THIS is an adventure story- adventure in American business during an unprecedented era of multimillion-dollar mergers.

It is also a biography, since it deals with the career of an extraordinary businessman, Meshulam Riklis. If his rise were marked on a chart it would show a climb in a single decade - when he was still in his twenties and thirties from nothing to the summit of a tremendous industrial complex.

Then, abruptly, there would be a precipitous dip. And immediately afterward the line would trace a steep climb to heights loftier

than ever.

Those who say the "good old days" are gone; that in the current state of our society no one can ever again become a millionaire; that no one can hope to compete with established Big Business. A career like that of Meshulam Riklis vividly demonstrates that all such negative observations are untrue.

It is just as feasible to amass millions today as it has always been. Only the methods have changed. In fact, we now have more millionaires than ever before. This can indeed be called a golden age for acquiring fortunes.