"Sit down a minute, Lawson," said ex-Congressman Jefferson M. Levy—"Jeff Levy" in Wall Street—"and tell us about Amalgamated. I suppose there's not a chance to get what one wants unless one subscribes for five or ten times more than one needs, but if you say that's straight, I'll put in another subscription for ——."

In the group were sitting "Harry" Weil, who time and again has tied tin cans to Wall Street's tail; big, bluff, honest "Billy" Oliver, whose "I'll take ten thousand more" is as familiar to Stock Exchange members as the sound of the gong; and little "Jakey" Field, most audacious and resourceful of floor operators, graduated but a few years ago from the ranks of Wall Street's errand boys—"Jakey" Field, who is able single-handed to turn a "bear" market in a rout by "bidding 'em up all round the room five thousand at a crack"—which means he dares buy one hundred thousand shares off the reel in a demoralized market when every one is selling, thus standing to make or lose a million or two on his judgment.

They listened, breathless, while I poured out the story of the terrific rush of Amalgamated subscribers. Another group hailed me and I recounted the same story. So it went all over the busy assemblage—"dollars, dollars, dollars," how to get them, how to get them quick. The money talk ebbed and flowed; the chink of dollars echoed in the rattle of china, in the tinkling of glasses, in the laughs and salutations, in the shuffle of feet. It was the one word, the single theme, the alpha and omega of all these men of talent and virility who accorded me recognition as one of themselves and assumed that I, too, was crucified to the two bars on the snaky S; the whole thing was so interesting that I lost sight of the terrible seriousness of it, and I chuckled as one does when one sits on the cool grass under the apple-trees in summer and watches myriads of ants hustling and jostling and bumping over each other to get away with what to humans is but a tiny grain of dirt.

As I arose to go at last, the head waiter came forward and led me into a corner, where his assistant and the chef awaited me. All with tremendous earnestness asked, "Is it safe, Mr. Lawson, for us to put our savings in Amalgamated?" They took my breath away by telling me they proposed to subscribe for one thousand, five hundred, and two hundred shares each, $100,000, $50,000, and $20,000 worth, if I but said the word.

"Dollars, dollars, dollars" beat a tattoo on my ear-drums as the rain used to on the roof at the old farmhouse.

A moment later Manager Thomas of the great hotel slipped up to me. "I'm in for a thousand or two, if you say the word," he whispered. At dinner my old waiter, who I would have sworn did not know a stock certificate from a dog license, bent over respectfully to tell me that twenty of the boys had chipped in and desired me to take their thousand dollars and put it up for two hundred shares—$20,000 worth more. Room Clerk Palmer called over to me as I went by his desk a moment later to say he was going in for three hundred shares if it broke him. And so it went—bell-boys, chambermaids, valets, elevator men, all begging an interview, and all with the same request—"Would I not put their savings into this magic money-maker?"

All were friends or proteges of mine, these managers, clerks, stewards, and waiters. Their money was more sacred to me than my own. I had been instrumental in bringing many of them up to the palace of American dollar royalty from the old Brunswick, and I would rather have lost a finger any day than have jeopardized their savings. For all of them I had but one answer: "Go your limit."

I looked over the memoranda and telegrams piled high on the table in my room, all recording the whirlwind sweep of this tremendous copper movement that I had set a-booming.

"Dollars, dollars, dollars."

Requests from friends for some of the easy money I was dispensing to the public, appeals from old associates for special allotments of the subscription, urgent petitions from capitalists and bankers with whom I had business relations that their bids for shares should have preference, perfumed notes on tinted paper in feminine handwriting begging aid, advice, my influence, on a hundred specious pleas. It seemed to me that all the world was in a conspiracy of dollars and I the one object of its plotting. For a moment there overcame me a sickening disgust at this universal greed, at this all-absorbing passion for gold which my momentary pre-eminence revealed to my view. Then sanity asserted itself, and I remembered that if there was a conspiracy I was its ringleader, that I myself for months past had thought intensely of nothing but dollars. Why, then, should I resent the eager desires of others to attach to their own bank accounts some of the money which I was proclaiming from the housetops any one who desired might have for the asking? Many of these men, moreover, who sought my assurance of the safety of their little ventures, had earned the private word by thoughtful service and friendly attentions. Dollars were food and drink and fine raiment; were music, pictures, and theatres; were horses and dogs; were green fields, blossoming trees, and the open air of heaven; were liberty, release from sordid cares, from servitude—and why should I, who had helped myself in bountiful measure to the good things in life's cornucopia, feel superior when confronted by the lusts I myself had been instrumental in arousing? I laughed at my egregious virtue and dropped off to sleep.



CHAPTER XXVI

DEVILTRY AFOOT

Thursday, May 4, 1899, dawned as fair a spring morning as ever set off sacrificial rite or triumphal jubilee—a day of buoyant, delicious airs which set the blood throbbing in the veins and ambition thrilling in the heart—a day for action, achievement, for wild gallops along country lanes, for swift motion on land or water. I looked out of my lofty parlor window far up Fifth Avenue's long vista of mansions and palaces to where the sunlight glittered on the tender verdancy of Central Park. A trickle of cabs and carriages headed southward already had begun the descent to Wall Street. Almost the first call over the telephone came from Mr. Rogers, asking for the morning's news. I told him there was not a cloud on our sky, not a single breeze but blew from the right quarter to fill our sails. "And what were my movements?" To stick to my rooms right handy for anything. Was there a sinister thought, I wonder, behind the "Good, I agree with you," that came back from him in his heartiest tones? "I will look after things down-town and we can keep each other posted at near intervals."

It was as busy a forenoon as man ever lived through. My Boston wire kept up a constant ringing; Chicago, Philadelphia, and other long distance points showered in messages. A direct wire to Wall Street informed me of the progress of events in the financial maelstrom. All went merrily and well. It was nearing noon when a lull came; I was sitting back in my chair enjoying the sudden cessation of clatter and buzzing, thinking that after all my forebodings our ship was headed right for harbor and in a few moments would be across the bar and into smooth water, when a sharp ring at the telephone summoned me back to attention. 'Twas from 26 Broadway, from whom it doesn't matter for the purpose of this story. Suffice it to say that it was from one who, because of past acts of mine, would make any sacrifice to warn me of danger. Only a few words, for he who sends secret messages from the mysterious depths of 26 Broadway, even to dwellers on its threshold, is wise in remembering that brevity is the essence of safety—but were few words ever charged with such damnable import? This is what I heard:

"Mr. Stillman has just left Mr. Rogers and there is deviltry afoot. You cannot get to him any too quick." "One word of its nature?" I whispered back. "They are going to grab more than five millions of the subscription money."

I hung up the receiver. The face of my world had changed. To choke back the passion of fury that rose in my throat I went over to the open window and looked out at the brilliant world below, at the procession of pleasure carriages rolling up and down the Avenue, the sunlight flashing from gold-mounted harness and shining on the sleek, polished flanks of splendid horses. A gay rumble of traffic, the murmur of voices, the clangor of street-car bells were borne in to me on the mellow air. But for me the light had fled and the May world was black and freezing cold.

The grim agony of that moment's silence I shall never forget. I jumped for the door; a second's delay to tell my secretary to catch me with any important messages at Mr. Rogers' office, and I was flying down Fifth Avenue through Washington Square, and down the back streets my cabby knew so well how to make time on. When the recording angel calls off page after page of my life-book and comes to the black one covering that ride, I fear 'twill be no easy task excusing the murderous passion that filled my heart and the poison-steeped curses my lips involuntarily formed. After an eternity I was at 26 Broadway. I flew to the elevator, was on the eleventh floor in an instant, bolted by Fred, the colored usher who guards Mr. Rogers' sanctum, and strode, without knock or announcement, into the large private office beyond. Mr. Rogers was alone with his secretary, who at my first words shot out of the room. He was bending over a stack of papers, and as I landed at his desk he looked up quickly, and in a surprised way asked:

"What does this mean, Lawson?"

No one ever enters Mr. Rogers' room without his permission.

"It means that I have just learned that you and Stillman have decided to break your solemn promise to me." I tried to control myself, but the seethe of rage almost choked me. "It means that you have decided to take more of that subscription money than the five millions we agreed upon, and that means hell."

Mr. Rogers stood up, his jaws set as in their last hold, and, recognizing the crisis, he met me, not with the fierce anger I half expected and hoped he would show, but with quiet earnestness.

"Stop just there, Lawson—remember you are in my office. Who gave you this tale?"

"Never mind. Is it true? Are you going to break your promise to me? Do you intend to allot the public more than five millions?"

