The Life and Adventures of Carl Laemmle (1931)

130 CARL LAEMMLE car-tracks. He was, in fact, behaving rather like an intoxicated small gentleman. He was cheering gently to himself, and performing the evolutions of a jig, heedless of approaching cars. He certainly must be inebriated ; or perhaps not feeling very well. Sympathetic hands led him to the security of the side-walk. Would the messenger kindly say that again, very slowly and clearly? "The Trust is ordered — !" Nineteen-nine to nineteenfifteen. He had done it. Against inconceivable odds, he had done it. Why not a little song and dance in the street if he liked? Just once more, please. Quite. I understand. "People — " what a spree it would be to tell all those people — "The Trust is bust." In the moment of his triumph Laemmle remembered all that Robert Cochrane had done to make it possible. Never once had that co-operation failed. And now the whole weary business was through. It was a great ending, but it had come none too soon. Laemmle could look back on it in the knowledge that not only had he won, but that he had won a dirty fight with clean hands. Nevertheless, in the elation of a success so splendid, he was conscious of unutterable relief. Breaking-point, he now knew, had been nearer than ever in the heat of conflict he had allowed himself to realise. In after days he said that the wealth of Ford and Rockefeller could not induce him to go through those five years again.