”`As you will remember, they threw a rival party to our own to which many outsiders, as well as certain members of the family, went instead of to ours. Even Mother was induced to desert us because she was very hard up at the time and, as usual, Jacob used his money bags, advancing her a big loan on condition that she put in a belated appearance at his party.
"'The failure of our last Family Reunion was all the more disastrous in that we had already decided that the time had come when the family must co operate and amalgamate their various business interests if our central firm was to increase and prosper in the way that a flourishing business should; but the attendance at the Reunion was so poor that it proved impracticable to put such a suggestion forward. The death of Great Aunt Wilhelmina, which followed, was a sad blow to us as it meant the splitting up of the Engels branch of the family; and an even more serious setback was the publication of Grandmother's Will which so wickedly deprived us of many assets.
”`So serious were our firm's losses as a result of these unfortunate events that many people thought we should be compelled to go out of business altogether; but since the appointment of Ernst as managing director of our firm the business has regained much lost ground and under his able guidance has become solvent again. It is. however, still under capitalized and owing to the restriction of markets finds difficulty in competing with its two principal rivals, the Jew, Jacob Bauer, whose bitter enmity, hypocrisy and cunning are used without respite in an attempt to strangle every enterprise which we start, and the firm of Saxe & Co., whose products compete with ours in many markets but whose major interests lie outside our sphere.
”`Competition has recently become so intense that it is more necessary than ever that members of the family should be induced to pool their resources instead of struggling on independently; otherwise each member will tend to become poorer and poorer until they fall entirely into the octopus like tentacles of Jacob, who will mercilessly exploit them as he has exploited the members of so many other families.'"
"Whoever meant to throw this party is evidently a big business man," Freddie interrupted.
"Yes. He seems much more concerned with the possibilities of amalgamating all the family interests than with the social side of the gathering," Erika agreed; and read on
"'The time has come, therefore, when it is imperative to hold another Family Reunion and use every means in our power to induce all members to accept the propositions which we shall place before them. It is suggested that the arrangements should be made by gradual stages, with careful preparation between each, so as not to alarm Cousin Julia and her Jew fiancé and cause them to work against us before we come out into the open and actually issue the invitations to our Reunion.
" ' Jacob knew quite well what our intentions were if we had been successful with our last Reunion, and as these constitute a grave threat to the prosperity of his own business he will naturally do everything in his power to prevent our holding another. But he is by no means so virile as he was, and if we go to work skilfully we might even succeed in persuading Julia to break off her engagement to him. She is, after all, a member of the family, and apart from her predilection for this blackguardly Jew we have no differences of opinion with her which cannot be surmounted. It would, therefore, be a great triumph for us if we could bring her back into the family fold; and nothing should be neglected which might lead towards this end.' "
"Gracious How he hates this Jewish business rival of his," Angela laughed. "And what a lark that the Jew is marrying into the family."
Erika smiled. "Apparently the family is by no means united. Father and Mother seem to have been living apart. Listen to this
"'In one respect we start off with much better prospects this time, because Father and Mother have made up their differences. Mother has taken a new lease of life and has at last been fully persuaded that she can do better for herself by coming in with the family than by dragging out a penurious old age as a pensioner of Cousin Julia and her Jewish fiancé.
"'The amount of active help which she can be expected to give us is still debatable as Jacob is certain to exercise financial pressure upon her to restrain her as far as he is able. Therefore she must not be unduly pressed to come to the party during the first days of our Family week but must be persuaded to work behind the scenes wherever possible in getting our more distant relatives together; particularly the Müller branch of the family as she has great influence with her nephews and nieces.
"'Apart from Jacob, the two people who might most seriously menace our plan for securing complete family unity are Mr. Saxe and Mrs. Klein or Aunt Marta, as we have always known her although she cannot really be considered as a member of the family.
" As well as being our competitor in some respects Mr. Saxe is immensely rich and, as money gravitates to money, he was persuaded to give his support to Jacob when our interests last clashed. But it cost him a considerable amount and, as usual, ,Jacob took all the credit to Julia and himself for the success of his operations; so Mr. Saxe was far from pleased and is much less likely to give Jacob his assistance this time when we eventually come into the open market against him. However, it is too much to hope that Mr. Saxe would support an amalgamation of the family interests to the detriment of Jacob to whom he is allied by ties of blood. The probability is that he will sit back and reap what advantage he can for his own firm while we are endeavouring to reconstruct ours and Jacob is occupied in endeavouring to check our expansion. Our objective, so far as Mr. Saxe is concerned, should therefore be to promote as much bad feeling between him and Jacob as possible so that he will reject any fresh advances that Jacob may make to him and, lulled by a false sense of security for his own concerns, be glad rather than sorry to see us putting a check upon the insatiable ambitions of the Jew.' "
"He seems to be a proper crook, doesn't he'," Angela broke in.
',No," Erika shrugged. "Just a very shrewd business man," and she continued:
`Mrs. Klein presents a very different and particularly knotty problem. Her firm cannot be considered as a competitor to ours or Jacob's, and she has no particular love for either of us; yet, potentially, she could prove an immense asset to either of our rival concerns.
" `The half derelict chain of stores which she inherited is still incredibly badly run but they cover a huge area; and while for some years Aunt Marta's firm has failed to pay a dividend, it is quite certain that if the chain were taken over and placed under proper management it could be made to show handsome profits.
"'Any suggestion of an amalgamation with Mrs. Klein may seem extremely revolutionary from many points of view. Mother positively loathes her, while Uncle Rudolf and Uncle Ulrich with both of whom we are on the best of terms at the moment dislike her as much as does Mother; in addition, Aunt Marta has a long standing quarrel with our, managing director, Ernst.
" Can all these difficulties be overcome? Aunt Marta's dislike of Ernst is not so much a personal one, as in many ways they think alike, but is mainly due to fear. Knowing Ernst's ability and enterprise she is always frightened that one day he may decide that our firm should launch out in a new direction which would jeopardize her own rickety business. If she could be persuaded that Ernst has no such intention and, in fact, that she has much to gain from settling her quarrel with him, since he could then offer to reorganize her business and put it on a sound footing, and possibly help her in other directions too, she might well consider an amalgamation with us; in. which case it Would certainly be worth our while to invite her to our Family Reunion.