He tied his critic up in knots of self-assertion and bad logic which presently he deftly, deliberately and skilfully untied, to the delight of all the group.
"He's got as much in his ten years in the business as we've got out of half a life-time," said the chief of his admirers.

This was the President who had first welcomed him into business, and introduced him to his colleagues in enterprise.
"I shouldn't be surprised if the belt flew off the wheel some day," savagely said Ingolby's snub-souled critic, whose enmity was held in check by the fact that on Ingolby, for the moment, depended the safety of the hard cash he had invested.
But the qualities which alienated an expert here and there caught the imagination of the pioneer spirits of Lebanon.

Except those who, for financial reasons, were opposed to him, and must therefore pit themselves against him, as the representatives of bigger forces behind them, he was a leader of whom Lebanon was combatively proud.

At last he came to the point where his merger was practically accomplished, and a problem arising out of it had to be solved.

It was a problem which taxed every quality of an able mind.