as elsewhere to tell exactly how fair and just
Mr. Rogers proved himself in the cutting of this particular melon, and
to explain why he had been at such pains to have me leave it entirely to
his and Mr. Rockefeller's generosity. The fifty-one per cent. of the
sales company amounted in hundred-dollar shares to 26,000 ($2,600,000).
If I had insisted upon the arrangement then in force my share would have
been 6,500 shares ($650,000), which to-day are worth a fabulous figure.
For some time after this I heard nothing about the matter and was in
complete ignorance of what my portion was until one day Mr. Rogers said
in an offhand way: "By the way, Lawson, you can send me a check for your
allotment of the selling company's stock, 250 shares." Before I got a
chance to interpose a word he said: "We had to divide that up among a
great many, or there would have been a good deal of hard feeling, but,
after all, it's only a side-show and does not amount to anything when
you consider our real plans."

At this moment, carefully chosen for that very reason, our affairs were
swimming along so magnificently and my own profits were so great, that I
had not the heart to make any serious objection. I let the matter go
with an inward resolution that at the first convenient moment I would
slip out of the selling company. Sure enough, shortly afterward Mr.
Rogers said to me:

"Lawson, I do wish we could get in that selling company's stock from the
different holders." He did not actually say he was buying it in for the
Amalgamated Copper Company, but he desired that I infer it. I snapped
him up:

"All right. You can have mine, Mr. Rogers," I said.

"At what price?" And I think he thought that he would be compelled to do
some trading.

"Oh, about cost and interest," said I; and the thing was done. I
afterward learned that he had treated every one in much the same way,
and that he and Mr. William Rockefeller practically had it all. They
have it to-day, just as they and John D. Rockefeller, and possibly one
or two others in "Standard Oil," have appropriated all the inner
companies of "Standard Oil" where the real melons are cut--the secret
rebates and all the other under-the-rose profits--while they are so
industrious in their unloading of the stock of the main company,
Standard Oil, that the last annual report showed that the list of
outside stockholders numbers 4,100, this too at a time when 26 Broadway
sits up nights to disseminate the im