The Great Monopoly

in order to follow by sea and land the actual wanderings of Odysseus. The hot weather gave me fever. I was delayed in my undertaking, and I only returned to town in November, just in time to deliver the first of my lectures. It was in the second·week of that month that I was again present at a dinner party in the house by the Marble Arch.

As I entered the room I saw that matters had progressed. There were quite twenty people present, most of them, so far as I could gather from the conversation which went on about me, the smaller Bradford manufacturers. Speedy sat next to me, and I asked him how things were going.

"Finely," he replied. "We are going to effect a great combination. The public announcement will be made in less than a month. You see," and he looked round the table, "we have already come to the smaller fry. They must come in, or be crushed out of the trade altogether."

The dinner was in most respects a copy of those which had gone before. The samples of wool were sent r