Текст книги "Английский язык"

3 A man can live … love or hate, … friends, … the gratification of desires, but he cannot live … money.

4 You’re a very hard man to trap. I’d hate to interview you … a newspaper.

5 She watched him … another moment and then gave up.

4.7.4 Fill in the gaps with the words or word combinations: explain, necessity, interest rates, highly organized, precious commodity

1 I know about … … and personal loans and amortization and the Federal Reserve and like that.

2 Believe me, no one has to … the importance of money to me.

3 Let’s call it the … of money.

4 As we get a more society, money begins to become more important than anything else.

5 But we’re not philosophers, we’re bankers. We supply, safeguard, control and define the most…of life – money.

4.7.5 Write ten sentences using the following words: to be sure, senior partner, law firm, to my satisfaction, the exchange of confidences, to take comfort from the fact, personal loans, public relations, necessity of money, precious commodity of life.

4.7.6 Write out two sentences where to have has the modal meaning “must “

4.7.7 Answer the questions: Whom does the future of the world belong to, as Woods Palmer thinks?

1 Which generation banker is Palmer?

2 Why was Woods Palmer hired to work at the Ubco?

3 What matters of banking was Virginia Clary interested in?

4 How did Virginia and Palmer consider the necessity of money?

5 Why did Virginia consider Palmer to be a very hard man to trap?

4.7.8 Retell the text expressing your attitude to the main characters of the extract

4.7.9 Pair work: Make up a dialogue between Virginia and Woods during dinner at the Schrafft’s

4.8 Text 8

THE BANKER

After Leslie Waller (to be continued)

Woods Palmer sipped his coffee and sat back in his chair. “What do banks do with money? We keep it in vaults where it can’t be stolen, except occasionally. We invest it in bonds and stocks and mortgages and business and personal loans. We handle it. We channel it. We tell it what to do. We mold it and teach it. We create it.”

“Money? What do we do, print it?”

“Almost literally,” he said. “Is that legal?”

“Perfectly,” Palmer assured her. “As a Federal Reserve Bank, we create a brand-new dollar out of thin air for every four dollars we take in.”

“Is that good?”

He slapped his hand palm down on the arm of his chair. “Stop asking philosophical questions. It probably is the worst thing that could happen to the United States of America and our great-grandchildren will pay for it dearly. But right now it’s the money that makes our particular mare go.”

“In other words, we’re responsible for printing money that isn’t based on silver?”

“In other words, we’re creating inflation,” Palmer told her. “But inflation is what the American people want.”

“You don’t really believe that.”

“It’s not a question of belief. It’s a fact. People want to buy all kinds of gimcracks, twenty-one-inch color television sets, two-door refrigerators, overpowered automobiles. They refuse to wait until they have saved up money. Like little children, when they want something they want it now. All right, behind every automobile and television set stands a man willing to sell it on credit. But he can’t wait thirty-six months for his money; when he sells something, he wants to be paid now. So behind him stands a finance company, an acceptance corporation or an accounts-receivable factor. They pay him the money and get paid for the favor by charging his customer carrying charges. But they need their money now, too. Where do they get it? Most of them don’t have enough money to cover the tremendous amount of time buying that goes on. So, behind them stand banks, providing the money, and more until the supply of money begins to run a little short. You wonder where it’s all coming from. But you know where it’s coming from. It’s rolling off the printing presses.”

He stopped, suddenly aware of the fact that his voice had grown in intensity until a man two tables away glanced at him. In the odd silence that followed, Palmer stubbed out his cigarette and wondered why he had got so excited.

“You were beginning to sound like a philosopher there for a second,” Virginia Clary said then.

“I do have a philosophy about money,” Palmer admitted. “It’s an archaic one that would probably wreck the country inside of a week if we ever put it into effect. It’s a banker’s view of money with centuries of banking behind it.”

She leaned forward toward him, watching very closely now. “Tell me this explosive philosophy.”

