The day after Northcliffe gave Garvin an option to buy the Observer he approached Max Aitken. Aitken promptly lent Blumenfeld GBP 25,000 to save the Daily Express for tariff reform. More promising was the approach Lord Roberts made on Garvin's behalf to Sidney Goldman. It says much for both Goldman and Garvin that, in spite of their row over the Outlook, they were willing to work together again. Charles Russell concluded negotiations for the sale of the Observer to William Waldorf Astor, Waldorf's father. Garvin's contract stopped him from writing for other papers without Astor's previous consent in writing. William Astor bought the Observer and lent the use of it and the Pall Mall Gazette to his son as a kind of political coming-of-age present. Garvin's association with Waldorf soon ripened into a friendship strong enough to endure for thirty years many self-inflicted wounds. These arose more often because they were temperamentally poles apart than because they differed in opinion.