How so? Theo explains. Well-meaning dirigistes in the US have encouraged banks to provide mortgages for poor people who have now defaulted on their loans. The loans had been sold on in packages to other banks and no one knows which are good and which are bad. ‘Imagine,’ says Theo, ‘a huge balloon held up by a thousand little helium-filled party balloons.’ A delinquent toddler has pricked some of the little party balloons with a pin. They start to lose their buoyancy. The big balloon begins to sink. It is difficult to sift the pin-pricked party balloons from the undamaged party balloons. Can it be done before the big balloon hits the ground? Probably not. No one now wants to put their party balloons beneath the canopy of the big balloon. Can it be kept afloat by more party balloons provided by the taxpayer? Perhaps, but even so the big balloon must shed ballast. Factories will close. Businesses fail. Hedge funds will go under. Jobs will be lost. Belts will be tightened. Inessential expenditure curtailed – holidays, restaurants and subscriptions to London clubs.

Theo sits on the committee of the Athenaeum. He fears that there will be cancelled subscriptions and a consequential need to prune the staff. Andro, Bekim and possibly Clarita may be dismissed – all because the well-meaning Democrats could not leave well alone. Will Theo be affected? No, quite to the contrary. Theo is ahead of the game. He is ‘shorting’ a number of banks. He advises Jomier to put any assets he might have into cash.