n,
through public-market manipulation and private negotiation, the shares
of the several good Boston companies whose merits I myself knew about
and had so carefully gone over with Mr. Rogers and Mr. Rockefeller, when
one day Mr. Rogers called me up on the telephone and requested that I
come to New York to see him. "I have," he said, "a very important matter
to go over with you." I took the train and early next morning was at 26
Broadway. As soon as we started in I was struck by a certain strangeness
in his manner--an unusual impressiveness that indicated to me at once
that something was in the wind.

This proved to be the case. I was soon in possession of the information
that he and Mr. Rockefeller had been putting in a lot of work on the
copper business; that they had evolved some further schemes, and that
now the plans were so far along that I could not upset them, therefore
they proposed to let me in--all this in the pleasantest manner.

In answer to my quick inquiry as to what plans I had ever upset he waved
a chilling hand toward me. "Don't start in looking for trouble," he
said. "There are certain things which cannot be done by a man who works
as you do. From the very beginning you have insisted upon taking the
public into your confidence, with the result that they get large profits
which otherwise would come to us. If you did your business as we do
ours--acted first and talked after, or, better still, did not talk at
all--there would be no difference of opinion between us. Still, we
recognize that each man must do business in his own way, and we have let
you go ahead where it was possible." After a short pause he continued:

"While you were getting the Boston companies in shape I unearthed
another situation which almost seemed as though it were made to order
for us. What do you know of the Anaconda Company?"

The way he asked this question in one of his cross-bred,
cat-purring-and-fox-bark tones which I had seen him work on others, and
which I had observed always denoted a perfect knowledge of your answer
to his question before you had it, did not help my guessing any.

I told him I knew nothing more than that there was such a company with
stock dealt in on the English and our markets.

"Nothing more than that?" And he looked at me quizzically. "Have you
been watching the stock's actions in the market?"

In a second it flashed over me that Anaconda had been quite active of
late, that is, had been largely t