"What do you mean by 'too many bonds,' Addicks? I gave him all we had.
Sorry it was not more. We are to pay him four and a half million
dollars, and the sooner we do it the better. Now out with what you've
got in your mind; I won't stand any trifling."

Addicks continued to look at me with the same insolent, critical air. He
said slowly:

"The reason I say you've given too many bonds is that we haven't a
million and a half to put up. Where in the world did you get the idea we
had?"

In an instant I realized that this sharper had tricked me into
apparently tricking Rogers. I was boiling with rage.

"You have told me over and over again that you retained the right to
issue a million and a half bonds, that you had never parted with it, and
relying on your assurances, I have done business with Rogers. Let's have
the truth now at once."

Addicks is a master in the management of just such tangles as had
developed here. I had expected him to give way before my indignation.
He looked me square in the eye and turned the tables on me. He got mad
first.

"You have taken too much on yourself," he began vehemently. "You had no
right to go ahead without consulting me. Because I've given you full
swing you think you are the whole thing, but you're not. And as for your
rushing in on me without warning and expecting me to let you turn all
the assets of this corporation over to your new 'Standard Oil' friend, I
won't stand for it. You can't do this corporation's business that way."

He poured on for five minutes without giving me a chance to interpose a
word. He seemed to be consumed with anger and paced up and down the
office. Then suddenly he stopped:

"We cannot afford to have any trouble, you and I, Lawson. I'm sure you
did only what you thought best, but the fact is, I pledged some of those
bonds for our war supplies a few months ago, and though I'm not going to
dispute it with you, I'd swear I told you at the time."

As Addicks talked I had been mentally reviewing the situation in which I
found myself. I saw myself dropped out of Rogers' consideration as the
same kind of a financial trickster that Addicks was. For the moment, I
had no fight left; I was knocked out.

"Don't feel bad, Lawson. You got as far with Rogers as it is possible to
get, and you are dead right when you say that once we get hold of his
corporation so that every one knows we've licked him, we can easily sell
stock enough to pay him in a few weeks.