Palmer laughed briefly, without much joy. “Don’t spend what you don’t have,” he said then. “So simple. So impossible.” He laid his hands palms up on the small table between them. “When you see a lovely gimcrack, resist the urge to own it at once. Save for it. Then buy it. Chances are, by then the urge to own it will have passed, anyway.”

Her rather full eyebrows drew together in an expression of pain. “Oh,” she said, “what a terribly limited way to live. I wouldn’t like it at all.”

Palmer shrugged. “If by limited you mean disciplined, yes.”

“Disciplined? Does that sound any better?” She shook her head. “It’s a bleak, stark, cold way of life. No adventure, no excitement.”

“No problems, no crises.”

“You see?” she pounced. “It isn’t a way of life at all. It’s preview of death.”

“Nonsense.”

“What is life all about?” she asked. “Problems and crises. Seeing something lovely and wanting it now and taking it and paying for it later.”

“Whose life are we talking about?” Palmer wanted to know.

She frowned again. “Yes,” she said, “that’s right, isn’t it? Not everybody wants to live that way. I forgot.”

Neither of them spoke for a moment. Palmer watched the upturned Palms of his hands, then turned them over on the cool table top. His palms felt moist and he wondered why. “At any rate,” he said, “no matter whose life we’re discussing, the philosophy is mine.”

Her great eyes opened as wide as they could and she seemed to be taking a deep breath. “If you’ll forgive me for saying so,” she said, “it’s the philosophy of a man who’s never wanted for money.”

Palmer sat perfectly still for a moment, then withdrew his hands from the table and placed them in his lap. “You are probably right,” he said after a while in a voice that sounded to him entirely devoid of any feeling. “The whole idea of deferring desires comes easily to someone who’s never had to.” She looked down at the place on the table where his hands had been. “I didn’t mean to imply,” she said in a deliberately slow manner, “that having money automatically gratifies all one’s desires.

I don’t for a moment think there are things money can’t buy. Goodness, no. But, having bought them, they don’t always gratify the buyer. Everything is for sale, apparently, but when you get it in your hand, it isn’t always the same as it looked in the shop window.”

4.8.1 Vocabulary notes

vault – хранилище, сейф business

loan – ссуда, выдаваемая деловым предприятиям

to handle money – заниматься деньгами

supply of money – предложение денег; денежные резервы

4.8.2 Fill in the gaps with the prepositions: out of, forward toward, in, for, of, at

1 We keep money … vaults where it can’t be stolen, except occasionally.

2 We invest money … bonds and stocks and mortgages and business and personal loans, we handle it, we channel it.

3 As a Federal Reserve Bank, we create a brand-new dollar thin air … every four dollars we take …

4 Palmer stopped, suddenly aware … the fact that his voice had grown … intensity until a man two tables away glanced at him.

5 Virginia leanedhim, watching very closely now.

4.8.3 Fill in the gaps with the words: bonds, stocks, mortgages, except, sets, overpowered, printing, on credit

1 We keep money in vaults where it can’t be stolen, … occasionally.

2 Money is invested in …, …, ....

3 We are responsible for … money.

4 People want to buy all kinds of gimcracks, twenty-one-inch color television … two-door refrigerators, … automobiles.

4.8.4 Behind every automobile and television set stands a man willing to sell it

4.8.5 Complete the sentences

1 We keep money in …

2 We invest money in …

3 We are responsible for…

4 People want to buy …

5 The banks provide …

6 Palmer’s philosophy about money was …

7 Virginia Clary’s philosophy about money was …

8 The whole idea of deferring desires comes …

9 Having money automatically gratifies…

10 When you get money in your hand …

4.8.6 Write ten sentences using the following words: personal loans, to pay for it dearly, to be responsible for, to save money, to sell on credit, to have a philosophy about money, to resist the urge to own something at once; a bleak, stark, cold way of life; no matter, to want for money