He hesitated only a second. Just a second, but it seemed an age; then slowly and calmly: "Yes, it has been decided that considering the tremendous number and amounts of the subscription it will be best to give them more."

"How much more?" I shouted, for I was beside myself.

"Ten millions in all," he slowly answered.

"Who has decided?"

"Every one, Mr. Rockefeller, Stillman, all of us."

"All of us? Have I been consulted? Have I decided? Have I consented to the breaking of your word, Mr. Rockefeller's word? What have Stillman and the rest to say about this? What have they to do with the promises I have made the people? I have been trapped just as all the others you and I have dealt with have been trapped. I see it all now. Trapped, trapped until now it is too late for me even to save my reputation. To think I should have been fool enough to allow myself to be made a stool-pigeon for 'Standard Oil,' and all because I took your word."

My rage was exhausted, and then, heartbroken, I turned and plead, plead for fair treatment, for an honest deal for my friends and associates—plead for my good name in his keeping—plead as I never before plead to any man. I had lost control of myself—begged as no man should beg another even for life, though the things I sought were more than life. He calmly awaited the end of my feverish, broken petition; then he went to work as the expert diamond cutter goes at a crystal. He focussed my position, twisted and turned my arguments, chipped and split my reasoning, smoothed off the corners, and then polished up the subject so that it might retain its old-time lustre for the bedazzlement of the customer whose favorable decision he meant to have.

As ever, Mr. Rogers' arguments were plausible and intelligent. The subscriptions were coming in at such a rate it would be dangerous to allot as little as five millions; there might be talk, and an investigation which would so affect the market later that we could have no second section. Then where should we be with our millions of Butte, Montana, and other Boston stocks? And where would our friends be—and the public? On and on he spun, lulling my fagged brain with his specious arguments until the change of plan seemed robbed of its poison and I swallowed it.

"Lawson," he concluded, "every dollar of the additional five millions will be kept intact and, with the first five millions, will be at all times behind the price, and as you are going to have the handling of it how can there be any wrong or any more danger because of it than if it were only five millions?"

I gave in, agreed to go back to the Waldorf and take hold of the lever again. I left him, driving uptown by way of Broad and Wall streets so I might see the crowds outside the Stock Exchange and in front of James Stillman's money trap. By the time I reached the hotel I had recovered some of my optimism, and went to work to catch up with the mail and messages accumulated in my absence. At three o'clock I called up Mr. Rogers. He was very jubilant. At the stroke of twelve, he told me, it required four big policemen to close the bank doors in the faces of hundreds of belated subscribers; that it had been decided that those inside the building were legally entitled to pass in their subscriptions and at that moment they were still doing so. Sacks of mail still awaited opening; it would be well toward midnight before the last of the subscriptions were tabulated. Stillman was making a tremendous effort to get at an approximate statement in time for me to deal it out to the newspapers before they went to press at midnight.

"How does it look to Stillman now?" I asked.

"He cannot tell much about it yet," Mr. Rogers replied, "although he can see far enough ahead to be sure even your estimate was too low. It will be at least fifty millions."

"And about our big subscription—have you and Mr. Rockefeller put it in yet?" I asked, and how I strained for his answer! I well knew they had not done so, knew they would think it safe to wait until the final tally to see just how much they must put in to get their $65,000,000, which would thus leave the public $10,000,000.

"Not yet," he returned. "It's all right, but we can do nothing till Stillman gives us the total. He says there are millions and millions of such a nature that he can easily throw them out. At four o'clock we will have a meeting and figure out the best way to fix this matter up."

He saw no danger spot. I felt anyway his error was beyond correction now. I told him I would be at his office by five, so that we could arrange how much the press should have of our affair.



CHAPTER XXVII

THE BLACK FLAG HOISTED

It was a little after five when I reached 26 Broadway—my second visit that day. Mr. Rogers was still at the bank. Half an hour later he entered and threw himself wearily into a chair.

"Lawson, this is a fitting climax for all the stories you have been telling Mr. Rockefeller and myself and the public for the past year about 'Coppers.' I have talked with the Lewisohns, Governor Flower, Morgan, and many others, and I have just come from an hour with Stillman and we are all agreed this Amalgamated subscription is the greatest accomplishment in finance. It is truly marvellous. The bank is literally buried in money, and as near as we can make it out, the stock to be delivered when allotted is actually selling at forty to fifty dollars over the subscription price. The job is done, and you and I have good reason to congratulate each other."

"I am not so sure, Mr. Rogers, that we should, right now. There's lots of work ahead, and we may strike big snags yet," I began. He interrupted impatiently:

"Oh, no, you're wrong, Lawson! We have the money safely housed at the bank. Nothing can now turn it into failure."

There was a new note in his voice as he spoke. Tired though he was, I detected a sharpness that seemed to indicate at once a relief and an indifference which said plainer than words: "I am now beyond all your power to hurt or harm me." I went on:

"I don't want to bring up any new things to-day, for you must be tired out, Mr. Rogers, but surely you are taking into consideration that unless everything is steered carefully to-morrow and for some time to come, we may have a crash in the market which will throw back on our hands the ten millions of stock, and it might take us years to bring out the other section. Don't lose sight of the fact that the people are all expecting to see fifty or one hundred points profit to-morrow on whatever stock they secure."

As I talked I saw that he was getting impatient, irritated, angry, that he wanted to hear of no more unfavorable things.

"Good Lord, Lawson, it is about time for you to let up on your croaking about what may happen. You have done a big thing and you have been paid handsomely; you have made millions, and we have just now decided that you are entitled to a good rest. Governor Flower has agreed to take charge of the market end and he is amply able to keep us out of all trouble in that direction."

A cold chill struck into my heart and crept over my whole being. I looked straight at him and he gave me back the look with a defiance which plainly said that we might as well have it out now as any other time.

"Mr. Rockefeller and myself have tried to play fair with you, Lawson, and we think we have been generous, but at times you have been almost intolerable. The only way you know how to do things is to do them your own way, and we cannot do business except in our way. This morning you kicked up a disturbance because we decided to adjust ourselves to conditions as they arose. I did tell you five millions would be all we would sell, but when we agreed to that we had no idea the subscription would be so large. Since then we have got far enough to see that the subscription will run even beyond fifty millions, and you may as well hear now that in consequence it has been decided by every one interested with the exception of yourself to raise it still another five millions, that is, fifteen millions instead of ten, and I don't want to go through any more scenes about broken promises and what the people will think, either. The people have gone into this thing with their eyes wide open; we are giving them good value; you are in no way their guardian, and you are not going to run this affair any more than others who are interested. You may as well make up your mind to it right now."

He let himself go as he talked, breathing fire and defiance, but I cared nothing for all the terrors of his anger. A blind fury seized me—I don't believe there was ever such a scene before at 26 Broadway, and I think it has had but one parallel since, when Mr. Rogers and myself again had it out over another matter. This time there were no pleas or petitions. I denounced, demanded, threatened. He had straight and strong my version of the vampire history of "Standard Oil," and also in rough, crude terms my opinion of his trickery and double-dealing. My voice was raised. I had lost all thought of what his people in the outer office would think. As I went on he wilted and tried to stop me, for I had shown him, until he knew it was so, that nothing but my death before I left the building would prevent me from taking the whole miserable affair, first to the newspapers, and then to the courts. I proved to him that I would have injunctions against Stillman, the National City Bank, and every one in interest, before the allotment could be made. Gradually his rage subsided and he broke down—not as other men break down, but as much as it is possible for his stern nature to give way. We remained there until seven o'clock. The building was as still as a set mouse-trap, and he strove with me. Such action, he demonstrated, would precipitate a panic. His argument was perfect in its logic.

"Not one man in a million, Lawson, will agree with you that you are justified in bringing about all this disaster simply because you think that we are taking too much of the cash that has been voluntarily paid in by people well able to attend to their own affairs. You must remember once this scandal and trouble are public they never can be smothered. There can be no more consolidation, no more copper boom in your lifetime and mine, and when the collapse comes every one will look for the victim, and that victim will be you. Even your best friend will say if you were going to turn informer you should have been smart enough to have discovered your mare's nest before you let it grow so big. Look at it, Lawson, look at it, and in the name of everything that is reasonable get back your senses."

My readers must remember that the Henry H. Rogers I am portraying here is no ordinary man, but the strongest, most acute, and most persuasive human being that in the thirty-five active years of my life I have encountered. And on me all the magic of his wonderful individuality, all the resources of his fertile mind, all the histrionic power of his dramatic personality were concentrated. His logic was resistless. As he spun the web of his argument my position seemed hopeless; even more forcible than his reasoning was the graphic recital of how both increases had been made. His eyes watered as he spoke. They were not his proposals, but Stillman's and the others' who had been let in on the several floors, but to whom he had never explained my rights nor my position in the enterprise.

