, were wiped out at one single

stroke. The agents of the job were so-called "action committees" of the Shop-Cell

Organization, the Nazi group which had carried on their propaganda in the unions. Armed

gangs appeared at the headquarters of all the unions, arrested officials and threw them into

concentration camps. Their funds were confiscated, their newspapers suppressed, their editors

jailed, their banks closed; and there was no resistance. The Socialists had insisted upon

waiting until the Nazis did something "illegal"; and here it was.

"What can we do?" wrote Freddi to Lanny, in an unsigned letter written on a typewriter—

for such a letter might well have cost him his life. "Our friends hold little meetings in their

homes, but they have no arms, and the rank and file are demoralized by the cowardice of their

leaders. The rumor is that the co-operatives are to be confiscated also. There is to be a new

organization called the 'German Labor Front,' to be directed by Robert Ley, the drunken

braggart who ordered these raids. I suppose the papers in Paris will have published his

manifesto, in which he says: 'No, workers, your institutions are sacred and inviolable to us

National Socialists.' Can anyone imagine such hypocrisy? Have words lost all meaning?

"Do not answer this letter and write us nothing but harmless things, for our mail is pretty

certain to be watched. We have to ask our relatives abroad not to attend any political meetings

for the present. The reason for this is clear."

An agonizing thing to Hansi and Bess, to have to sit with folded hands while this horror was

going on. But the Nazis had made plain that they were going to revive the ancient barbarian

custom of punishing innocent members of a family in order to intimidate the guilty ones. A

man doesn't make quite such a good anti-Nazi fighter when he knows that he may be causing

his wife and children, his parents, his brothers and sisters, to be thrown into concentration

camps and tortured. Hansi had no choice but to cancel engagements he had made to play at

concerts for the benefit of refugees.

"Wait at least until the family is out of Germany," pleaded Beauty; and the young Reds

asked their consciences: "What then?" Did they have the right to go off on a pleasure yacht

while friends and comrades were suffering agonies? On the other hand, what about Papa's

need of rest? The sense of family solidarity is strong among the Jews. "Honor thy father and

thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee." The

Lord in His wisdom had seen fit to take away the land, but the commandment still stood,

and Hansi thought of his father, who had given him the best of everything in the world, and now

would surely get no rest if his oldest son should declare war upon the Nazis. Also, there was

the mother, who had lived for her family and hardly had a thought of any other happiness.

Was she to be kept in terror from this time on?

"What do you think, Lanny?" asked the son of ancient Judea who wanted to be artist and

reformer at the same time. Lanny was moved to reveal to him the scheme which was cooking

in his mind for the entrapment of Johannes and the harnessing of his money. Hansi was

greatly pleased; this would put his conscience at rest and he could go on with his violin

studies. But Bess, the tough-minded one, remarked: "It'll be just one more liberal magazine."

"You can have a Red section, and put in your comments," replied Lanny, with a grin.

"It would break up the family," declared the granddaughter of the Puritans.

IV

Johannes wrote that he had got passports for his party, and set the date for the yacht to

arrive at Calais. Thence they would proceed to Ramsgate, run up to London for a few days, and

perhaps visit the Pomeroy-Nielsons—for this was going to be a pleasure trip, with time to do

anything that took anybody's fancy. "We have all earned a vacation," said the letter. Lanny

reflected that this might apply to Johannes Robin—but did it apply to Mr. Irma Barnes?

He wrote in answer: "Emily Chattersworth has arrived at Les Forêts, and Hansi is to give her

a concert with a very fine program. Why don't you and the family come at once and have a

few days in Paris? We are extremely anxious to see you. The spring Salon is the most

interesting I have seen in years. Zoltan is here and will sell you some fine pictures. Zaharoff is at

Balincourt, and Madame is out there with him; I will take you and you can have a seance, and

perhaps meet once more the spirits of your deceased uncles. There are other pleasures I might

suggest, and other reasons I might give why we are so very impatient to see you."

Johannes replied, with a smile between the lines: "Your invitation is appreciated, but please

explain to the spirits of my uncles that I still have important matters which must be cleared

up. I am rendering services to some influential persons, and this will be to the advantage of all of

us." Very cryptic, but Lanny could guess that Johannes was selling something, perhaps parting

with control of a great enterprise, and couldn't let go of a few million marks. The spirits of his

uncles would understand this.

"Do not believe everything that the foreign press is publishing about Germany," wrote the

master of caution. "Important social changes are taking place here, and the spirit of the

people, except for certain small groups, is remarkable." Studying that sentence you could see that

its words had been carefully selected, and there were several interpretations to be put upon

them. Lanny knew his old friend's mind, and not a few of his connections. The bankrupted

landlords to whom he had loaned money, the grasping steel and coal lords with whom he had

allied himself, were still carrying on their struggle for the mastery of Germany; they were

working inside the Nazi party, and its factional strife was partly of their making. Lanny made

note of the fact that the raids on the labor unions had been made by Robert Ley and his own

gangs. Had the "drunken braggart" by any chance "jumped the gun" on his party comrades? If

so, one might suspect that the steel hand of Thyssen had been at work behind the scenes. Who

could figure how many billions of marks it would mean to the chairman of the Ruhr trust to be