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the Berlin party paper, Der Angriff, holding it by force of arms and publishing the paper for

three days. A tremendous scandal, and one which the enemies of the movement had not failed

to exploit.

So here was Gregor Strasser, Reich Organization Leader Number 1. A lieutenant in the World

War, he had become an apothecary, but had given up his business in order to oppose the Reds

and then to help Adi prepare for the Beerhall Putsch. He was perhaps the most competent

organizer the party had, and had come to Berlin and built the Sturmabteilung by his efforts.

Hitler, distrusting him as too far to the left, had formed a new personal guard, the Schutz-

staffel, or S.S. So there were two rival armies inside the Nazi party of all Germany; which was

going to prevail?

Lanny wondered, had Hitler really lost his temper or was this merely a policy? Was this the

way Germans enforced obedience— the drill-sergeant technique? Apparently it was working,

for the big man's bull voice dropped low; he stood meekly and took his licking like a schoolboy

ordered to let down his pants. Lanny wondered also: why did the Führer permit a foreigner to

witness such a demonstration? Did he think it would impress an American? Did he love power

so much that it pleased him to exhibit it in the presence of strangers? Or did he feel so secure

in his mastery that he didn't care what anybody thought of him? This last appeared to be in

character with his procedure of putting his whole defiant program into a book and selling it to

anybody in the world who had twelve marks.

Lanny listened again to the whole story of Mein Kampf. He learned that Adolf Hitler meant

to outwit the world, but in his own good time and in his own way. He meant to suppress his land

program to please the Junkers and his industrial program to please the steel kings, and so get

their money and use it to buy arms for his S.A. and his S.S. He meant to promise everything

to everybody and so get their votes—everybody except the abscheulichen Bolschewisten and the

verfluchten Juden. He meant to get power and take office, and nobody was going to block him

from his goal. If any Dummkopf tried it he would crush him like a louse, and he told him so.

When Strasser ventured to point out that Dr. Joseph Goebbels, the Führer's favorite

propagandist, had said that he was developing a "legality complex," the Führer replied that he

would deal with "Juppchen" at his own convenience; he was dealing now with Gregor

Strasser, and telling him that he was not to utter another word of criticism of his Führer's

policies, but to devote his energies to putting down the Reds and teaching discipline to his

organization, which lacked it so shamefully. Adolf Hitler would do his own dickering with the

politicians, playing them one against another, worming his way closer and closer to the

chancellorship which was his goal—and in due course he would show them all, and his own

friends would be ashamed of their blindness and presumption in having doubted their

inspired leader.

So Lanny received a demonstration of what it meant to be a master of men. Perhaps that

was what the Führer intended; for not until he had received the submission of his Reich

Organization Leader Number 1 and had dismissed him did he turn again to his guest. "Well,

Mr. Budd," he said, "you see what it takes to put people to work for a cause. Wouldn't you like

to come and help me?"

Said Lanny: "I am afraid I am without any competence for such a task". If there was a trace

of dryness in his tone the Führer missed it, for he smiled amiably, and seemed to be of the

opinion that he had done a very good afternoon's work.

Long afterward Lanny learned from Kurt Meissner what the Führer thought about that

meeting. He said that young Mr. Budd was a perfect type of the American privileged classes:

good-looking, easy-going, and perfectly worthless. It would be a very simple task to cause that

nation to split itself to pieces, and the National Socialist movement would take it in charge.

8

To Give and to Share

I

IN THE month of December Irma and Rahel completed the tremendous feat they had

undertaken; having kept the pact they had made with each other and with their families, they

were now physically and morally free. The condition of two lusty infants appeared to indicate

that Rousseau and Lanny had been right. Little by little the greedy sucklings learned to take

the milk of real cows instead of imitation ones; they acquired a taste for fruit juices and for prune

pulp with the skins carefully removed. At last the young mothers could go to a bridge party

without having to leave in the middle of it.

Marceline with her governess had returned to Juan at the end of the yacht cruise, and her

mother had promised to join her for Christmas. Farewells were said to the Robin family, and

Beauty and her husband went by train, taking the baby, Miss Severne, the nursemaid, and