d be such
a blaze of publicity and congratulations that we felt sure our new stock
would go off like hot cakes. The demonstration proved in a most
sensational way that acetylene was a failure--a tremendous explosion
occurred; three men were killed, many others injured, and next day back
went our stock to its old figures.

All this time I had sought most diligently for the real solution of our
troubles--a method of purchasing Rogers' companies. A substantial
guarantee there must be, not only for the performance of our financial
engagements but to insure to Rogers the integrity of his properties
while under the domination of Addicks. The difficulty was, in the
weakened condition of the company, to put together any satisfactory
guarantee. Others in our group had wrestled with the problem as
strenuously as I had. Suddenly, a few days before May, 1896, the light
came to me. All the time the solution had been in our hands, and, beset
as we were, it had never occurred to any of us. We absolutely controlled
the old Boston gas companies. They were intrinsically among the richest
corporations in Massachusetts, and although their stocks were pledged
for the $12,000,000 of bonds held by the public, they did not owe a
dollar. Though the terms of the agreement between the Bay State Company
and the Mercantile Trust, which held their shares, precluded them from
contracting any debts, they were empowered, through us, their officials,
to buy or sell gas, and all their great wealth was behind such
contracts. If, then, we agreed on their behalf to buy gas of the
Brookline Company for a term of years at such a price and in sufficient
quantities to give the latter concern a profit equal to ten per cent.
dividends on its stock, surely we had complied with the very letter of
Rogers' exaction. Testing the idea in one way and another, I found it
sound as a bell. The problem after that was to get into shape for the
substantial issue of new stock we must make to pay for our purchase. The
banks and trust companies were loaded up with our securities pledged for
loans, and before there could be any conviction behind our prosperity it
behooved us to get all our valuables out of pawn. I went to Mr. Rogers
and frankly told him I had solved our problem and his by a financial
invention of my own. I entered into the details of our plan, explaining
it would not even be necessary for us to buy any gas of him, because we
would turn over a sufficient number of