Many were the stories concerning that duel between New England and the Levant; Robbie had got them directly from the mouth of his fellow-Yankee, and so had learned to fight the old Greek devil with his own Greek fire. More than once the devil had got Maxim's mechanics drunk on the eve of an important demonstration; it appeared that in those days it was impossible to find a mechanic who could have any money in his pocket without getting drunk. Later on, Maxim demonstrated his gun to high officers of the Austrian army, including the Emperor Francis Joseph, and wrote the Emperor's initials on the target with bullet holes. Basil Zaharoff stood outside the fence and watched this performance, and assured the assembled newspaper men that the gun which had performed this marvel was the Nordenfeldt — and the story thus went out to the world! Zaharoff explained to the army officers that the reason for Maxim's astonishing success was that Maxim was a master mechanic, and had made this gun by hand; it could not be produced in a factory because every part had to be exact to the hundredth part of a millimeter. This news held up the sale for a long time.
The result of the duel was that Zaharoff learned respect for the Maxim gun, while Maxim learned respect for Zaharoff. They combined their resources, and the Nordenfeldt gun was shelved. Later on Maxim and Zaharoff sold out for six and a half million dollars to the British Vickers; Zaharoff was taken into the concern, and soon became its master. The combination of British mechanical skill with Levantine salesmanship proved unbeatable; but that was all going to be changed, now that the president of Budd Gunmakers Corporation had been persuaded to let his youngest son come over to Europe and show what a Connecticut Yankee could do in the court of King Basil!
IV
When the head salesman of a large business enterprise took time to explain such details to a boy, he pretended that he wanted to unbosom himself; but of course he was following out his plan of preparing the boy for his future career. Robbie Budd had for his son a dream which was no modest one; and now and then he would drop a hint of it — enough to take away the boy's breath.
Basil Zaharoff was sixty-five now, and couldn't last forever. Who was going to take his place as master of the most important of all trades? And where was the industry of the future to be situated? In Sheffield, England? In the French village of Creusot? In the German Ruhr, or at Skoda in Austria, or on the Volga, as the Russian Tsar was daring to dream? Robbie Budd had picked out a far safer location, up the Newcastle River in Connecticut. “It'll not be an extension of Budd's,” he explained; “but a new and completely modern plant. No enemy can ever get to it, and when it's in operation it will mean three things: American workingmen will supply the world, an American family will collect the money, and America will stand behind its ramparts, able to defy all the other nations put together. That's what we'll some day have to do, so why not get ready?”
Robbie went on to explain what Zaharoff was doing in France. The country's armament trust was known as Schneider-Creusot, and for years the old Greek devil had been intriguing to get control of it and share the profits of the rearming of Russia. He had bought a popular weekly paper so that he could tell the French people what he wished to have believed. He had endowed a home for retired French sailors and been awarded the rosette of the Legion of Honor. He had bought a Belgian bank, so as to become a director in Schneider's; and when his rivals had kicked him out, he had proceeded to tie up Europe in a net of intrigue in order to bring them to their knees.
First, he had gone to Turkey, and as “Vickers, Limited” had signed a contract to provide that country with warships and arsenals. This had frightened Russia, whose dream was to get Constantinople; so the old rascal had proceeded to that country, and pointed out to its officials the grave danger to them of remaining dependent upon foreign armaments. Zaharoff offered, through his British Vickers, to build a complete modern plant at Tsaritsyn on the Volga, and to lease all the Vickers patents and trade secrets to Russia. This, in turn, had frightened the French; for they could never be sure of the position of Britain in any future war, and if Russia got help from Britain, it would no longer need help from France. To make matters worse, Zaharoff had spread the story that the German Krupps were buying the Putilov arms plant in Russia. All this had broken the French nerve, and Schneider had had to give way and let Zaharoff have his share of the money which France had just loaned to Russia.
“That's why you have to watch the papers,” said the father, and showed an item he had clipped that very day. Vickers had received orders from the Russian government for thirty-two million dollars' worth of armaments. “More than one-fourth the whole French loan!” sighed Robbie — deeply grieved because his country had no part in it. America's arms plants were pitifully small, and the business they could pick up in Europe was the crumbs that fell from a rich man's table. “But you and I are going to change all that!” said the salesman to his son.
V
They let down their anchor for a while and caught some fish, and Lanny told about Mr. Elphinstone, and got teased about his new English accent. Then Robbie mentioned that he had to go to Monte Carlo the following day, having an appointment with a Turkish pasha who was interested in buying ground-type, air-cooled machine guns. Robbie had found out that France was lending money to Turkey, with which to pay Zaharoff for his warships and arsenals; so the Turkish officials had plenty of cash. “It's a queer mix-up,” Robbie said; “I'm not sure if I'll ever understand it. Even though the French are lending money to Turkey, they appear to distrust it, and don't want it armed too fast; but the Germans seem to want Turkey armed — at French expense, of course. I am dealing with Turkish officials who are secretly in German pay, or so I have reason to believe.”
Lanny said he was getting dizzy at that point.
“Yes, it's funny,” the father agreed. “The minister I talked with in Constantinople said that our guns were too cheap; they couldn't possibly be good at that price. Of course he wanted me to put the price higher, and give him a Rolls-Royce, or sell it to him secondhand for a hundred dollars. Finally I was advised to take up the matter with another minister who is disporting himself at Monte Carlo.”
“Oh, yes,” said Lanny, “I saw him at the motorboat races; he wore a large striped necktie and yellow suede shoes.” The father smiled and remarked that Oriental peoples all loved color.
Robbie told a sensational story about what had happened on board the ship. A few hours before reaching Marseille, the door of his cabin had been jimmied, and a portfolio of his papers, relating to this Turkish deal, had been stolen. Fortunately the most secret letters, which might have cost the life of that minister in Constantinople, had been sewed up in the lining of Robbie's coat — he patted the spot. But it was highly inconvenient to lose the drawings of the gun. “Of course it was Zaharoff,” the father added.
“You mean that he was on that ship?” asked Lanny.
The other laughed. “No; the old wolf did that sort of thing when he was young, and belonged to the tidiimbadschi, those firemen of Constantinople who were really gangsters. But now he's an officer in the Legion of Honor, and when he wants a burglary done he hires somebody else.”