pulled rather than draw cheques which they did not consider lawfully
due, and he coughed, and spat, and choked, but parted with no
formula. He had pretty far gone when the U-boat ran into her home
port, but he showed not the smallest signs of yielding.
The Germans were eminently business-like. S.J. Levenstein dead was
no use to them. Alive he was full of Melinitic possibilities. So
they kept him alive, and alternately treated him well and vilely. He
was interviewed by small personages and great, all of them in
uniform, some of them polite, most of them overbearing, some of them
proffering gifts, many of them offering threats; but to all of them
he was unyielding! He might be this Levenstein they were talking
about. He might have heard of Meltite. But, anyway, at the moment
he had forgotten the composition of Meltite, if, indeed he had ever
heard it. They could not budge him past that, by either kindness or
cruelty.
At last he was brought before the Greatest Personage of all, a tragic
twitching cripple, and he set himself out to charm.
"I understand, Mr. Livingstone that you were a Prussian by birth, a
British subject by early upbringing, and are a cosmopolitan by taste.
Well, it is our loss, because you are a man of ideas. But I am not
going to quarrel with your choice. You have made a great invention
in Meltite. You see I am not going to belittle it. And if I say it
is great, it is great. You offered it to the London Government.
They, being fools, as I have shown many times already, refused it. I
believe they did not even refuse it civilly. You have stated your
price--a million sterling and a peerage. I will give it you."
"My price is two millions, now that Meltite is proved."
"Two millions be it. I do not quibble over marks about a thing I
intend to get."
"There is also the British peerage."
"I can buy that for you, too--as I have bought for money down other
British titles for my people when I wanted them."
"Very well, sire," said S.J. Levenstein, "get me from the politicians
an English earldom, and give me two million British pounds sterling,
and I will give you the formula for Meltite."
"That shall be arranged," said the Greatest Personage, and S.J. was
taught by his guide how to back out from the Presence.
There the matter rests for the present.
S.J. Levenstein (or Livingstone) resides in dignified seclusion and
security in a Prussian castle full of enamels, whilst arrangements
are being made to pay him his price. They feed him on the richest
food he cares to order, and he may bathe in Pommery '06 if he so
desires.
I wonder if they will succeed?
Printed in Great Britain by Butler & Tanner, Frome and London.