Free Paper Money by Ken Follett Page B

HAMILTON was met at Waterloo Station by another chauffeur, this
    time in a Jaguar. The Chairman's Rolls-Royce had gone in the economy
    drive:
     
    sadly, the unions had not appreciated the gesture.
     
    The chauffeur touched his cap and held the door, and Hamilton got in
    without speaking.
     
    As the car pulled away he made a decision. He would not go straight to
    the office. He said: "Take me to Nathaniel Fett you know where it is?"
     
    The chauffeur said: "Yes, sir."
     
    They crossed Waterloo Bridge and turned into the Aldwych, heading for
    the City. Hamilton and Fett had both gone to Westminster School:
    Nathaniel Fett senior had known that his son would not suffer for his
    Jewishness there, and Lord Hamilton had believed that the school would
    not turn his son into an upper-class twit--his Lordship's phrase.
     
    The two boys had superficially similar backgrounds. Both had wealthy,
    dynamic fathers and beautiful mothers; both were from intellectual
    households where politicians came to dinner; both grew up surrounded by
    good paintings and unlimited books. Yet, as the friendship grew, and the
    two young men went to Oxford--Fett to Balliol, Hamilton to Magdalen--the
    Hamilton house had suffered by the comparison. Derek came to see his own
    father's intellect as shallow. Old man Fett would tolerantly discuss
    abstract painting, communism, and be-bop jazz, then tear them to pieces
    with surgical accuracy. Lord Hamilton held the same conservative views,
    but expressed them in the thundering cliches of a House of Lords speech.
     
    Derek smiled to himself in the back of the car.
     
    He had been too hard on his father; perhaps sons always were. Few men
    had known more about political skirmishing: the old man's cleverness had
    given him real power, whereas Nathaniel's father had been too wise ever
    to wield real influence in affairs of state.
     
    Nathaniel had inherited that wisdom and made a career of it. The
    stockbroking firm which had been owned by six generations of firstborn
    sons named Nathaniel Fett had been changed, by the seventh, into a
    merchant bank. People had always gone to Nathaniel for advice, even at
    school. Now he advised on mergers, share issues, and takeovers.
     
    The car pulled up. Hamilton said: "Wait for me, please.
     
    The offices of Nathaniel Fett were not impressive--the firm had no need
    to prove itself rich.
     
    There was a small nameplate outside a street-door near the Bank of
    England. The entrance was flanked by a sandwich shop on one side and a
    tobacconist's on the other. A casual observer might have taken it for a
    small, and none-too-prosperous, insurance or shipping company; but he
    would not have known how far the premises to either side were occupied
    by the one firm.
     
    The inside was comfortable, rather than opulent, with air conditioning,
    concealed lighting, and carpets which had aged well and stopped short of
    the walls. The same casual observer might have thought that the
    paintings hanging on the walls were expensive. He would have been right
    and wrong: they were expensive, but they were not hanging on the walls.
    They were set into the brickwork behind armored glass--only the false
    frames actually hung on top of the wallpaper.
     
    Hamilton was shown straight in to Fett's ground-floor office. Nathaniel
    was sitting in a club chair reading The Financial Times. He stood up to
    shake hands.
     
    Hamilton said: "I've never seen you sitting at that desk. Is it just for
    decoration?"
     
    "Sit down, Derek. Tea, coffee, sherry?"
     
    "A glass of milk, please."
     
    "If you would, Valerie." Fett nodded to his secretary. and she went out.
    "The desk--no, I never use it. Everything I write is dictated; nothing I
    read is too heavy to hold in my hands; why should I sit at a desk like a
    clerk in Dickens?"
     
    "So it is for decoration."
     
    "It's been here longer than I. Too big to get out through the door and
    too valuable to chop up. I think they built the place around