The Battle of Basinghall Street by E. Phillips Oppenheim

Nathaniel Edgar Pontifex, first Baron Marsom, chairman of the famous textile business known as Woolito, Limited, stood at the head of a long mahogany table in the magnificent library of his Park Lane mansion and looked swiftly around the room with quick, birdlike glances, as though to assure himself that everything was in order. He had purposely outstripped his guests, who were loitering across the winter garden from the dining room. He wanted just this one minute to himself.

They were a strange-looking company, these warriors of commerce who were following him, not one of them bearing in gait or features any suggestion of gentle birth. There were big men and small men, some dark-haired and some fair-complexioned, differing in many respects, but every one of them with the hard mouth and keen eyes of the successful man. That they had met with success was a proven thing, for each one was a member of the board of the celebrated Woolito Company. Their cheeks were a trifle flushed with wine. Most of them were smoking large and very wonderful cigars. They trooped rather noisily into the room and, as each arrived, he was shown to his seat by a pale-faced, bespectacled young man in morning clothes, Andrew Crooks, Lord Marsom's private secretary.