Lefko scuttled to a phone and dickered with another bookie somewhere while Charles absently studied the crowd of chattering, laughing horseplayers. ("Mister Orsino, did you come out to make a monkey of yourself and waste my time? Confound it, sir, you have just fifty round to a chukker and you must make them count!" He grinned unhappily. Old Gilby, the pro, could be abrasive when a bone-head play disfigured the game he loved. Charles had been sure Benny Grashkin's jeep would conk out in a minute--it had been sputtering badly enough--and that he would have had a dirt-cheap scoring shot while Benny changed mounts. But Gilby blew the whistle and wasn't interested in your fine-spun logic. "Confound it, sir, when will you young rufflers learn that you must crawl before you walk? Now let me see a team rush for the goal--and I mean _team_, Mr. Orsino!") "_Here_ we are, Mr. Orsino, and just in time. There goes the seventh." Charles shook hands and left amid screams of "Hearthmouse! Hearthmouse!" from the lady bettors watching the screen. High up in the Syndic Building, F. W. Taylor--Uncle Frank to Charles--was giving a terrific tongue-lashing to a big, stooped old man. Thornberry, president of the Chase National Bank, had pulled a butch and F. W. Taylor was blazing mad about it. He snarled: "One more like this, Thornberry, and you are out on your padded can. When a respectable member of the Syndic chooses to come to you for a line of credit, you will in the future give it without any tom-fool quibbling about security. You bankers seem to think this is the middle ages and that your bits of paper still have their old black magic. "Disabuse yourself of the notion. Nobody except you believes in it. The Inexorable Laws of Economics are as dead as Dagon and Ishtar, and for the same reason. No more worshippers. You bankers can't shove anybody around any more. You're just a convenience, like the non-playing banker in a card game. "What's real now is the Syndic. What's real about the Syndic is its own morale and the public's faith in it. Is that _clear_?" Thornberry brokenly mumbled something about supply and demand. Taylor sneered. "Supply and demand. Urim and Thummim. Show me a supply, Thornberry, show me a--oh, hell. I haven't time to waste re-educating you. Remember what I told you and don't argue. Unlimited credit to Syndic members. If they overdo it, _we'll_ rectify the situation. Now, get out." And Thornberry did, with senile tears in his eyes. At Mother Maginnis' Ould Sod Pub, Mother Maginnis pulled a long face when Charles Orsino came in. "It's always a pleasure to see you, Mr. Orsino, but I'm afraid this week it'll be no pleasure for you to see me." She was always roundabout. "Why, what do you mean, Mrs. M.? I'm always happy to say hello to a customer."