Quex

New York: Cosmopolitan Book Corporation. Near Fine in Good dj. 1928. First American Edition. Hardcover. [book is tight and clean, with minimal shelfwear only, vintage bookseller's label/price sticker (Newbegins, San Francisco) on rear pastedown; jacket edgeworn and rubbed, with about a half-inch-deep chip at top of spine]. "'Genius does not go begging,' remarked Quex, that redoubtable leader of English finance. 'It goes taking.' This is the story of how the one and only Artemas Quex went taking -- first the genteel family business of Boscombe Brothers, Silk Merchants; then drug-stores run by moth-eaten, rheumatic proprietors; juicy war-office contracts; and at last -- crowning stroke of genius! -- the cattle and gold of the jealously guarded territory of Bubuland." (It's a satire, in case you haven't guessed.) The New York Times reviewer described the book's protagonist as "one of those eyeless beings who are all force and no direction, who rocket or erupt through the world, leaving behind them plenty of impress and wreckage for no sane reason." (And you thought Donald Trump was some new kind of monster; alas, such creatures have been with us for a long time.) .