4.8.7 Answer the questions

1 Where did Virginia and Woods have their first dinner?

2 What did they discuss?

3 Where do bankers invest money in?

4 What is the Federal Reserve System?

5 Does the Ubco belong to the Federal Reserve System?

6 What is inflation?

7 Why was Palmer beginning to sound like a philosopher during their first dinner?

8 How did Woods Palmer consider money?

9 What was Palmer’s explosive philosophy?

10 What did Virginia Clary think of money?

11 What is your philosophy of money?

12 What is life all about?

4.8.8 Retell the text expressing your attitude to the problem of money

4.8.9 Pair work: Make up the dialogue between Virginia Clary and Woods Palmer about role of money in one’s life

4.9 Text 9

THE BANKER

After Leslie Waller (to be continued)

Virginia Clary said: “The savings banks use the Ubco as a correspondent bank. We sell mortgages to them. We’re all doing the same thing – banking. But there is our side and their side. Why?”

“Do you know the difference between a commercial and a savings bank?”

She nodded, blew out smoke and waved it away in a business-like manner, as if disposing of the question. “They can’t make business loans.”

“That’s a by-product of the real difference.”

“Which is?”

“Which is shrouded in the mists of time,” Palmer explained. “Back, oh, about a century and a half. Right after the turn of the nineteenth century. Poor people could do only two things with their money: hide it under the mattress, or spend it. It wasn’t safe under the mattress, so they spent it on the thing that would let them forget their poverty: whisky.”

“Ah, well I know the feeling.”

“The do-gooders of the day were appalled. Drunkenness was all about them. So they imported an idea developed in Scotland by a dominie. Ministers, philanthropists, educators, reformers … they began organizing savings banks to accept the savings of poor people.”

“Sounds pretty dastardly.”

“Terribly. The regular banks of the period wouldn’t touch anything but business deposits or the estates of wealthy men. But the savings banks would accept anything, a penny a week, whatever a wage earner wanted to put aside. And the really dastardly thing was that they invested those pennies and paid back interest to the wage earners as an incentive to save more.”

“Criminal!”

“No, the worst part hasn’t been explained yet.”

“What could be worse?” she asked.

“Just this: these savings banks were mutual. They had no stockholders. They were owned by their depositors. They made money only for their depositors. Nobody skimmed a profit off the top. All the earnings went right back to the wage earners who deposited their pennies in the savings bank.” “Sounds downright socialistic.”

“It is,” Palmer told her. “But, you see, Karl Marx was only eight years old when that Scottish minister had his brainstorm.”

“Oops.”

“In any event, our brand of savings bankers were pretty true-blue. They usually invested their funds in government bonds. Highly patriotic. Highly stable, too. Almost none of their banks ever failed, which is more than you can say for … well, anyway, time passed.”

“A century of it.”

“A century and more,” Palmer said. “Things happened to the wage earner. He became unionized. He got Social Security, old-age benefits, health insurance, life insurance, welfare funds, pensions, everything. The commercial banks stopped turning up their noses at him. They welcomed his savings. He was banking’s darling now, secure whether he worked or not, whether he was healthy or sick and with his family provided for when he died.”

“Which has what to do with savings banks?”

“Exactly. It has nothing to do with them. They’ve outlived their usefulness. Nobody needs them any more.”

“Oh,” she said, “that’s a shame. Really?”

“Seriously. What do they provide that isn’t available to the wage earner from five other sources?”

“But it’s sad,” she objected. “All those ministers”.

“I’d never have told you if I’d thought you’d crack up.”

“I’ll get over it in a moment,” she said. “See? I’m over it already. Tell me, has anyone mentioned this to the savings banks? They’re cruising right along as though they still served a purpose.”

One corner of Palmer’s mouth turned up in a wry expression. “That’s the whole problem.”

“No one’s told them, huh?”

