He wouldn't play tricks on customers. The steel and work he put into guns for, say, Russia or Chili were as flawless and expert as in the guns bought by his Prussian Majesty. And that was the "besetting sin of Frederick," the damning spot on the escutcheon of their friendship, as the War Lord viewed it. It followed, of course, that when one hundred of the Tsar's Krupp guns faced one hundred Krupp guns of the Government of Berlin, they would be an even match so far as material went—a thing and condition in strict contradiction to the Potsdam maxim: "Always attack with superior force."
How often the War Lord had argued with Frederick: Soft lining for enemy howitzers; a well-concealed, patched-up flaw in the barrel of quick-firers.
"I know no enemy, only customers," was Frederick's invariable rejoinder, garbed in politest language.
Customers! Decidedly the War Lord wanted customers—plenty of them, since, as we know, he had invested largely in Krupp stock; but to take customers' money was one thing, and to provide them with means for spoiling the War Lord's game was another.
When that pistol-shot startled Villa Huegel on November 22nd did it portend the death-knell of what the War Lord called "Krupp molly-coddledom"?
Even during Frederick Krupp's lifetime—just as if his early demise had been a foregone conclusion—technical experts of the Berlin War Office had been instructed to make extensive experiments with steel on the lines ordered by Wilhelm the War Lord.
The test would be the Day!
CHAPTER II
WEAVING THE TOILS ROUND BERTHA KRUPP
"Your Play Days are Over"—The Baroness Speaks Out—In the Grip of the Kaiser—A Room Apart