"Hey, that's good," said the man on the next stool. "Let me buy you that drink."

The editor did not notice that all the while the

man talked to him, he kept his right hand jammed into his jacket pocket.

The next day the editor remembered Rocco No-bile and telephoned for an appointment. He was ushered into Nobile's office and sitting room that very afternoon, and he spoke with Nobile for two hours and it might have been longer except he refused, absolutely refused, to have Mr. Nobile go to the trouble of sending out for another bottle of Creme de Menthe to make more stingers on the rocks.

The next day, the Bay City Bugle announced that Rocco Nobile, a self-made multi-millionaire who had made a giant fortune in the oil importing business, had moved to Bay City.

His goal, he said, was to "do what little I can" to revitalize the city and to get the piers working again.

Rocco Nobile said that he owed Bay City a debt he wanted to repay because when his great-grandparents had come to America seventy-five years earlier, they had settled first in Bay City. "I want to repay our family's debt to this great land of freedom and opportunity," Nobile said. In parentheses, the editor added: "A fine and noble sentiment. Would that more of us felt that way."

Before the story appeared, Nobile told his secretary in her office, "When that drunk's story appears, you're going to hear from the mayor. He'll want to talk to me. Tell him that I'm going to be in and out of town for the next few days. Make the appointment for next Wednesday. Here."

Mayor Douglass Windlow called on time as No-

8

bile had expected and the appointment was made for the following week.

In the meantime, Nobile's men prowled the city day and night, buying drinks in taverns, courtesy of Rocco Nobile. They visited homes, dispensing leaflets on aid programs for the elderly and sick, courtesy of Rocco Nobile. They talked a lot, but they listened more.