21.   AOL and Time Warner hope to close the deal next month.

22.   As any businessman knows, there is an art to closing the deal.

23.   As Dallas clung to postseason life, the Avalanche tried to close the deal.

24.   As the investigation dragged through last winter, the companies were forced to repeatedly delay the date by which they expected to close the deal.

25.   As usual, he was trying to close another deal.

26.   Assuming, of course, this one-time Yellow Pages salesman can close the deal of his life.

27.   At the toll-free number for Standard Satellite, the seller in the e-mail message, I quickly closed the deal with a telephone salesclerk.

28.   Atlanta is a callous, soulless city, where insular white people close deals in huge anonymous office towers while black people subsist in shacks and worse.

29.   Before closing the deal with MCI, WorldCom bought a giant tract in northern Virginia with plans for a major corporate campus for its Internet-access division.

30.   Before the deal is closed, Fleet must also win approval from Massachusetts officials and the Federal Reserve Board.