"The truth is, Lawson," he said—"and I'll not mince matters further: From the beginning I have done business with you on a basis entirely different from that on which it is our rule to deal with agents or associates. At the start I expected that you would, as all others have done, fall into our ways. Instead, you have grown more stubborn, and the result is, I have been forced into all kinds of holes, some of which I have not even let William Rockefeller know about. Here at last I am in between the grinders. I cannot go to such men as Stillman and Morgan and admit that you are the one who has been doing this copper business that I have had them think I was doing myself. You would not ask me to put myself in such a humiliating position. Think what John D. Rockefeller would say of such a confession. It's impossible. And when these associates of mine get down to this matter and all agree upon the way it should be closed up, what can I do but go with them? If they knew the facts it would be easy to run you in between us, and then you would either have to convince them or give way yourself, but this is not possible here."

The straight and narrow way is easy to follow, but once lost is hard to find. The defaulting bank president who overnight "borrows" a few thousands from his institution, fully intends to return the "loan" next day, but repairing an error is even more difficult than resisting a temptation, and when a man is in crime's net, his struggles to escape seem only to tighten around him its meshes. When the incidents of his downfall are before the jury or the coroner, there will always appear a dozen places where the unfortunate might have cut his way out of the strangling coils, but he who surveys such situations from the outside has a clearer vision than the blinded and desperate wretch in the trap. He who enlists with the brigands of "frenzied finance" and takes the oath of addition, division, and silence cannot discharge himself because his comrades are needlessly harsh to their victims. Eventually he may decide on desertion as preferable to throat-cutting, but to suggest resignation is to invite destruction, for it is a tradition of the fraternity that the best cure for repentance is a knife-thrust.

Mr. Rogers and myself wrestled with the situation until both were fairly exhausted. Finally we went uptown together; he home, to return later to the bank, I to the Waldorf to meet the newspaper men who were there awaiting the news of the subscription. I left him at Thirty-third Street, the question between us still unsolved. In the years that have passed since that ill-starred night, over and over again I have sifted and pounded the talk that then passed between us, and never have I been able to decide how much of what Mr. Rogers said to me was true and how much cunning argument to make me accede to his wishes. I hope none of my readers will ever find themselves so caught between the high cliffs and the deep water as I was that night. I recalled the old story of the sea-captain whose ship was captured by pirates and who was offered the alternative of hoisting the black flag and joining the band with his crew, or walking the plank. If he became a pirate, at least he saved the lives of his men, for their fate hung on his decision. If he refused—well, he retained his own virtue and kept intact that of his crew. The captain in my story had preferred propriety to piracy, and fifteen men lost their lives to no purpose, whereas the part of wisdom would have been to submit, with reservations, on the chance of throwing the pirates to the sharks at the first opportunity. If I should throw the bomb that I had threatened Rogers with, I felt sure it would put an end to all his evil machinations, but I could not limit the area of destruction to the guilty. I let my mind dwell on Mr. Rogers' words: "Lawson, no harm can come to your people, for the fifteen millions will be used in the market to protect the stock, just as I promised you." If this promise were kept, what was there to fear? But would it be kept? In the face of the evidence of broken pledges already crowded on me, and the bitter knowledge I had acquired of the wolfish greed of this man and his associates, it would be paltering with facts to say that even then I felt certain the money would be so used. Yet "Standard Oil" avoids such direct illegality as might bring it within the law's clutches, and I knew that already a fraud had been committed. I might hold that over them and compel them to go straight. Then I recalled the passion that possessed them to grab at real money when it came within their clutches, and the "Governor Flower to handle the market in such a way that no harm can come to us."

I carried my heart-tearing perplexities to dinner, cogitated over the arguments pro and con, and finally made up my mind that the percentage of wisdom was in favor of sticking by the ship. On board I was in better shape to protect my friends and followers than if I jumped into the ocean. Time has shown since that it would have been far better for all concerned for me to have touched off the powder magazine that night, had one grand and glorious explosion, and gone down with the wreckage, than to have sailed through the hell of after years. I am not the first man who has balked at amputation and got blood-poisoning.



CHAPTER XXVIII

THE BOGUS SUBSCRIPTION

Later, on his way downtown, Mr. Rogers came to my rooms.

"Are you ready for the finals, Lawson?" he said cordially. He, too, had dined, and doubtless philosophized; his whole air showed me he had satisfied himself that I would submit to the logic of conditions. No man knows the human animal from his heart's seed to its bloom better than Henry H. Rogers—and I was human.

I told him I would hold the reporters until I got the word from him, and that it must not be later than midnight. No questions were asked nor assurances given. He left in a moment for the National City Bank, and there in its solemn chambers he and James Stillman perpetrated the act which is the crime of Amalgamated, in itself a stark and palpable fraud, but aggravated by the standing of the men concerned in it, and the pledges that were slaughtered, into as arrant and damnable piece of financial villany as was ever committed.

About eleven o'clock my telephone rang. I heard Mr. Rogers' voice.

"Lawson, Stillman's tally is so far completed that we know about where we are. Give out to the press that the subscription runs between four hundred and four hundred and twenty-five millions, call it four hundred and twelve millions, after throwing out one hundred and seventy millions from speculators, and sixty-two millions as defective, and after shutting out fifty millions more which were received too late. Each subscriber will be allotted fifteen to twenty per cent. of his subscription—call it eighteen per cent."

The figures were paralyzing. I made no attempt to analyze them. They came so late that as soon as the newspaper-men with me got them they flew to their offices and thus I escaped a strenuous ordeal of interviewing. Our arrangements for distributing the facts throughout the country were made through the Boston Financial News, to which we had given the exclusive right to send out the details, and its special wires were soon clicking the news to all the world. The next morning the press contained the particulars. I reproduce from the papers of May 5th the tale.

* * * * *

$412,000,000 FOR AMALGAMATED COPPERS

$75,000,000 Subscribed More Than Five Times Over

FINANCIAL WORLD COPPER MAD

Subscriptions of $412,000,000—the largest in any financial deal in the world's history—are reported by the Boston Financial News to have been received toward the Amalgamated Company. "The world has gone copper mad" in truth.

Subscribers can be allotted only eighteen one-hundredths, or less than one share in five of the amount applied for.

One week ago, says the report, it was announced that the Standard Oil magnates, Rogers, Rockefeller, and their associates, had begun their conquering march upon copperdom—that the much heralded copper consolidation was a thing of fact—that the Amalgamated Company had been incorporated, and that its first capital, $75,000,000, would be offered to the public by subscription through the National City Bank of New York at $100 per share—$100 per share, without a discount, a commission, or profit to any one.

Never before since the first dollar of civilization was invented to take the place of the stone tokens of barbarism had such a thing been heard of—$75,000,000 of stock to be sold to investors at $100 per share, and in one week after the birth of the corporation upon which it was based.

The financial world held its breath, and from that time up to the closing of the books of subscription, at twelve o'clock noon yesterday, the financial world, English, German, and French, have awaited with bated breath the outcome of this great feat of modern financiering.

During the entire week from all parts of the world have poured into the National City Bank applications, accompanied by checks for the first payment—one continuous stream of entreaties—for some of the shares of this great enterprise. Nothing in history tells of such a movement.

Early in the week it became evident to the managers of the great industrial revolution that something must be done to stop the movement or it would run to such an extent as to cause serious trouble in the money markets of the world. Since Monday most strenuous efforts have been made to discourage the taking of large subscriptions. To that end the powerful financiers interested have begged all who contemplated subscribing for over $1,000,000 to keep their applications down to that figure, and their efforts met with complete success.

Again, all those who were connected with the enterprise and who had intended subscribing on the same basis as outsiders for very large amounts, agreed that if the subscription ran over $150,000,000 they would refrain from subscribing that those who had subscribed would not become dissatisfied with the smallness of their allotment. Still the rush continued. From all financial centres of the world came the unbroken chain of applications, until those most interested in the success of the undertaking were appalled at the magnitude of the interest aroused.

For the past forty-eight hours the National City Bank has had employed, night and day, a corps of forty-odd extra clerks calculating and arranging the applications and checks. At exactly twelve o'clock noon four uniformed watchmen closed the doors of the subscription department of the City Bank in the face of over three hundred intending subscribers, who were frantic at their vain efforts to get in their subscriptions before the appointed hour arrived.

Up to eleven o'clock to-night the entire bank force, regular and extra, have been at work, and at this hour the figures were announced which make the subscription of the Amalgamated Copper the greatest event in finance since the world began.

