But there it was, looming large, and quite as farcical as all the rest of it.

The foreign financier--they called him the Duc de Mersch--was by way of being a philanthropist on megalomaniac lines.

For some international reason he had been allowed to possess himself of the pleasant land of Greenland.

There was gold in it and train-oil in it and other things that paid--but the Duc de Mersch was not thinking of that.

He was first and foremost a State Founder, or at least he was that after being titular ruler of some little spot of a Teutonic grand-duchy.