31.   Supermarket chains feel they need size to fight Wal-Mart, and acquisitions, even pricey ones, are the fastest way to bulk up.

32.   Takeovers are generally the fastest way for company management to build revenue and profits, particularly at a time when it is easy to issue new stock.

33.   Takeovers are coming back forcefully as managements often see mergers as the fastest way to expand their companies.

34.   The Baby Bell is betting that cable systems are the fastest way to bring the information superhighway to Los Angeles and other parts of the country.

35.   The fastest way I could devise to find out which number Grabarkewitz was wearing with the Chicago Cubs was to write and ask him.

36.   The fastest way to build these days in the NFL is free agency.

37.   The fastest way to dictatorship, American diplomats argue, is to quarantine Russia.

38.   The fastest way to fly from Omaha to Scottsbluff, on the western side of Nebraska, is to connect well beyond the state, in Denver.

39.   The fastest way to reach the dome will be by underground on the new extension of the Jubilee Line.

40.   The fastest way to bridge that gap would be to buy a music company.