The conservative in financial circles I have often described as a man who thinks nothing new ought ever to be adopted for the first time.

I want no men around me who have not the knack of making friends.

I was as secretive - indeed, as furtive - as any conspirator. Discovery, we knew, simply must not happen, or else all our time and effort would be wasted. If it were to be exposed that our particular group had got together and written a banking bill, that bill would have no chance whatever of passage by Congress.

The conservative in financial circles I have often described as a man who thinks nothing new ought ever to be adopted for the first time.