Some political friends persuaded him to join in the founding of a great daily representing the left wing of liberalism, and he consented. A new catchword arose, a People’s Theatre; and it was his ambition to be named among those who furthered the new panacea. He caused the publishing house that he had financed to issue a new edition of the classics, distinguished by tasteful editing and exquisite bookmaking. He received twenty to thirty telegrams daily, and sent between forty and fifty; he kept three typists busy, and suffered from the lack of a telephone while he was in motor cars or on express trains. He discovered the value of a half-forgotten painter of the Quattrocento for modern connoisseurs, and by means of literary advertisements caused fabulous prices to be offered for the painter’s few and faded works. He gambled on the American stock exchange, and made four hundred thousand marks; next week he lost double the amount in a deal in Roumanian timber. Sitting in his steam-bath, he sketched the plan of a mock-heroic poem; between three and five at night he dictated in alternation a translation of a novel by Lesage and an essay in economics; he carried on an elaborate correspondence with the chief of a theosophical society; drank like an aristocratic fraternity student, spent money like water, subsidized young artists, was constantly on the trail of new inventions, and fairly pursued promising engineers, chemists, and experts in aeronautics. One of his boldest plans was the founding of a stock company for the exploitation of the hidden coal-fields of the Antarctic regions. He assured all doubters that the profits would run to billions and that the difficulties were trifling. One day he made the acquaintance of a technical expert named Schlehdorn. The man hardly inspired confidence, but Imhof overlooked that as well as his shabbiness. As though by the way Schlehdorn mentioned the difficulty caused the German marine by the fact that all glass for ships’ port-holes had to be imported from Belgium and France. The secret of its manufacture was stringently guarded by certain factories in those countries. Whoever succeeded in unearthing it was a made man. Imhof swallowed the bait. He let the man inform him in regard to possible plans, agreed with him upon a special telegraphic code, and financed him generously. The telegrams he received sounded hopeful. Schlehdorn, to be sure, demanded larger and larger sums. He explained that he had had to bribe influential persons. Imhof deliberately silenced his suspicions; he was curious what the end would be.