“Here is what’s happened,” Palmer said. “Those ministers planted a seed that grew into a tree. Nobody needs the tree, but it keeps right on growing. Savings banks give jobs to tens of thousands of employees, from the presidents on down to the clerks. True, there aren’t any stockholders. But the employee corps has a stake in making sure the savings banking system keeps flourishing.”

“Why not let them? I mean, people like to save at savings banks.”

“I’ll tell you why,” Palmer said. “That tree, the one that kept growing? It has deep roots. They’ve spread out and they keep spreading. And they’re stealing the nourishment from the ground on which we’re planted. Does that make it clear to you?”

“All of sudden, yes.” She sat back and stubbed out her cigarette. Then, looking up at him in a wary way, her eyes half hidden behind her long black lashes, she asked, “What are you going to do about the tree?”

Palmer looked at the table. “Prune it… drastically.”

4.9.1 Vocabulary notes

correspondent bank – банк-корреспондент

regular bank – обычный банк

wage earner – рабочий

stockholder – акционер, пайщик

earnings – заработок, доход, прибыль; поступления

government bonds – государственные ценные бумаги, правительственные облигации

old-age benefits – пособие по старости

welfare funds – пособие по безработице

social security – социальное страхование

4.9.2 Comments

they can't make business loans – они не могут предоставлять кредиты коммерческим предприятиям

that's a by-product of the real difference – это лишь косвенный результат существенного отличия

dominie – 1) шотл. Школьный учитель 2) амер. Священник, проповедник

he was banking's darling – от стал желанным гостем банка

true-blue – зд. Последовательно

they've outlived their usefulness – они (сбербанки) изжили себя

prune it… drastically – срубить его под корень

4.9.3 Fill in the gaps with the prepositions: with, on, of, to

1 The Ubco sells mortgages … them (the savings banks).

2 Poor people could do only two things … their money: hide it… the mattress or spend it.

3 It wasn’t safe under the mattress, so they spent it … the thing that would let them forget their poverty: whisky.

4 The regular banks … the period wouldn’t touch anything but business deposits or the estates … wealthy men.

5 The savings banks would accept anything, a penny … a week, what ever a wage earner wanted to put aside.

4.9.4 Fill in the gaps with the words: earnings, more, depositors, savings, keeps

1 The savings banks after the turn of the nineteenth century were owned by their …

2 All the … went right back to the wage earners who deposited their pennies in the savings bank.

3 A century and … Things happened to the wage earner, he became unionized.

4 The commercial banks welcomed the wage earner’s …

5 The employee corps has a stake in making sure the savings banking system… flourishing.

4.9.5 Complete the sentences:

1 The savings banks use …

2 The difference between a commercial and a savings bank is …

3 Right after the turn of the nineteenth century poor people do only two things with their money…

4 Karl Marx was only eight years old when …

5 Things happened to the wage earner. …

6 Savings banks give …

4.9.6 Write ten sentences using the following word combinations: the savings banks, the commercial banks, a business-like manner, the real difference, in any event, government bonds, wage earner, salary earner, social security, welfare funds

4.9.7 Answer the questions

1 What is the real difference between a commercial bank and a savings bank?

2 Can the savings banks make business loans?

3 What could poor people do with their money back about a century and a half?

4 Why did ministers, philanthropists, educators, reformers begin organizing savings banks right after the turn of the nineteenth century?

5 Do the savings banks have stockholders?

6 Who owns the savings banks?

7 Whom do all the earnings of the savings banks go to?

8 Where do the savings banks invest in?

9 What securities did wage earners get?

10 Why did the commercial banks stop turning up their noses at wage earners?

4.9.8 Make up a dialogue about commercial and savings banks using words and phrases of the text

4.9.9 Retell the text expressing your attitude to a savings bank problem

4.10 Text 10

THE BANKER

After Leslie Waller

Palmer walked into the lobby of the narrow old office building in which the Club was located.

Palmer glanced around. “Yes, sir?”

