He started upon a well-memorized line of sales talk, which, to Fay, was enlightening but hardly to the point he was after.
“A moment,� Fay said. “It has just come to me, sir, that I heard a chap in the West End say something about the dye industry. Is it so fearfully important? Has Germany the monopoly? I rather thought they were making the stuff in England and the States.�
“Cost too much!� declared the commercial traveler. “You see, an old dog still has his tricks. There’s danger that the old dog, and I mean Germany, will come into her own again in the dye industry. She had the monopoly once, and she is liable to get it again.�
Fay studied the cold end of his cigar. He waited for the man to warm to the subject.
The commercial traveler drew his cravenette coat-collar up to his eyes and pointed astern and over the rocking taffrail of the Channel boat.
“The Island, there,� he said in the voice of pounds,
shillings and pence, “is recovering from one struggle and plunging into another. The cheap labor of Germany and Russia must have an outlet. This outlet, in dye-stuffs particularly, is threatening to flood the market. You say that the tariff protects England and the States. I say that the tariff does not! There are the foreign markets, open to Germany, without which no industry can flourish. What of South America and Africa and the velvet of the trade? Open to the Germans as well as to us!�
Fay watched the man’s face as he asked quickly:
“This dye monopoly! Is it because of secret formulae which England has not been able to work out?�
“The nail on the head! The Germans have had five thousand chemists working on coal tar products for twenty years. They redoubled their efforts over the years of the war. They are ready to flood the dye markets and put out of business every dye maker in the world, save German. You see what that means.