After throwing out bids that were, on examination, proved to be the efforts of speculators to take advantage of the great interest to make money with no risk, and after throwing out bids unaccompanied by checks, or checks that were not satisfactory, the first class amounting to over $170,000,000, and the last to over $62,000,000, the total cash subscription was found to have reached the gigantic sum of $412,000,000, which gave to each and every subscriber eighteen per cent. of his subscription.

It is not known how much was represented in the 300 subscribers who were too late, but it is estimated at $50,000,000—five of the 300 had single subscriptions of $1,000,000 each. It is estimated that the sum total of the subscriptions that were thrown out or that arrived by messenger or mail—for the mail is still pouring into the bank—was between $300,000,000 and $400,000,000, which, added to what insiders had intended to secure for themselves, would have carried the total to over $1,000,000,000.

It is estimated also that there are a great many who, anticipating the enormous over-subscriptions, have refrained from subscribing and will purchase in the open market.

Immediately after the subscription closed, 140, or forty per cent. premium, was bid for the stock secured by the lucky bidders.

It is said the company will issue the next $100,000,000 at once, as those insiders who refrained from subscribing were practically promised that they would at once be given an equal opportunity to subscribe if they would hold back on this issue. It is apparent that the next subscription will be even greater and cause more excitement than the first one, particularly as it is agreed by all that the price of the stock will quickly mount to $200 per share, as it is to be put upon the English, German, French, New York, and Boston Stock Exchanges, and will undoubtedly become one of the greatest investments sought for by the wealthy classes.

England sent in subscriptions for $50,000,000; Germany and France, $20,000,000 each; Boston and New England showed their steadfast faith in copper by subscribing for over $200,000,000.

There is great excitement at the clubs and meeting-places of investors and brokers to-night.

* * * * *

Here is what Mr. Rogers and Mr. Stillman did. After discarding all unsatisfactory and imperfect subscriptions, there remained subscriptions of between $125,000,000 and $150,000,000 which had complied with all legal conditions, and accompanying these were checks aggregating between $6,250,000 and $7,500,000. This was real money, in the bank and within reach, and the two great financiers, hungering for every dollar of it, determined to possess themselves of this great sum and use it as surety to compel the payment of the balance. First, they agreed that not a dollar of the five per cent. subscription should be returned; next, to so use this amount that no one to whom stock was allotted would back out, but, on the contrary, promptly take his whole allotment and pay up the balance. To effect this they decided to allot each subscriber just the number of shares of Amalgamated necessary to render the amount of money accompanying his subscription equal to about a twenty-five or thirty per cent. payment on his whole allotment. This would constitute such a large margin as to assure the payment of the other seventy or seventy-five per cent. due. For instance, a man who applied for a hundred shares accompanied his subscription with a check for $500. He was allotted twenty shares, value $2,000, on which his $500 check represented a payment of twenty-five per cent. If the conditions of the National City Bank's advertisement had been complied with, he was absolutely entitled to three shares of every five subscribed for, or sixty in all. To bring about the proportion which Mr. Rogers wanted, a bogus subscription of five or six times the unallotted balance was put in by him, and this is where the fraud was committed. The National City Bank was in duty bound to protect the public from any such bogus subscription, and to see that fair treatment was accorded to all subscribers. Yet, unfaithful to the trust, it permitted this bogus subscription to be put in, many hours after the bids had been opened. It utterly failed to comply with the conditions of its advertisement, and was thus a direct party to the fraud perpetrated by its president and Mr. Rogers. The exact amount of the bogus subscription could not be decided until the exact figures of the subscriptions had been compiled, so the figures I gave out that night were only estimates. Within the next few days it was ascertained that the genuine subscriptions totalled $132,067,500, upon which an allotment of one share in five, or $26,413,500 of stock altogether, was made to the public.

In this way the conspirators secured from the public $26,413,500 of the original cost, $39,000,000, and yet retained over $48,500,000 of the authorized stock of $75,000,000. In other words the public paid two-thirds of the purchase price, and the conspirators retained nearly two-thirds of the property.

The fraud thus perpetrated amounts to this: Every subscriber legally entitled to three shares of Amalgamated stock was deprived of two of them by the National City Bank, and the proof is to be found in the books of said National City Bank. My readers may say here that this constitutes a fortunate condition rather than a crime to be punished, for the less Amalgamated a man had, the better he was off, as the stock afterward declined. This conclusion is a false one, however.

Here, in simple terms, is an illustration of what was done in Amalgamated and of what the wrong was.

B had a valuable race-horse and decided to dispose of him in five shares. He offered these five shares for public subscription and advertised that if over five were subscribed for he would split up the shares and allot them pro rata. There were on the final day seven subscriptions. Instead of turning over the horse to the seven subscribers to own and race in their own way, B notified them that twenty-one subscriptions had been received, and that for their seven he had allotted them a one-third ownership, while the other subscribers would retain two-thirds. In the two-thirds resided the right to manage and race the horse, and the seven had no say whatever in this direction. The seven honest subscribers, not suspecting that B had simply sold them one-third of his horse for nearly his whole cost, and that he still retained a two-thirds ownership in him, supposed that fourteen others had subscribed on the same terms as themselves. If the horse were really able to race and thereby earn large sums of money, it was by this fraud in B's power to make him appear so worthless that the seven bona-fide subscribers would be inclined to turn over their ownerships to B at his own figure. Contrariwise, B could so dose the horse as to make him appear more valuable than he really was, and use the advantage to dispose of his fourteen shares for fictitiously high prices.

The world assumes an attitude of horror and amazement at the mention of crime, and thousands of words are written to describe what led up to and away from any given overt deed; but the deed itself, however grave, shameful, or portentous, seems strangely barren and bloodless set down in naked words. Yet the mountain peak that tops the great ranges is but a shoulder over its neighbor, though it may be the apex of a continent. A misconstrued word has caused the spilling of the blood of millions; the needle-point of a stiletto has severed kingdoms. Between temptation and consequence there is but little space, yet it is deep and wide enough for all the poison in the tongues of all the world's serpents. To-day, a simple peasant, humble, gentle, is an insignificant atom in the great Russian Empire, and Nicholas is the supreme ruler of rulers. To-morrow, by a simple swing of an arm a bomb is thrown, and the peasant is the one human being in all the world; the face of Russia is changed, and Nicholas—is not.

The first crime of Amalgamated is a matter of mathematics. It involved plain fraud and misrepresentation, the insertion of a bogus subscription and the disruption of solemn pledges, but the commission of it was nothing more than a matter of arrangement between two men, one the master of the greatest of all business organizations, and the other the head of the strongest bank in the United States. The consequences were world-wide. That night no bomb was thrown, but a seed was sown for the cruelest harvest of crime, dishonor, unhappiness, and desolation ever reaped within the confines of our republic.

NOTE.—The above statement has now been in the hands of the public, has been printed and commented on in thousands of the leading journals of the world for twelve months, and no Government official has taken cognizance of it. The charges I make constitute one of the gravest business crimes ever committed by any national bank. If they are true, the Government at Washington has no more important duty than to punish the criminals. If they are false, I should be sent to prison. What a commentary on our boasted freedom and equality! The National City Bank does business at the old stand. Rogers, Rockefeller and Stillman walk the streets; so do I, and since I published the above statement and submitted the above proof, at least half a dozen poor national bank clerks and officials who have stolen a few hundreds or thousands have been sent to prison, or have committed suicide to avoid being sent there.



CHAPTER XXIX

THE AFTERMATH

It was just past the midnight of May 4th. The last newspaper-man had taken his departure, my friends had all retired, and I was alone for the first moment since the news had come from the City Bank. I had not then stopped to analyze its character, for there had been only time to announce it. Now, however, I sat down at my desk and with a pencil and a piece of paper began to cipher out what the "412 millions" meant. As I figured, cold sweat began to gather on my forehead, and the further I figured the colder the sweat, until at last in an agony of perplexity I again called up Mr. Rogers. My agitation must have betrayed itself in my voice, though I tried to assume a tone of calm inquiry.

"Mr. Rogers," I said, "I've been vainly trying to figure out the meaning of the subscription figures you gave me and I cannot make head or tail of them. You said '400 to 425 millions'; of course that means you have put in our dummy subscription, but what was the real subscription? It is absolutely essential that I know to-night, for in the morning I shall be besieged for information, and ignorance on my part may get all hands into trouble."

"Lawson," he replied, "you must not talk such things over the wire—you don't know who is listening. You must not."

