A Prince of the Captivity by John Buchan

Adam and Falconet dined in the latter's rooms in St James's Street. Another man joined them after dinner, whose name was Blakiston, an Englishman who had been for thirty years in New York and was Falconet's partner in many enterprises. He was small, grizzled and clean-shaven, and when he spoke he had the habit of dangling tortoiseshell eyeglasses at the end of a black ribbon. He looked the conventional banker, and he had a note-book which was seldom out of his hand.

He gave a list of businesses which sounded like an extract from the speech of the chairman of an investment company.