ate greater shareowner value. He even had a few simple charts that showed what the combined companies would look like. Armstrong and Noski listened politely, saying little more than that his proposal was "interesting." Finally, Armstrong explained that AT&T had recently filed the proxy for a $7.5 billion exchange of AT&T stock for shares in its wireless tracker. Under the circumstances, AT&T could not consider Roberts's proposal. In fact, Armstrong wouldn't even commit to talking about a merger when the exchange closed. As far as AT&T was concerned, it had laid out its restructuring plan, and it was sticking to it. Roberts had to be at least a little frustrated when Armstrong and Noski left, but he could be patient-up to a point. Shortly after the wireless share exchange closed at the end of May, Brian Roberts called again. Armstrong dispatched Noski to meet with him. Brian Roberts had once described Somers as "a cowboy who comes into the room with both six shooters blazing," but Noski was clearly cast from a different movie genre. In fact, he was a lot like Brian Roberts himself-quiet, thoughtful, and measured unless pro- voked. Their first meeting was to be in a private dining room in one of New York City's better hotels. It turned out to be a small ballroom. The two men ate alone at a small table in the center of the room, under a crystal chandelier, with a single waiter hovering nearby. Their second meeting, on Father's Day, was in a suite in a Philadel- phia hotel, and again they met alone, armed with nothing but pads of paper on which they both jotted notes. Noski briefed the board on his conversations with Roberts at the end of its regular meeting in June, but not before Armstrong excused John Malone. When Armstrong had returned to New Jersey following the Salomon Smith Barney conference, I told him that one of the cable industry magazines had called to chase down a rumor that he was talking to Comcast about a merger. It ultimately got lost in the flurry of gossip issuing from the Scottsdale Princess Hotel