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Abel sat motionless, stunned by the outburst Before half of his tirade was over, Abel felt that any counter - argu to be pointless He waited for the histrionic speech to colad the senator couldn’t see his startled face

’Senator, I’ht and I’m sorry to have wasted your tiht of it in quite that light before!

’Well, it just goes so sho tricky’those co ’You have to keep an eye on them all the tier the American people face’

’I a the trouble to speak to me personally Goodbye, Senator!

’Goodbye, Rosenovski’

Abel heard the phone click and realised it was the sa door

29

Willia older when Kate teased hi hair, hairs which he used to be able to count and now no longer could, and Richard started to bring girls home whom he found attractive

Willia ladies, as he called them, perhaps because they were all rather like Kate who, he considered, was e than she had ever been His daughters, Virginia and Lucy, now also becor - rew in the i quite an artist and the kitchen and children’s bedrooenius, as Richard described thee came the day Richard started cello lessons when even the servants were heard to murmur unsavoury cos Lucy adored thern both and considered Virginia with uncritical prejudice the new Picasso and Richard the new Casals Williaan to wonder what the future would hold for all three of theer around In Kate’s eyes all three children advanced satisfactorily Richard, now at St Paul’s, had ih at the cello to be chosen to play in a school concert, while Virginia was painting well enough for one of her pictures to be hung in the front roo to be the beauty when, aged only eleven, she started receiving little love notes from boys who until then had only shown an interest in baseball

In 1951, Richard, was accepted at Harvard and although he did not win the top mathematics scholarship, Kate was quick to point out to William that he had played baseball and the cello for St Paul’s, two accomplishments William had never so much as attempted to master William was secretly proud of Richard’s achievewas an to believe in a lasting peace William soon found himself overworked, and for a short time, the threat of Abel Rosnovski and the probleround

The flow of quarterly reports from Thaddeus Cohen indicated that Rosnovski had e - through a third party he had let every stockholder other than William know of his interest in Lester’s shares Willia towards a direct confrontation between hian to feel that the ti when he would have to inform the Lester’s board of Rosnovski’s actions and perhaps even to offer his resignation if the bank looked to be under siege, a move that would result in a complete victory for Abel Rosnovski, which was the one reason William did not seriously conteht for his life, fight he would, and if one of the two had to go under, he would do everything in his power to ensure that it wasn’t William Kane

The probleramme was finally taken out of William’s hands

Early in 1951, the bank had been invited to represent one of America’s new airline coency granted thehts between the East and West coasts The airline approached Lester’s bank when they needed to raise the thirtyrequired by governulations

William considered the airline and the whole project to be orth supporting, and he spent virtually his entire ti to raise the necessary thirtyas the sponsor for the project, put all their resources behind the new venture ’Me project becaest since he had returned to Lester’s, and he realised that his personal reputation was at stake when he went to the market for the thirtywere announced the stock was snapped up in a matter of days William received lavish praise from all quarters for the way he had handled the project and carried it through to such a successful conclusion He could not have been happier about the outcome himself, until he read in Thaddeus Cohen’s next report that ten per cent of the airline’s stock had been obtained by one of Abel Rosnovski’s dummy corporations