"I can't help it," I replied determinedly. "I positively must have the real figures, for even you and Mr. Stillman may have made a slip-up and I want to work the thing out so that I may have it clear in my head for the morning. It is essential."

He realized that it was useless to try to escape my insistence, and he snapped out:

"All I can say now is, it is between 125 and 150 millions real, solid subscriptions, backed with actual money. We haven't got it figured out within some millions, and won't before to-morrow, when we will put in our subscription for the right amount, but we know it is surely between these two figures, and that each subscriber will have about one share in five, so we shall have a good, strong twenty-five per cent. margin. That is all I will or can say to-night."

I heard the sharp click as he hung up the receiver.

I went back to my pencil and pad and began again the interminable figuring. My head throbbed and my senses reeled. In those still, dark hours of the early morning I covered sheet after sheet with figures, all of which had for a basis 125 to 150 millions, 400 to 425 millions, one in five, and twenty-five per cent. margin, and these figures I turned and twisted in a vain, vain effort to bring out something with fifteen millions for an answer.

"No, it will not come," I said to myself at last in hopeless despair.

Numb and dull, I leaned back in my chair with half-closed eyes, while night, that master phantom maker, played upon my harried nerves and distraught mind. Stealthily out of his murky caldron the ghosts and goblins crept. I saw the spectres of all my dearest dreams trail slouching by, jostled and driven by sneering bullies. I saw a great company of scowling men, wailing women, and little children, with drawn, pinched faces, and they seemed to point at me as they plodded past, muttering, "But for you." Then, to the clanking of chains, hoarse curses, and the sharp whip-snap, lines upon lines of men in striped suits, with cropped heads, and faces branded by despair, filed up. Faintly a mutter of sobs and groans echoed, "But for you." The clanking ceased; there came the slow shuffling of many feet, and a procession of men, bearing stretchers on which lay shrouded figures, advanced into view. Like a solemn knell upon my ear smote the reproach, "Suicides because of you." And now out of the caldron sprang a mob of goblin dollar-signs compounded of blood-red snakes and copper bars, that danced a mad saraband around my chair to a weird chorus of, "But for you." Transfixed and aghast I stared at the train of awful forms. So real were they, they seemed almost to touch me as they swept onward. At last, with a convulsive effort, I threw off the spell, banished the phantasms of my frightened brain, and shook myself together with a: "You have work ahead and dreaming will not do it for you."

Back into my mind trooped the unanswerable, cold realities. There could be no doubt that the announcements in the morning papers would surprise those who had been led to expect an allotment of one share in twenty or thirty and had subscribed accordingly, and likewise those who had expected to get all, or at least one out of two. There might be murmurs of foul play and a general suspicion that trickery had been practised. Looking at the situation, I saw that upon me the chief blame must fall, and that it behooved me to think soundly and quickly over what had best be done to protect from the impending massacre those whom I had lured into the ambush. The smoke-wreaths had all gone out of my brain now, and as the known factors began to group themselves symmetrically before my mind I forced myself to face certain all-too-evident facts: Rogers and Stillman had plainly hoisted the black flag; they had broken all their promises to me and assuredly had no intention of carrying out to the public the pledges I had made on their behalf; they would handle this affair as they had others I knew about—only to extract the greatest number of dollars from it—and in the course of their operations I and my friends would probably be sent through the crusher with the rest. All this being true, I could do little by denunciation or exposure, for these men, caring nothing for the sufferings of others, would not fear the consequences of their own acts; my only hope was to meet them on their own ground and outplay them at their own game. Then and there I determined on my course—to compel them to undo the wrongs they had committed and, if so great an achievement were possible, put the people in position to do to them what they had done to the people. An almost hopeless resolution at that juncture, it would seem, but, as results have shown, by no means out of the power of man's accomplishment.

This is what I reasoned out before I retired to bed: If the actual subscription were 125 to 150 millions, then six to eight millions of real cash had been paid into the National City Bank. On an allotment of one share in five, these six to eight millions represented a margin of about twenty-five per cent.—big enough to cover any ordinary drop in the price of the stock, and big enough also to lead those to whom shares had been assigned to make good the balance. But to meet this allotment, a very large bogus subscription had been necessary, and therein I saw the weakness of Rogers and Rockefeller and the weapon that Providence had intrusted to my hands.

Mr. Rogers' uncertainty as to the totals of the subscription made it evident that the bogus subscription was not in the bank even yet, and as it must be for a definite amount and backed up by a five-per-cent. check, it could not be put in until James Stillman's clerks had computed to the last cent the public's applications, and that enormous piece of work would not be completed on the next day nor even the day following. This bogus subscription was already outlawed—its insertion even at the present moment would have been criminal; how much worse the criminality if days were allowed to elapse between the legally fixed last moment for bids and the actual time at which this outlawed subscription was admitted. And as the transaction involved the making of a large check and other formalities, it was obvious it was not one that could be easily concealed. It must be a part of the bank's records. If I but played aright the cards Dame Fate had put into my hands, I might yet redeem myself and save the public I had led into the trap. But as clear as the new moon against a November sky stood forth the warning that if I attempted to cut into a "Standard Oil" game, I must play cards their way—dispassionately, scientifically, with no sentiment nor consideration for adversary or partner. With this conviction I went to bed.

It was quite early on the following morning that I met Mr. Rogers, and without giving him time to begin the conversation, for I was determined he should have no provocation for the break with me that I guessed he had on his programme, I started in:

"I have been figuring this thing out, Mr. Rogers, and I think I see things as they are, and although I might not have handled it as you and Stillman did, it is done, and the only thing to do now is to make some arrangements to keep the subscribers feeling good until the stock gets to a round premium. Of course it would not do to have any slump below par until after the receipts are issued and the whole amount of the subscriptions paid up."

Mr. Rogers looked me over, very suspiciously at first, then brightened up, and it did not require an extra eye to see he was agreeably surprised at my cheerful attitude. Doubtless he explained to himself the change on the ground that "He at last sees the dollars he is to have."

"What suggestion have you, Lawson, as to what should be done this morning?"

"Only that all hands look happy, talk big, and do all possible to keep a good premium on the stock to be delivered when issued. By the way, have you and Stillman changed the scheme about putting all the cash received behind the stock?"

This I asked in as mild a tone as possible, and tried to convey by my voice the suggestion, "Because you may have had good reason to, and if you have I will not kick over the traces." It took every ounce of will-power in my armament to keep from grating my teeth as I so spoke.

Again his eyes bored piercingly into mine, and I felt as though all the man's mental faculties were ranged to assail me, but I guess I ran the gauntlet.

"Yes," he said slowly, "we have changed it some. The fact is, Lawson, I have agreed to leave that part wholly to Flower and Stillman, while I run out of town for a few days." I had steeled myself to play the game and said not a word, but silence was a mighty effort. "And," he went on, "if I were you, Lawson, I should just dig out too for a while."

"What a heartless rascal!" was on my lips, but I gripped myself hard and pushed the insult clear way back, and made never a protest by word or look.

"I am afraid that won't be best," I said in an every-day, pondering tone. "There are lots of sharp chaps on 'the Street' who will insist on asking questions, questions Flower cannot possibly answer, and in a jiff they might start in to offer the subscriptions down, and before one could whistle a bar from 'Wait Till the Clouds Roll By' the air might be full of falling stars."

This seemed to strike home.

"Well, what have you to propose?" he asked.

"Some one should be ready in the market to take any amount of stock—" I argued.

He interrupted in his old aggressive way before the sentence was half out of my mouth:

"Cut that line out, Lawson; I told you Flower has that end of the affair entirely in his hands."

And at this point my resolution to keep quiet and play the game did almost go by the board. For a second I literally boiled. Then there flashed before my mind's mirror the dreadful procession of the night before, and I once more held tight and, oh, so deferentially and politely, like a chastened school-boy, went on:

"Oh, that will be all right. I was not going to suggest that you let me interfere with Flower's plans, for I can gather, Mr. Rogers, that you and the others have decided on doing things your own way, and you can rest easy I shall not interfere."

"That's something like, Lawson," he said, with a heartiness I could see was from the lower hold. "That's the way to look at a big thing of this kind, and if we all just pull together for a while we shall have your old plans going like oil again."

Yes, Mr. Rogers was plainly pleased at my complaisance and the prospect of using me to gather in another harvest of dollars later. Playing my game, I pursued:

"Is it fair, Mr. Rogers, to ask what arrangements Stillman has made for loaning money to those who may want to borrow on their subscriptions? You know we gave out before the subscription was opened that the City Bank would loan on the stock?"

"That is one of the things I was going to tell you, Lawson. Flower is going to let it be known that any one and every one who cares to, can borrow the remaining seventy-five per cent. at the City at going rates, so there will be no excuse for any one selling."

