Manchurian Books

This room had a window, too, looking out into the hotel courtyard with
its fern-set fountains and mosaic pavement, and the young men would
stand against this and sometimes even mutter. One day I heard one
repeating in all urgent whisper as I passed "But you don't quite see,
Mr. Ponderevo, the full advantages, the FULL advantages--" I met his eye
and he was embarrassed.
Then came a room with a couple of secretaries--no typewriters, because
my uncle hated the clatter--and a casual person or two sitting about,
projectors whose projects were being entertained. Here and in a further
room nearer the private apartments, my uncle's correspondence underwent
an exhaustive process of pruning and digestion before it reached him.
Then the two little rooms in which my uncle talked; my magic uncle who
had got the investing public--to whom all things were possible. As one
came in we would find him squatting with his cigar up and an expression
of dubious beatitude upon his face, while some one urged him to grow
still richer by this or that.
"That'ju, George?" he used to say.


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