It was Harran who first spoke.
"S.

Behrman manipulated the whole affair.

There's a big deal of some kind in the air, and if there is, we all know who is back of it; S.
Behrman, of course, but who's back of him?
It's Shelgrim." Shelgrim! The name fell squarely in the midst of the conversation, abrupt, grave, sombre, big with suggestion, pregnant with huge associations.

No one in the group who was not familiar with it; no one, for that matter, in the county, the State, the whole reach of the West, the entire Union, that did not entertain convictions as to the man who carried it; a giant figure in the end-of-the-century finance, a product of circumstance, an inevitable result of conditions, characteristic, typical, symbolic of ungovernable forces.

In the New Movement, the New Finance, the reorganisation of capital, the amalgamation of powers, the consolidation of enormous enterprises--no one individual was more constantly in the eye of the world; no one was more hated, more dreaded, no one more compelling of unwilling tribute to his commanding genius, to the colossal intellect operating the width of an entire continent than the president and owner of the Pacific and Southwestern.
"I don't think, however, he has moved yet," said Magnus.
"The thing for us, then," exclaimed Osterman, "is to stand from under before he does." "Moved yet!" snorted Annixter.