There were whispers of wider and higher ambitions.

Though his father had been born a Greek, he had indubitably descended in a direct line from one of those old Mprets of Albania, who had exercised their brief authority over that turbulent land.
The man's passion was for power.

To this end he did not spare himself.
It was said that he utilized his vast wealth for this reason, and none other, and that whatever might have been the irregularities of his youth--and there were adduced concrete instances--he was working toward an end with a singleness of purpose, from which it was difficult to withhold admiration.
T.X.kept in his locked desk a little red book, steel bound and triple locked, which he called his "Scandalaria." In this he inscribed in his own irregular writing the titbits which might not be published, and which often helped an investigator to light upon the missing threads of a problem.

In truth he scorned no source of information, and was conscienceless in the compilation of this somewhat chaotic record.
The affairs of John Lexman recalled Kara, and Kara's great reception.
Mansus would have made arrangements to secure a verbatim report of the speeches which were made, and these would be in his hands by the night.
Mansus did not tell him that Kara was financing some very influential people indeed, that a certain Under-secretary of State with a great number of very influential relations had been saved from bankruptcy by the timely advances which Kara had made.

This T.X.had obtained through sources which might be hastily described as discreditable.