Palmer turned to find an elderly gentleman. Palmer said: “Mr. Palmer to see Mr. Loomis.”

“Yes, Mr. Palmer. He’s expecting you. This way, please.”

Palmer followed him along a rather narrow corridor.

The first impression most people got of Joseph Loomis was usually an accurate one, unchanged by closer inspection. He had probably looked this way for the past thirty years and his photograph was familiar to anyone who followed the financial news.

“Glad you could come,” Loomis said as the waiter arrived with small leather folders.

“How’s Burckhardt treating you?” Loomis asked then. “Leaving me pretty much alone.”

“Ha.” The monosyllable was not a laugh, but a word. “Lane leaves nobody alone. I imagine he warned you I’d turned renegade, eh?”

“He didn’t use exactly that word.”

“Too weak, eh? Turncoat? Traitor?”

“He told me about what I suppose a lot of people already know. Your loyalty to

Murray Hill Savings.”

“Can’t figure it out, I imagine,” Loomis said, smiling slightly. “Lane has a sharp mind for corporate structures and such. But he’s poor on people. Can’t read them the way he ought to. Or won’t take the trouble, more likely.”

“I really haven’t noticed that.”

“Seems pretty astute to you, eh?” Loomis asked. “Yes.”

“Why? Because he hired you?” Loomis smiled thinly again. “Sound judgement, eh?” The older man nodded several times. “All right. But he also hired Mac Burns. Eh?”

“And?” Palmer parried.

“Ha.” Loomis closed his menu with a sharp slap and pushed it away from him. “You’re about as close with words as your father before you.”

Palmer grinned, paused and cleared his throat. “About this Murray Hill Savings business.”

“Yes, all right.”

“The whole savings-bank thing, really,” Palmer amplified. “Does it have to be as serious as it seems to be?”

“Seems to who?” Loomis asked dryly. “Lane Burckhardt and who else?”

“You’ll have to forgive me there,” Palmer said. “I’m a country boy, still. I’m not as up on things as I’d like to.”

“Palmer,” the older man cut in. “Every time a man tells me he’s a country boy who isn’t up to our big city ways, I always finish without my wallet. Now, then. I will do you the favor of being entirely candid. I know the job you’ve been assigned. Will you be equally candid and stop pretending this fight with the savings banks is a holy crusade?”

Palmer smiled. “It’s refreshing to hear you say that.”

“Eh?” Lomis stared at him, then nodded by way of acknowledging the evasion. His large eyes scanned the room behind Palmer. “All of us here,” he said then, “understand that it’s a grab for cash. The savings banks now get more of the cash and the commercial banks want a bigger share than they’ve been getting. In a situation like that, nobody profits.”

“Except the public.”

“Exactly.” Loomis nodded again several times. “There are certain battles the public watches with ill-concealed glee. Any kind of retail price war, for example. The public couldn’t care less who wins. They simply step in and buy at the lowest prices they can find. What we have here is much the same thing. Bankers at each other’s throats? The public loves it. And, meanwhile, they shop around for an extra quarter of a per cent per annum as though it would make them all rich as Croesus. Who gains? They, not we. Are we agreed?”

“Agreed.”

“A man with your particular background,” Loomis went on quickly, “doesn’t have to be told that bankers, of all people, can’t afford to wash their dirty linen in public. Am I right?”

“You are.”

“It may be somebody’s meat,” Loomis added, “but it’s our position. Is that correct?”

“Correct.”

Palmer nodded politely, waited a second and then asked, with as little ingenuousness as he could muster: “Do I understand, then, that you’d be willing to withdraw your branch bill?”

Loomis sank back in his chair and for a moment, Palmer thought he had scored a point. It was an interesting game, now that he knew the name of it.

“You understand nothing of the sort,” Loomis said at last. He glanced up at Palmer. “They warned me you were bright,” he added in a quiet voice and looked down again.

“It’s just,” Palmer went on, “that it will be difficult to settle things out of the court as long as the savings banks pursue their branch bill.”

