The next morning Alex was waiting in the FMA president’s suite when Jerome Patterton arrived. Alex filled him in quickly on the Jax report. Then he said, “I want you to give an order to the trust department to sell every share of Supranational we’re holding.” “I won’t!” Patterton’s voice rose. “Who do you think you are, giving orders-----“ “I’ll tell you who I am, Jerome. I’m the guy who warned the board against in-depth involvement with SuNatCo. I fought against heavy trust department buying of the stock, but no one-----including you -----would listen. Now Supranational is caving in.” Alex leaned across the desk and slammed a fist down hard. “Don’t you understand? Supranational can bring this bank down with it.” Patterton was shaken. “But is SuNatCo in real trouble? Are you sure?” “If I weren’t, do you think I’d be here? I’m giving you a chance to salvage something at least.” He pointed to his wristwatch. “It’s an hour since the New York stock market opened. Jerome, get on the phone and give that order!” Muscles around the bank president’s mouth twitched nervously. Never decisive, strong influence often swayed him. He hesitated, then picked up the telephone. “Get me Mitchell in the trust department… Mitch? This is Jerome. Listen carefully. I want you to give a sell order immediately on all the Supranational stock we hold… Yes, sell every share.” Patterton listened, then said impatiently, “Yes, I know what it’ll do to the market. And I know it’s irregular.” His eyes sought Alex’s for reassurance. The hand holding the telephone trembled as he said, “There’s no time to hold meetings. So do it! Yes, I accept responsibility.” He hung up and reached for a glass of water. “The stock is already down. Our selling will depress it more. We’ll be taking a big beating.” “It’s our clients-----people who trusted us-----who will take the beating. And they’d have taken a bigger one still, if we’d waited. Even now we’re not out of the woods. A week from now the SEC may disallow those sales. They may rule we had inside knowledge that Supranational was about to be bankrupt, which we should have reported and which would have halted trading in the stock. 小题1: Alex filled him in quickly on the Jax report. The sentence means:
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