No sooner had I settled down at my desk, however, than Graham Wasson and Phil Cone came dancing in, wreathed in tickertape. "We're rich! We're rich!" they chanted. "Where's the Marine Band and 'Hail to the Chief'?" I asked. "How rich are we, anyway?" "We cleaned up," Wasson said. "Just a bit under three million in one week. It was as you said. We went short of the market and after Roosevelt's death, boy! did they liquidate! And thanks to Phil here, we got out before the big boys put the squeeze on the shorts." "That reminds me, Winnie," Cone interrupted, "one of the mourners in the customers room who's waiting to see you is Jim DeForest from Morgan's. He's been waiting here since two o'clock. You'd better see him quick, huh? We don't want to keep 23 Wall waiting, do we?" "Nuts, Phil," I told him. "I'll see them in the order of their arrival. That's what they do at Morgan's when you haven't got an appointment." I pushed the button for Arthurjean. "Who's been waiting the longest, Miss Briggs," I asked. She consulted a little pack of memo forms. "There's this Mr. Sylvester," she said. "He was here when the office opened and has been waiting here all day. He wouldn't state his business." "Okay," I replied. "Send him in or he'll faint from hunger." Mr. Sylvester was florid in a quiet Latin way and looked as though he might be anything from an operatic tenor to the proprietor of a gambling ship. He waited until my partners had withdrawn. "Mr. Tompkins," he said, speaking quietly, "I represent a syndicate that's reorganizing the free market in meat. We need a real smart guy, well-connected, like yourself, to head it up and keep track of the money. We'll pay a million dollars a year any way you like it--Swiss banks, Havana, Buenos Aires, Mexico City--and no tax." "I'm always interested in a million dollars but I never did like Atlanta," I told him. "Atlanta!" He shrugged his shoulders. "We got lawyers could talk Capone outa Alcatraz and we got a fix on the Courts, too. What would you be doin' in Atlanta?" "I doubt that they'd make me librarian," I said, "and I don't think I'd make the ball-team, so I guess I'd have to work in the laundry. What's the trouble with the black market, anyhow? Seems to me you've got O.P.A. right in your corner." "Too many amateurs and outsiders," he told me, "just like with Prohibition. Meat's bad and too many cops get a cut. We aim to do like the beer syndicates--organize it right, keep prices reasonable, have the pay-off stabilized, make it a good banking proposition. We've checked on you. You're smart. Would a million and a half do?" I shook my head. "I've got a million and a half," I remarked. "Okay," Mr. Sylvester straightened up, shook my hand and gave a little bow. "Think it over!" he urged. "If you change your mind put an ad in the Saturday Review personal column. 'Meet me anywhere, Winnie!' That's cute. 'Meet' and 'Meat,' see? Our representative will call on you."