“And if we withdrew it?” Loomis’ glance lifted from his plate to fasten on Palmer.

“Then there’d be nothing to battle about.”

“Is this your view, or Lane’s?”

Palmer shrugged: “Anybody’s, I should think. No branch bill, no branch battle.”

Loomis nodded. “You have an odd idea of a compromise, eh? Nothing less than unconditional surrender.”

“I really wish Lane hadn’t found you, young man. You’re as intransigent as he.”

“Not really.”

“Perhaps more so, since you’re, as you say, new to the situation. One expects a wait-and-see attitude from a new man.”

“Actually, wait-and-see is my attitude,” Palmer said.

“Let me tell you something about Lane Burckhardt,” Loomis began. “He fancies himself a leader. He is, too. He has all the physical qualities of a great line officer: bearing, presence, style, dash, all the outward qualities. He seems born to deliver the line: “Follow me, men!” As head of Ubco, he adds something else to his natural attributes: great financial power. You would think, therefore, that he should be, and therefore is, the leader of the commercial banks, eh? But he’s not. No one is. Each bank follows its own destinies. After all, they compete with each other, as well as with the savings banks. What’s good for Ubco isn’t always good for its sister commercial banks. And when something’s bad for Ubco, not all of Lane’s immense personal qualities of leadership will convince his rival banks that they, too, are suffering. They may be. I should think they are, as a matter of obvious fact.

But they would suffer still more if they had to submit to Lane’s leadership, because they would be abdicating a piece of their own autonomy by so doing. You’ll find that the chief spokesman for the commercial banks in this state will always be some gentleman from a smaller bank, preferably upstate, who has been carefully chosen to head their trade association because, in real life, he is a pygmy among giants. The giants endorse him because they obviously surrender nothing by so doing. When Lane jumps into the situation, they flinch. They retreat. And that leaves Lane so far ahead of the parade that he can’t hear the music.”

Palmer smiled, not so much at the thought, but at the fact that Loomis had been effortlessly able to express it without cliches, unless you counted the parademusic thing.

“I think that figure with the baton out there in front all by himself,” he said, “isn’t Burckhardt. It’s me.”

For the first time since they had met, Loomis’ mouth split into a real, full grin.

“Now we’re talking,” he said. “I wondered if you’d understood just what Lane was doing to you.”

“But you’re not going to like this next thing,” Palmer said. “You see, the business of being a whatayacallit? Cat’s paw? Stalking horse? It may all be true.”

“I assure you it is,” the older man said. “But in doesn’t bother me in the least.”

Palmer watched him sit perfectly still for a moment. Then Loomis nodded twice. “I see,” he said, finally. “I was afraid of that.”

4.10.1 Vocabulary notes

wallet – бумажник

retail price – розничная цена

to compete – конкурировать

4.10.2 Comments

monosyllable – односложное слово

turncoat – ренегат, перебежчик

4.10.3 Fill in the gaps with the prepositions: in, with, of, into, at, by

1 Woods Palmer walked … the lobby of the narrow old office building … which the Club was located.

2 Woods Palmer made the appointment … Joseph Loomis … the Club.

3 Joseph Loomis was expecting … Woods Palmer.

4 The first impression most people got… Joseph Loomis was usually an accurate one, unchanged … closer inspection.

5 The waiter arrived … small leather folders.

4.10.4 Fill in the gaps with the words: retail price, wash their dirty linen, as long as, as well as, commercial banks

1 The savings banks now get more of the cash and the want a bigger share than they’ve been getting.

2 There are certain battles the public watches with ill-concealed glee, for example, any kind of......war.

3 A man with your particular background doesn’t have to be told that bankers, of all people, can’t afford to............in public.

