. "What do you want?" he asked. "Perhaps, though,
you'd first like to have me tell you how my affairs stand."

"I know sufficiently where you stand," I replied, "to name my terms
right now. If they are acceptable, I'll hear you tell where you stand
afterward. I'll take your fight for a cash commission of $250,000 and a
cash capital of $1,000,000, to be used in the market on joint account,
we to divide the profits of all operations."

Addicks smiled. "You are too high," he said. "I'll pay you $50,000
commission and give you $250,000 capital, and after I show you in what
good shape my fight now is and how near I am to victory, you'll agree
that the terms I offer are good pay and fair."

"Mr. Addicks," said I, "I have just time to get dinner, look in at the
theatre, and catch the midnight back to Boston. It is my business to
keep posted on such scrimmages as you are engaged in. If you and your
affairs are where I believe they are, the terms I offer are
exceptionally low. If your affairs are as you would have me believe, you
need no one to captain your fight."

Addicks asked where I thought his affairs stood, and I answered: "I
don't think--I know, or, at least, I feel quite sure I do. You are at
the end of your rope and are practically bankrupt."

At once Addicks grew indignant. "You are absolutely wrong," he asserted.
"I'll admit I have had a hard fight, and that it has cost me, so far,
considerable money; but I give you my word I'm worth between six and
seven millions clear and clean right now."

I bade him good-night and left. Our interview had consumed not over
twenty to twenty-five minutes. I said to his bankers:

"Addicks is the Addicks I have sized him up to be, only worse."

We got back to Boston next morning, and at the opening of the Stock
Exchange I sailed into the Bay State stock in earnest, for I felt surer
than before that Addicks was nearing his finish. A few minutes after
the Exchange opened, Addicks' banker rushed into my office and said the
Delaware financier begged that I would return to New York at once, and
whispered to me that in a conversation just held on the telephone
Addicks had stated that he would accept my terms. I informed the banker
I was not anxious for the job, but as he urged his own interest, I
jumped on the noon train and in the evening was again in New York.

It was a warm day and I was pleased to get a wire on the train from
Addicks asking me to meet him at the pier, as we sho