There it was as plain as a haystack: it was the old trap, the old ambush; within were the victims lured there by the cupidity which I had played upon; the bars were up now and "Standard Oil" was ready to begin its familiar trick of going through their clothes.

Already "Standard Oil" had laid its hands on the amount each subscriber had paid in, which represented twenty-five per cent. of the total value of the shares allotted. The National City Bank would generously loan the balance. A little later an accomplice would cause a flurry in the market. The loans would be called and, automatically, the stock, together with the money that had been paid for it, would fall into the greedy maws of Rockefeller and Rogers. No fluttering fly was ever so surely enmeshed and at the mercy of weaving spider as the unfortunates whom I had so decoyed to the "Standard Oil" web. With the most valiant assumption of indifference, I continued:

"That being the case, it cannot possibly interfere with Flower's set-out for me to spread the news, too, that any one who wants to borrow the balance of his subscription can get it from Stillman's Bank?"

"You can do better than that, Lawson," said Mr. Rogers with an air of real cordiality. "You can let it be known to the brokers and the Wall Street men that any good house can borrow all it wants on Amalgamated to the extent of ninety cents on the dollar. Of course, this won't be for irresponsible outsiders, for the stock might break below ninety, but give the word that any responsible broker can always borrow as high as ninety dollars a share for those who want the stock on margin."

"That will help things," I answered. "Now, Mr. Rogers, let me tell you what I have decided to do on my own hook. Don't misunderstand me; it has nothing to do with you or the rest, and, of course, none of you will object to my doing all I care to on my own account. As you said yesterday, one portion of our job is finished, and we have thirty-six millions' profit. This means either cash or its equivalent, stock, which at par or over is as good as cash, at least as good as ninety, which I can have my brokers borrow at the City. I calculate that my share is nine millions less whatever you have given away in the handling of the enterprise."

I paused as I saw a black cloud gathering on his face at my mention of nine millions of dollars, but before he could object I went on:

"I understand, of course, that the expense and the shares you have had to give to others represent a huge total. At the same time there have been huge profits on the side. There is no necessity to enter upon what is coming to me just now, but what I intended to say was this: I have millions with you and Mr. Rockefeller—millions more than I owe you on account of Butte and other Boston stocks of the second section. Now, I propose to take a million or two of that and start in on my account to support the market right from this morning; independent of Flower or your other operations, I will see if I cannot get up a good feeling."

At once the frown relaxed and his set features broke into a smile of gratification.

"That's something like it, Lawson," he said. "When you get down to real business we never have differences. It is only when you start up that confounded croaking about what we must do for the people, that I get angry."

"All right, Mr. Rogers," I answered. "Let those things drop and, as you say, we'll keep down to business. How much can I depend upon drawing from my account this morning, provided I want it?"

"How will two millions do?" he answered cheerily.

"Plenty," I said.

"All right; I will notify Stillman that you or your brokers may want to borrow up to that, and if you need the Amalgamated stock, you can have it at any time. I will leave word to that effect with Curtis."

Curtis was William Rockefeller's secretary and right-hand man, who then handled the details of all their financial matters.

Before leaving I indicated to Mr. Rogers the details of my proposed actions, and explained that I had sent for my principal Boston brokers who would be with me on Wall Street to help steer the craft. Evidently my plans met his personal approval. Indeed, from the change that had come over his manner I realized that he felt he had been spared a disagreeable task and that my shift had been a pleasant surprise to him. It was plain that he and Stillman had decided that I must be thrown to the sharks if I kept on my old tack, and were therefore gratified to find that I was not only ready to assist in steering the ship their way, but also willing to feed the engines coal at my own expense to keep up her speed. In spite of Mr. Rogers' confidence in Governor Flower's ability to take care of the market, it was a great relief to his mind to know that I should be there, for he realized that no one, however able and popular—and Governor Flower was both to an unusual degree—could possibly take up such an intricate bunch of lines as those with which we had been driving, without a lot of feeling-out practice.

There was another aspect of the situation that had been suggested to me by a certain passing twitch of his lip that I had noted when I had said I proposed putting some of my own millions behind the market. It was as though the tongue had involuntarily started to lap the chops for blood, and I scribbled a memo on my mind's black-board, "Think over whether he does not intend to set traps for your share of the spoils."



CHAPTER XXX

THE MORNING AFTER

It was with a feeling of intense relief that I left Mr. Rogers and returned to the Waldorf. At last I knew where I "was at": I was to play a lone hand; my enemies were in front; there were no partners from whose treacherous knife-blades I should have to protect my back. The path was clear, and as I examined my position, I felt my old self again. Promptly I called up my Boston brokers, who were at the Holland House, to say I would drop in for them on my way downtown, and with a clear plan of campaign in my mind, I determined to face the breakfasting crowd in the big cafe downstairs.

Almost immediately I found myself in the centre of a knot of men who began eagerly to press me for further particulars of the Amalgamated subscriptions. We all know the story of the comedian informed in the midst of a performance of his beloved wife's death, who yet must laugh and antic to the end of the play. I appreciated the heavy-hearted actor's plight as I surveyed the little throng so vitally interested in their dollar affairs. I longed to mount a chair and tell them how they had been duped, but my role called for different lines. It was my part to feign satisfaction and my duty to keep every cent invested in our enterprise from shrinking a mill. I pumped as much enthusiasm into my speech as possible.

"You see what the papers say," I said. "That gives you all the information I have, for although you may not think it, I have been spending the night just as the rest of you have—in lands where all flotations sell away over par. I'm going down to Wall Street just now. After a while I'll have more to tell you."

The flutter of an eyelash, a hair-breadth of hesitation, a mumbled word and there may be born in the mind of the investor that instinctive distrust which is the beginning of panic. In a stock market as in a powder magazine there are always dread possibilities of explosion, and he who would survive must have incombustible nerves and an ice-packed brain; asbestos assurances and an unblushing swagger have averted many money conflagrations and set prices hill-climbing.

My little congregation had all the fluttering fugitiveness of the investor-out-for-quick profits, and after a few generalities, I got down to the one question they all longed to ask but none dared to voice—"What can I sell my subscription for if I want to part with it?" Raising my voice a trifle and looking straight at them:

"Don't get excited about what you read in print these next few days," I said, as though some one had asked me the question, "for there will be hogsheads of rumors unhooped, and remember that rumor prices are never real money. The papers this morning say that any one can sell at 40 to 60 per cent. profit, but that hardly seems reasonable to me; in fact, if I were any of you who have been allotted stock and could get such profit as that overnight, I'd take it. All I'll do just now is this: I will give 110 for any amount any of you want to sell, provided you sell right now—and 10 per cent. profit is not so bad when you come to think it's 40 per cent. on what actual money you have put up."

In the vernacular of stocks this process I used is called "moulding public opinion" and "making a market," and it had the expected effect on that bright May morning which followed the closing day of the Amalgamated flotation. I was not offered a share; in fact, there was a loud guffaw, and it was a hundred to one wager that as I passed on to another group each listener tumbled over his neighbor to get in first. "110! That's a good joke! I wonder if he takes us for children! Evidently he is out early this morning to catch any stray worms napping! 110 for something worth 160!"

Inside of ten minutes it was all over the Waldorf and on the wires, "Look out for Lawson! He's trying to get Amalgamated at 110." And by the time I got to the Holland, a block down the Avenue, the brokers and investors gathered there were ready to give me the laugh with "You're out early, we see, to pick up a bundle of easy money."

My first task had been accomplished to my own satisfaction. Inside of an hour it would be flashed over the world that there was a firm reliable market at 110 bid and almost any price asked for Amalgamated, and while 110 was not anything like the wild 140 to 160 that rumor gossiped of, it represented such a good profit that it was sure to set the market off with an all-round chipperness.

My readers must bear in mind that as yet there was no real Amalgamated stock which could be sold, and no place to sell it if there had been, for until each subscriber received official notice no one really knew for certain that he had been allotted any stock, and until the Amalgamated shares were listed on the Stock Exchange, there could be no reliable market, although they could be traded in on the curb.

At the Holland House, I quickly outlined to my chief brokers my plans for the day. Then together we started for Wall Street.

