Pictorial Ditionary of British 19th Century Furniture Design

Jamie, he believed, would back us. The government principalsБЂ”Ben, Tim, Sheila, John Dugan, and IБЂ”met one final time to go over the plan, deciding who would say what. When the nine bankers arrived at Treasury for the 3:00 p.m. meetingБЂ”walking up the Treasury steps past a phalanx of TV cameras and photographersБЂ”we had our plan down cold. Once inside, they were directed to my large conference room. IБЂ™d had so many meetings in this room that its splendor and idiosyncrasiesБЂ”the 19th-century furniture and chandeliers, the framed currency and tax seals on the oiled walnut wallsБЂ”had become almost as familiar as my living room. But I wondered if our visitors found it strange to be working out 21st-century problems in such a historic setting and beneath the portraits of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln. We took our seats at the long table, with Ben, Sheila, Tim, John, and me on one side, and the CEOs sitting across from us, arranged alphabetically by bank. Fortunately, given their dispute over Wachovia, this meant that CitiБЂ™s Pandit and WellsБЂ™s Kovacevich were at opposite ends of the table ...»