come from the Bay State treasury, so that
eliminates Addicks. I, personally, am in such shape because of this same
receivership that I can do nothing. So, as usual, it comes down to the
man with unlimited money--Rogers. The question is, how to get Rogers to
advance so large a sum in such a ticklish business? He does not want to
get mixed up in a matter in which any one man's treachery might mean
State's prison."

"Somebody's word ought to be good," he commented.

"Only two men's words would be of any avail," I interrupted--"yours and
Addicks', and you have just made it clear that in this case neither
would be worth the breath expended in pledging it."

FOOTNOTES:

[12] Since the above was published the American people have become aroused,
and as this book is going to press, scores of the greatest financiers in
America are having under oath confessions squeezed from them in a
life-insurance investigation conducted by the State of New
York--confessions which reveal such a condition of perjury, bribery, and
habitual sequestration of funds, as to make my statement seem mild.

CHAPTER XXIV

BUYING A BUNCH OF STATES

I left Braman and went down to Mr. Rogers. After a careful canvas of the
situation it was settled that the only way out was for Rogers to furnish
the money to release the receivership, in consideration of which
accommodation Addicks should forfeit the old Boston companies to him
through Bay State's failure to comply with the terms of the May contract
which matured the following Monday. Rogers would administer these
companies in trust, applying their earnings to the liquidation of the
bonds, and after these latter had been paid off, would turn them back to
the Bay State Company for the benefit of its stock; or he would release
the companies to us whenever we could raise the money to redeem them.
Thus Rogers would make sure of the amount of his original investment,
the million dollars profit the May 1st deal permitted him, while I
should have secured for my friends and the public the amount of their
investment in the property and a good profit for the stockholders to
boot. To secure Addicks' consent to this arrangement would be the
difficulty; but there was one consideration that would probably induce
him to give way--his terrible plight in case the receivership became
permanent.

Having reached this point, the next problem was how to get the money.
Rogers refused absolutely to be a party to any