The hours that followed were busy ones, and confusing as well. Wall Street was a-buzz with curiosity and from all sides poured questions. "The Street," it was evident, had awakened to the fact that the situation in Amalgamated disclosed a different line-up of conditions from that which it had anticipated. As to whether the change was good or bad no one dared hazard a guess. For the first time in my experience, Wall Street was completely at sea. The shrewdest plungers and manipulators, men to whom the tape yields up its secrets as the penitent to the priest; to whom the ticker babbles the inner mysteries of directors' meetings and deep-down deals—these men whose eyes, ears, and noses decades of stock-play had trained to supernatural acuteness were as impotent to track the truth as the veriest tyro. All admitted that the conditions were unusual, that the subscriptions had far exceeded expectation, that time would be required to get them straightened out. Because of this it was natural that the market should be slow and in the absence of definite facts it might easily look one price and be another. If the subscription really were 412 millions and if each subscriber would have a fifth of his allotment, then there was the usual chance for trick playing and "Standard Oil" might be scheming to gather in this valuable stock at 110 when its proper price mayhap was 140 to 160 or more.

In Wall Street the best brains of all the Western world centre. Fortunes are there waiting for brains to carve and take; stacked up there are millions which he who has brains can pocket without a "by-your-leave." Wall Street is the millionnaire's checker-board, but brains direct the moves and make the plays. And with all its mordant wisdom, cynical cunning, cold suspicion, Wall Street was baffled.

There was nothing to do but to continue my campaign of smiles and cheerfulness, repeat my 110 bid in every quarter possible, and so keep up the delusion. Late that afternoon I saw Mr. Rogers, who eagerly interrogated me.

"Well, Lawson, what do you make out?"

"It is the most mixed-up mess 'the Street' has ever wrestled with," I replied, "but one thing is clear: no one will dare to sell much until he receives notice of just what he has been allotted, and then most will be timid about selling until they have received the receipts. I don't see how, if nothing definite leaks out, there can be much danger until after they get their hands on the receipts, and by that time, of course, you will have a fine market organized to take care of any offerings."

He flinched. I saw again that I had touched his sore spot, for at every faintest suggestion that our profits should be used to protect the market, he became as shy as a pick-pocket at a police parade.



CHAPTER XXXI

I WALK THE PLANK

Have you ever seen a bunch of school-boys who, having sneaked under a corner of the circus tent, are prowling furtively round the show in holy terror lest some one who has seen their entry may be awaiting a chance to nab them? One minute they are tasting the raptures of being under the canvas; the next, longing to be safely outside. That is about how Wall Street felt on the memorable Friday after the Amalgamated flotation. The same feeling prevailed generally on Saturday, though I was obliged to buy a few blocks of the stock at 110 from Wall Street men whose sharp noses had sniffed a carrion scent in the air. Sunday was uncomfortable, for I realized that I might have to face bad conditions on the morrow. On Monday an ominous feeling began to rise and pervade "the Street" like a miasma mist in a tropical swamp. The bacillus of distrust had started its infection. I had to buy quite a lot of subscriptions and was now varying the price from 110, for it seemed possible any moment that something would break loose.

These were the conditions when on Tuesday a telephone call came from Mr. Rogers asking me to drop round to 26 Broadway, as he had an important matter to talk over with me. I reported at the appointed time. Mr. Rogers was evidently full of business.

"Lawson," he said, "we have figured everything up and balanced accounts, and each member of the different syndicates is to be given his share, cash and stock, at once."

"All right," I answered. "That suits me."

"I thought so," he continued pleasantly. "Mr. Rockefeller has had Curtis figure up your account, and while in the rush he may not have got everything in, he's fairly accurate. From what you said about getting your affairs into shape to help the market, it occurred to me you might like to have your balance of this section in hand ready for use. I have the statement here, and if you find it all right I'll go upstairs and get all it calls for fixed up at once."

We were in the little glass pen where most of our conferences took place. I, with my elbows on the small mahogany table, sat looking across at him leaning back in his chair. Without knowing what was to happen, but from a certain suppressed eagerness I had detected under his frigid composure, I had a strong conviction that he was nerving himself for a coup of some kind. I realized that he and Mr. Rockefeller had talked me over pretty thoroughly and had decided that they had best run this gauntlet as soon as possible. Since Mr. Rogers had broached the substitution of Anaconda for the properties originally intended for the first section of Amalgamated, I had felt that this balancing of accounts would be a crucial affair, and after the recent turn of the screw, I hardly knew what to expect, but was ready for the worst. Now a swift thrill of apprehension suggested I'd better look for real deviltry. There was perhaps a minute's delay while he fumbled in his pocket and drew out letters and papers. My blood steeplechased in my veins as I waited for him to deal me the hand that might decide my fate. In such tense moments thoughts flash in and out of the mind like lightning, and as I watched him rise, the fateful paper in his hand, it came over me with a sharp exultation that however the trumps fell it was a great game—great even for this king of gamesters who was about to play his hand.

Henry H. Rogers looked piercingly into my eyes and said: "There's the account, Lawson." He laid on the table in front of me an oblong piece of paper. On it were some lines of words followed by other lines of figures. That was all. I spread it out carefully between my two hands and bent over it. Then I looked up. Before I allowed the significance of the figures to penetrate my mind, I wished to know exactly what they represented.

"If I understand aright, Mr. Rogers," I asked, "this statement does not take in our Boston deals nor my loans on the Butte and other affairs, but is a settlement of this first section only—a final clearing-up showing just what my twenty-five per cent. of the Amalgamated and the things connected with it amount to? Am I right?"

My voice was even and calmly business-like, and he answered in exactly the same tone.

"It shows where you stand on this particular affair, and gives your balance of stock and cash, which we are ready to pay over in whole or in part, in case you may want to leave some of it against the loans on the other section."

I turned to the paper; I leaned over it, letting my two hands with the elbows resting on the table support my head. Mr. Rogers could see only the back and top of my head, no part of my face. At the first glance I caught the balance—it was a little less than two millions and a half. At once the other lines upon the sheet became a crimson blur. Into my mind rushed an avalanche of figures and facts which seemed to prove irresistibly that I should have read nine millions in place of the numbers that were burning themselves into my brain. But what if it were rightly but two and a half millions, and the great sum on which all my market movements had been predicated was a hideous miscalculation on my part? Then inevitably was I hopelessly bankrupt, or saved from that only to find my neck irrevocably caught in the "Standard Oil" noose. I strove fiercely to steady my nerves, to arrest the stampeding terrors that had broken loose in my brain. There came to me a feverish memory of the hideous procession of Thursday's midnight vigil. I desperately asseverated to myself, "I must be cool, I must, I must." But all my resolutions went as goes the powder when touched by the match. In an instant more nothing in the world mattered; I sprang to my feet, kicked over the chair, and with an exclamation which was half yell, half imprecation, I stuck the paper under Mr. Rogers' eyes. On the balance line I beat a tattoo with my trembling forefinger. Heaven knows what I said, for all barriers were down and a flood-tide of rage, overwhelming, terrific, swept my being. There was no chance for Mr. Rogers to answer or to interrupt me. Suddenly I became conscious that I was asking, "Am I to understand that this is final? Is this what I get for all I have stood for?" My voice as I heard it was strange—a hoarse hiss—and the words fell on my ear like a death sentence. "No, by God, no!" I sprang between him and the door.

"Lawson, in the name of Heaven, stop for a second; there is some mistake; I see there is some mistake, some terrible blunder that they have made upstairs. Don't say another word. Give me that paper and I'll take it to Mr. Rockefeller. He will see what is wrong; he and I'll go over it together and you shall have what's right. I will be back in a few minutes and I swear to you you shall have your full share. Yes, I swear to you you shall have what you say is right, even if it takes every dollar of the profits, every dollar."

I handed him the paper without a word and he was out of the room. I heard gates bang and knew he had, as he promised, "gone upstairs." I locked the door and waited. I shall never forget the racking torture of that period of inaction. To make real all the terrors I was suffering it would be necessary for me to enter into elaborate details of the wide-spread financial commitment into which I had been led by my relationship with the Consolidation. I was staggering under immense lines of Boston "Coppers," which were to be included in the second section of Amalgamated, but had been purchased to make part of the first section. Some of these Mr. Rockefeller was carrying for me; the rest were portioned among two dozen banks, trust companies, and brokers. With a portion of the profits I had legitimately calculated upon, I had proposed to lighten my burden and to devote the balance to carrying through the contract I had taken on my shoulders of protecting Amalgamated stock in the market. To do so on this showing would be out of the question; more than ever should I be at "Standard Oil's" mercy. The dangers that threatened me assumed cyclopean proportions as I marshalled them. Suddenly another possibility flashed across my brain, "What if they should tell you that having refused what was fair, you should have nothing—that you could go to the devil and fight? Then where would you be?" That meant ruin, crushing, irrevocable, complete; a series of disasters, so portentously realistic, began a cinematographic procession across my disordered brain, that I found myself shivering in anticipation, when suddenly the door-knob clicked and I jumped to my feet to admit Mr. Rogers. In his hand was the paper. I had eyes for it alone. I took it from his outstretched fingers and devoured its contents. It was the same sheet, the same word "balance," but underneath the old figures was a line below which appeared a new set of ciphers, showing just a fraction under five millions of dollars. In the brief interval of minutes my balance had doubled. Before I could utter a word, with his hand on my arm to arrest my attention, Mr. Rogers was exclaiming:

"Lawson, one word before you open your mouth. Remember I said you should be satisfied. Mr. Rockefeller agrees with me. He is convinced these figures now are right, but wants me to tell you if you believe they are not, to make your own and you'll have what they call for."

