purchase, with their prices. The trustees presented a list of their poorest-paying shares, and
weighed them in the balance. Under the will the trustees had the right to say no; but they
realized that this was a family matter, and that it would be a distinguished thing to have Irma's
father-in-law become president of a great manufacturing concern. Also, Irma had developed
into a young lady who knew what she wanted, and said it in the style of the days before
parliamentary control of the purse had been established.
"There's no use going into it unless you go heavily enough to win," cautioned Uncle Joseph.
"Of course not," said Irma, promptly. "We have no idea of not winning."
"If you pay more than the market for Budd stocks, it will mean that you are reducing the
principal of your estate; for we shall have to list them at market value."
"List them any way you please," said Irma. "I want Robbie to be elected."
"Of course," said Mr. Barnes, timidly, "you might make up the principal by reducing your
expenditures for a while."
"All right," assented Her Majesty—"but it will be time enough to do that when you get me a
bit more income."
II
Johannes went to Newcastle to visit the Robbie Budds. The firm of R and R had many
problems to talk out, and when Irma and Lanny arrived the pair were deeply buried in business.
Robbie considered Johannes the best salesman he had ever known, bar none, and was
determined to make a place for him with Budd's. If Robbie won out, Johannes would become
European representative; if Robbie lost, Johannes would become Robbie's assistant on some sort
of share basis. Robbie had a contract with the company which still had nearly three years to
run and entitled him to commissions on all sales made in his territory. These matters Robbie
put before his friend without reserve; he did it for medico-psychological reasons as well as
financial—he wanted to get Johannes out of his depression, and the way to do it was to put him
to work.
Robbie added: "Of course, provided there's anything left of business." America was in the
throes of an extraordinary convulsion known as "the New Deal," which Robbie described as
"government by college professors and their graduate students." They were turning the
country upside down under a scheme called "N.R.A." You had to put a "blue eagle" up in your
window and operate under a "code," bossed by an army general who swore like a trooper
and drank like the trooper's horse. New markets for goods were being provided by the simple
process of borrowing money from those who had it and giving it to those who hadn't. One lot
of the unemployed were put to work draining swamps to plant crops, while another lot were
making new swamps for wild ducks. And so on, for as long as Robbie Budd could find anybody to
listen to him.
Everybody in Newcastle was glad to see the young couple again; excepting possibly Uncle
Lawford, who wasn't going to see them. The only place they had met was in church, and Irma
and Lanny were going to play golf or tennis on Sunday mornings—Grandfather being out of
the way. Or was he really out of the way? Apparently he could only get at them if they went to
a medium! Lanny remarked: "I'd like to try the experiment of sleeping in his bed one night and
see if I hear any raps." Irma said: "Oh, what a horrid thought!" She had come to believe in the
spirits about half way. Subtleties about the subconscious mind didn't impress her very much,
because she wasn't sure if she had one.
The usual round of pleasure trips began. They motored to Maine, and then to the
Adirondacks. So many people wanted to see them; Irma's gay and bright young old friends.
They had got used to her husband's eccentricities, and if he wanted to pound the piano while they
played bridge, all right, they would shut the doors between. He didn't talk so "Pink" as he had,
so they decided that he was getting sensible. They played games, they motored and sailed and
swam, they flirted a bit, and some couples quarreled, some traded partners as in one of the
old-fashioned square dances. But they all agreed in letting the older people do the worrying
and the carrying of burdens. "I should worry," —meaning that I won't—and "Let George do it,"
—so ran the formulas. To have plenty of money was the indispensable virtue, and to have to go
to work the one unthinkable calamity. "Oh, Lanny," said Irma, after a visit where an ultra-
smart playwright had entertained them with brilliant conversation—"Oh, Lanny, don't you
think you could get along over here at least part of the time?"
She wanted to add: "Now that you're being more sensible." She didn't really think he had
changed his political convictions, but she found it so much pleasanter when he withheld
them, and if he would go on doing this long enough it might become a habit. When they passed
through New York he didn't visit the Rand School of Social Science, or any of those summer
camps where noisy and mostly Jewish working people swarmed as thick as bees in a hive. He
