if we did insist
on having the 100,000 shares extra Rogers had mentioned instead of the
50,000 he had decided to demand, the Clark-Ward-Untermyer combination
would still have remaining more of value than their whole property could
possibly have been worth without our association. Therefore I tumbled
into their midst and dropped Mr. Rogers' bomb--and bomb it was.

At once they realized that they were looking into the cold steel muzzles
of 45-calibre revolvers, for there was no concealing the
money-or-your-life inference of the message. I had honestly tried to
soften the blow as well as I could, but all they could see was 50,000
shares more at something like a million dollars less than its market
value--or in twenty-four hours a panic and no market for their stock at
any price. What could they do? With perspiration streaming in big beads
down their foreheads, they declared that even if their people were
willing to submit to the knife, it was impossible in the brief time
available to get to them. At least would I not beg Mr. Rogers and Mr.
Rockefeller to take up the 100,000 shares pending their negotiations for
the balance? Would I not, because they had made all their financial
arrangements for big payments of loans next day which they could not
renew at such short notice--I must!--I must!

As I listened to the pleadings of these men there flashed into my mind a
conviction of the malignant humor of my situation. Here was I, father of
a plan in the successful execution of which I had figured myself out as
a benefactor to all concerned, turning the torture screws of "Standard
Oil's" new dollar rack--fashioned from my structure--and I was powerless
to stop or rescue the screaming victim. "But why," ask my readers, "did
you not denounce the men and renounce the work, instead of profiting by
it, as you undoubtedly did?" You have never--you who ask that
question--sat in at the great game of millions; you know nothing of the
excitement of the dollar chase, of the terrible joy of hearing, "A
million while you wait." I am not, in telling this story, setting myself
up as an angel, nor posing as better than others. My experience of
business has demonstrated to me long before this that rapacity rules in
the modern dollar game, and that in wholesale dollar making many of the
laws of men and more of the laws of God are inevitably violated. But he
who cannot or will not play according to the rules of those who are
making the game is di