William laughed out of relief.

'What are you going to call him?.'

'Richard fligginson. Kane.'

The doctor patted the new father affectionately on the shoulder. 'I hope I live long enough to deliver Richard's first - born.'

William immediately wired the rector of St. Paul's, who put the boy down for a place in 1943, and then the new father and Matthew got thoroughly drunk and were both late arriving at the hospital the next morning to see Kate. William took Matthew for another look at young Richard.

'Ugly little bastard,' said Matthew, 'not at all like his beautiful mother!

'That's what I thought,' said William.

'Spitting image of you, though!

William returned to Kate's flower - filled room.

'Do you like your son?' Kate asked her husband. 'He's so like you.'

'I'll hit the next person who says that,' William said. 'He's the ugliest little thing I've ever seen.'

'Oh, no,' said Kate in mock indignation, 'he's beautiful!

'A face only a mother could love,'said William and hugged his wife.

She clung to him, happy in his happiness.

'What would Grandmother Kane have said about our first - born entering the world after less than eight months of marriage? "I don't wish to appear uncharitable, but anyone born in under fifteen months must be considered of dubious parentage; under nine months definitely unacceptable,"'

William mimicked. 'By the way, Kate, I forgot to tell you something before they rushed you into the hospital!

'What was that?'

'I love you,'

Kate and young Richard had to stay in the hospital for nearly three weeks. Not until after Christmas did Kate fully recover her vitality.

Richard, on the other hand, grew like an uncontrolled weed, no one having informed him that he was a Kane, and one was not supposed to do that sort of thing. William became the first male Kane to change a nappy and push a perambulator. Kate was very proud of him, and somewhat surprised.

William told Matthew that it was high time he found himself a good woman and settled down.

Matthew laughed defensively. 'You're getting positively middle - aged. I shall be looking for grey hairs next.'

One or two had already appeared during the chairmanship battle. Matthew hadn't noticed.

William was not able to put a finger on exactly when his relationship with Tony Simmons began to deteriorate badly.

Tony would continually veto one policy suggestion after another, and his negative attitude made William seriously consider resignation again. Matthew was not helping matters by returning to his old drinking habits. The period of reform had not lasted more than a few months, and, if anything, he was now drinking more heavily than before and arriving at the bank a few minutes later each morning. William wasn't qtdte sure how to handle the new situation and found himself continually covering Matthew's work. At the end of each day, William would double - check Matthew's mail and return his unanswered calls.

By the spring of 1936, as investors gained more confidence and depositors returned, William decided the time had come to go tentatively back into the stock market, but Tony vetoed the suggestion in an off - hand, inter - office memorandum to the financial comn - ,Littee. William stormed into Tony's office to ask if his resignation would be welcome.

'Certainly not, William. I merely want you to recognise that it has always been my policy to run this bank in a conservative manner, and that I am not willing to charge headlong bark into the market with our investors' money!

'But we're losing business hand - over - fist to other banks while we sit on the sidelines watching them take advantage of the present situation. ' Banks which we wouldn!t even have considered as rivals ten years ago will soon be overtaking us.'

'Overtaking us in what, William? Not in reputation. Quick profits perhaps, but not reputation.'

'But I'm interested in profits,' said William. 'I consider it a bank's duty to make good returns for its investors, not to mark time in a gentlemanly fashion.'

'I would rather stand still than lose the reputation that this bank built up under your grandfather and father over the better part of half a century!

'Yes, but both of them were always looking for new opportunities to expand the bank's activities.'

'In good times,' said Tony.

'And in bad,'said William.

'Why are you so upset, William? you still have a free hand in the running of your own department!

'Like hell I do. You block anything that even suggests enterprise!