'What are you paid?' said Mr. Leroy.

The suddenness of the question took Abel by surprise. 'I take in around twenty4five dollars a week with tips.'

'I'll start you at thirty - five a week.'

'Which hotel are you referring to?' asked Abel, 'If I'm a judge of character, Abel, you got off table duty about thrre - thirty and took the next thirty minutes finding out which hotel. Am I right?'

Abel was beginning to like the man. 'The Richmond Continental in Chicago?' he ventured.

Davis Leroy laughed. 'I was right, and right about you." Abel's mind was working fast. 'How many people are there over the assistant manager on the hotel staff ?'

'Only the manager and me. The manager is slow, gentle, and near retirement, and as I have ten other hotels to worry about, I don't think you'll have too much trouble - although I must confess Chicago is my favourite, my first hotel in the North, and with Melanie at school there, I find I spend more time in the Windy City than I ought to. Don't ever make the mistake New Yorkers do of underestimating Chicago. They think Chicago is only a postage stamp on a very large envelope, and they are the envelope.'

Abel smiled.

'The hotel is a little run down at the moment,' Mr. Leroy continued, 'and the last assistant manager walked out on me suddenly without an explanation, so I need a good man to take his place and to realise its full potential. Now listen, Abel, I've watched you carefully for the last five days and I know you're that man. Do you think you would be in - terested in coming to Chicago?'

Torty dollars and ten per cent of any increased profits, and I'll take the job.'

'What?' said Davis Leroy, flabbergasted. 'None of my managers are paid on a profit basis. The others would raise hell if they ever found out.'

'I'm not going to tell them if you don't,' said Abel.

'Now I know I chose the right man, even if he bargains a damn sight better than a Yankee with six daughters.' He slapped the side of his chair. 'I agree to your terms, Abel.'

'Will you be requiring references, Mr. Leroy?'

'References. I know your background and history since you left Europe right through to you getting a degree in economics at Columbia. What do you think I've been doing the last few days? I wouldn't put someone who needed re - ferences in as number two in my best hotel. When can you start?'

'A month from today.'

'Good. I look forward to seeing you then, Abel!

Abel rose from the hotel chair; he felt happier standing. He shook hands with Mr. Davis Leroy, the man from table seventeen - the one that was strictly for unknowns.

Leaving New York and the Plaza Hotel, his first real home since the castle near Slonim, turned out to be more of a wrench than Abel had anticipated.

Goodbyes to George, Monika~ and his few Columbia friends were unexpectedly hard. Jarnmy and the waiters threw a farewell party for him.

'We haven't heard the last of you, Abel Rosnovski," Sammy said, and they all agreed.

The Richmond Continental in Chicago was well - placed on Michigan Avenue, in the heart of the fastest growing city in America. That pleased Abel, who was only too familiar with Ellsworth Statler's maxim that just three things about a hotel really mattered : position, position and position. Abel soon discovered that position was about the only good thing that the Richmond had. Davis Leroy had understated the case when he had said that the hotel was a little run down. Desmond Pacey, the manager, wasn't slow and gentle as Davis Leroy had described him; he was plain lazy and didn't endear himself to Abel by allocating him a tiny room in the staff annex across the road and leaving him out of the main hotel. A quick check on the Richmond's books revealed that the daily occupancy rate was running at less than forty per cent, and that the restaur - ant was never more than half full, not least of all because the food was so appalling. The staff spoke three or four languages among them., none of which seemed to be English, and there were ccrtainly not any signs of welcome for the stupid Polack from New York. It was not hard to see why the last assistant manager had left in such a hurry.

If the Richmond was Davis Leroy's favourite hotel, Abel feared for the other ten in the group, even though his new employer seemed to have a bottomless pot of gold at the end of his Texas rainbow.

The best news that Abel learned during his first days in Chicago was that Melanie Lexoy was an only child, William and Matthew started their freshmen year at Harvard in the fall of 1924. Despite his grandmothers' disapproval William accepted the Hamilton Memorial Scholarship and at a cost of two hundred and ninety dollars, treated himself to 'Daisy', the latest Model T Ford, and first real love of his life. He painted Daisy bright yellow, which halved her value and doubled the number of his girlfriends. Calvin Coolidge won a landslide election to return to the White House and the volume on the New York Stock Exchange reached a five - year record of two million, three hundred and thirty - six thousand, one hundred and sixty shares.