As I said before, Henry H. Rogers knows the human animal, and in the intimate intercourse of preceding years he had had ample opportunity to learn those very human characteristics which go to the blending of my individuality. It is a weakness of which I am intensely conscious, yet cannot altogether regret, to be easily moved by any show of generosity and fairness, however specious. When I saw the new figures and realized that all the hell I had conjured up was no more than a nightmare, a very rapture of gratitude and relief seized me. It was not that I lost sight of the fact that this new balance was far below what I knew was my right, for according to the lowest computation my proper share was nine millions; nor that I failed to realize that I was in the power of this man whose greed, callousness, and brutal obstinacy in the face of opposition no one knew better than I. Still, though his unusual deference convinced me that by continued, fiery insistence I could force from him the remaining four millions (for the one thing Standard Oil never lets get into court is a dispute over a division of profits on a joint stock deal), the first shock had been so awful, and the reaction was so sudden, that my whole being revolted at the idea of further wrangle. Indeed, I was in the same condition as the man whose runaway horse suddenly stops just as the children in the roadway seemed doomed to be crushed and beaten to death beneath its iron heels. He condones the running away in gratitude for the timely halt. A glad voice within me seemed to be saying, "It's all right, all right—that's money enough to fight him out with—that's ammunition for victory—victory for yourself, for the friends who have banked on your ability to protect them."

I said to Mr. Rogers: "Tell Mr. Rockefeller I thank him for his fairness. I thank you both. I'm satisfied and this is settled." I put my finger on the account which lay on the table.

Yes, I positively thanked these men who had tried to rob me of seventy-five per cent. of all the millions that I had earned by all the laws of the game, and that I so urgently needed to protect those whom I had lured to probable destruction; needed as a mother in the desert needs milk to keep life in her babe. I thanked these men in heartfelt terms because they had returned me an additional third of my own money. Idiot, you say. I went further; I shook Mr. Rogers by the hand, and as the tears gathered in his eyes I said, and it was from the heart, too:

"Don't think, Mr. Rogers, that I shall ever lay up this day against you and Mr. Rockefeller, or that I shall resent not getting all I believed I should have had. I want you both to understand that I do know I am entitled to more, but it ends here. I will cherish no ill-feeling, for this balance is amply sufficient to enable me to do what I intended to do, and—there is more on earth than millions."

We were both emotionally excited; I from relief at escaping the clutches of that dread hell of which for certain moments I had felt the flaming grasp; he because of a sudden degrading realization that he had attempted to practise on a faithful comrade in arms a cowardly and contemptible piece of treachery. My impulsive gratitude for the measure of justice granted me made his avaricious greed seem even to him despicable, and for an instant Henry H. Rogers was honestly ashamed.

Some years have elapsed since this episode, but a thousand times I suppose the scene has arisen to rack Henry H. Rogers with bitter memories of his baseness. The severest punishments are not those that we mortals inflict on our fellows whom for violations of our little earthly laws we clap in striped suits and shackle with steel bracelets. What are striped suits which imprint no mark on the body of the wearer, or handcuffs that any blacksmith can strike off at a blow, in comparison with the ever-recurring torture of the white-hot iron with which God sears the hearts and brains of those sinners whose wrong-doing is beyond human retribution? What memories of prison and disgrace are comparable with the exquisite suffering of the undetected criminal who in the dark watches of the night pores over the bitter scroll of his delinquencies? When Henry H. Rogers reads the record set down here of this faithless and degrading action, he will suffer infinitely more than ever I did for the loss of the gold he and his associates so meanly filched. Nor will the knowledge of the seven and a half score of millions marshalled ready at his nod, abate one jot or tittle of the measure of his humiliation and shame.

Peace having been established, Mr. Rogers sent "upstairs" for the checks and stocks to complete the settlement, and while we waited we talked, and, as was inevitable after so strenuous a session, we found ourselves back on the sincere and frankly friendly footing of our earlier intercourse. A knock-down and attempted drag-out which at the end is declared a draw invariably promotes cordiality between the principals, and ours was no exception to the rule. Evidently Mr. Rogers had been doing considerable thinking since our last conversation and had accumulated troublesome ideas which had to be worked off. My mood at the moment seemed made to order for the purpose, and he ran over our affairs, one after another, until he thought it safe to explode his bomb. He rang for a clerk, and instructed that Mr. Stillman be called up and asked to send over "that paper if it was ready." Soon afterward the messenger returned with a big, square package. Mr. Rogers opened it.

"Lawson," he said, "here's the whole story. Stillman has been steadily at work and has just finished two copies of the entire subscription. I think you ought to look it over."

"Look it over," I repeated. "Why, it is of the utmost importance to the whole enterprise that I study every name. I alone can tell just what that list means. After I've been over it I'll know pretty thoroughly who will hold, who will want to sell, who must sell, and who will need encouragement."

"That's just what I thought," he answered, with an air of high approval. Then, dropping to his most friendly and confidential key, the tone of voice that never fails to persuade an associate that he is in on the bottom floor and that all others are outsiders, he went on: "And more than that, Lawson, why cannot you get in touch with all those subscribers who are disappointed at the amounts they received and sell them what they want?"

Mr. Rogers leaned back to appraise the effect of this startling proposition on me. At any other moment I should inevitably have broken loose again, but the fascination of his personality was upon me and I let him spin his webs. Any man, and there are scores adrift, who falls under the spell of Henry H. Rogers, invariably, as did the suitors of Circe, pays the penalty of his indiscretion. Some he uses and contemptuously casts aside useless; others he works, plays, and pensions; still others serve as jackals or servitors and proudly flaunt his livery; a few, the strong, independent souls, tempted with great rewards and beguiled by the man's baleful, intellectual charm into his clutches, preserve a semblance of freedom; but let the boldest of these turn restive—he is maimed or garroted with sickening promptitude.



CHAPTER XXXII

PERFECTING THE DOUBLE CROSS

To get back to my story. I realized that though one disaster had been averted, I was far from any haven of rest. Remembering my cue, however, I asked innocently:

"Have you all decided to sell more of the stock, Mr. Rogers?"

"All? Why no," he said. "Just let me show you where we stand now. All the unsold stock, roughly forty-eight millions, has been divided up and each man has to carry his own. That's easy, because Stillman will carry them all at the bank, for they are all good, Lewisohn, Morgan, Olcott, Flower, Daly, and the others. The only loose stock will be Mr. Rockefeller's, yours, and mine, and that we must turn into money before we can bring out the second section. You have been losing sight of the fact, Lawson, that we have millions upon millions tied up here, and Mr. Rockefeller has decided he will not go ahead until we have turned this venture into money."

Marvellous, marvellous man! He unrolled the new scheme as openly and as freely as though he were a world's philanthropist explaining a new benefaction and I an enthusiastic minister employed to carry the glad tidings to the people. The plot was obvious. In spite of Flower and Stillman and all the talk of our taking a rest he was back on his black courser again, in a new saddle, with a freshly lighted lantern, and the old blackjack newly leaded. And I was the only one who could stalk the game. I listened.

"Now let me show you, Lawson, what a pretty campaign I have laid out," he went on. "I've pledged all the others to hold their stock and I've got it rigged in such a way they can't let go a share without my knowing of it. Then I've got them all enthusiastic and have formed a pool at Flower's office which, if necessary, can buy 500,000 shares, and what with the money they have made and the promise that they will be let in on the second section if they're good, we ought to have things pretty much our own way."

The scheme seemed to be perfect for robbing every one in sight, and here was I being taken right in—I who had but one thought: to get those I had mired on to firm soil and myself outside the breastworks of this pirate stronghold.

"It looks perfect, Mr. Rogers," I said. "Now where do I come in on all this?"

He shrugged his shoulders impatiently. "You see as well as I can tell you," he replied evasively.

"I take it that you want me to unload our stock on to the pool and the other members of the syndicate?" I asked with a brutal frankness that I realized, after I heard the words, was almost indecent.