4 It will be difficult to settle things out of the court the savings banks pursue their branch bill.

5 Each bank follows its own destinies. After all, they compete with each other.........with the savings banks.

4.10.5 Write ten sentences using the following word combinations:immense personal qualities, rival banks, as a matter of obvious fact, ill-concealed glee, in a situation like this, to wash smb’s dirty linen in public, great financial power, in real life, to have a sharp mind for corporate structures, to close the file with a sharp slap and push it away from …

4.10.6 Complete the sentences:

1 Each bank follows …

2 The commercial banks compete with …

3 As a matter of obvious fact the savings banks …

4 Palmer watched Loomis …

5 Loomis closed his menu …

6 This Murray Hill Savings business is …

7 Lane Burckhardt had a sharp mind for…

8 Lane Burckhardt headed …

9 Joseph Loomis headed …

10 I’m not as up on things as …

4.10.7 Answer the questions

1 Where was the Club located?

2 Whom did Palmer make the appointment at the Club with?

3 What was Joseph Loomis?

4 How did he look like?

5 What was Woods Palmer?

6 How did Woods Palmer look like?

7 How did Joseph Loomis treat Woods Palmer?

8 What were Palmer’s immense personal qualities?

9 Who had a sharp mind for corporate structures?

10 Why did Joseph Loomis and Woods Palmer discuss Lane Burckhardt?

4.10.8 Sum up the given extract

4.10.9 Pair work: Make up the dialogue between Palmer and Loomis at the Club dinner

4.11 Text 11

A WOMAN OF SUBSTANCE

After Barbara Taylor Bradford

Emma slipped on her horn-rimmed glasses and took up the large blue folder that pertained to Sitex Oil. As she quickly ran through the papers there was a gleam of satisfaction in her eyes. She had won. At last, after three years of the most despicable and manipulative fighting she had ever witnessed, Harry Marriott had been removed as president of Sitex and kicked upstairs to become chairman of the board.

Emma has recognized Marriott’s shortcomings years ago. She knew that if he was not entirely venal he was undoubtedly exigent and specious and dissimulation had become second nature to him. Over the years, success and the accumulation of great wealth had only served to reinforce these traits, so that now it was impossible to deal with him on any level of reason. As far as Emma was concerned, his judgement was crippled, he had lost the little foresight he had once had, and he certainly had no comprehension of the rapidly shifting inner worlds of international business.

As she made notations on the documents for future reference, she hoped there would be no more vicious confrontations at Sitex. Yesterday she had been mesmerized by the foolhardiness of Harry’s actions, had watched in horrified fascination as he had so skilfully manoeuvred himself into a corner from which Emma knew there was no conceivable retreat. He had appealed to her friendship of some forty-odd years only once, floundering, helpless, lost; a babbling idiot in the face of his adversaries, of whom she was the most formidable. Emma had answered his pleas with total silence, an inexorable look in her pitiless eyes. And she had won. With the full support of the board. Harry was out. The new man, her man, was in and Sitex Oil was safe. But there was no joy in her victory, for to Emma there was nothing joyful in a man’s downfall.

Satisfied that the papers were in order, Emma put the folder and her glasses in her briefcase, settled back in her seat, and sipped the cup of coffee. After a few seconds she addressed Paula. “Now that you have been to several Sitex meetings, do you think you can cope alone soon?”

Paula glanced up from the balance sheets, a look of astonishment crossing her face. “You wouldn’t send me in there alone!” she exclaimed. “It would be like sending a lamb to the slaughter. You wouldn’t do that to me yet.” As she regarded her grandmother she recognized that familiar inscrutable expression for what it truly was, a mask to hide Emma’s ruthless determination. My God, she does mean it, Paula thought with a sinking feeling. “You are not really serious, are you, Grandmother?”

“Of course I’m serious!” A flicker of annoyance crossed Emma’s face. She was surprised at the girl’s unexpected but unequivocal nervousness, for Paula was accustomed to high-powered negotiations and had always displayed nerve and shrewdness. “Do I ever say anything I don’t mean? You know better than that, Paula,” she said sternly.