ne your check to pay for any, have you?"

I was nettled at his tone. "That is all I wanted to know," I answered.
"Of course, Anaconda will have a still bigger rise, and if we have all
we care to buy for the new company, no one will object to my telling the
public what a good thing it is and putting them aboard now."

I was on perilous ground. He gave me an ugly glare which I knew meant
real danger as he slowly said: "I think, Lawson, you have done all that
is necessary for you to do for the public in letting them in on the
things you already have, and for some time any one who interferes with
the market on Anaconda stock, which I consider fairly belongs to Mr.
Rockefeller and myself, will not find his investment a profitable one."

"Well and good, Mr. Rogers," I answered. "If you consider the market
yours, I will not interfere, but I wanted to know just how it stood."

"You know now, and I shall expect you not only to keep out of it, but to
see that it is handled in such a manner that all others stay out--all
others except sellers," which meant that not only was no one to get any
of the benefits on this stock, but that innocent holders were to be
enticed into selling, that "Standard Oil" might buy before the real rise
came.

As I write these sentences I marvel at my patience, and my blood
tingles with the thought of how, if the opportunity were again mine, I
should reply to such an imperious mandate. If men said and did at the
crucial moment all the wise, strong things that occur to them afterward,
this would be a different world. The brave and scornful words I should
have uttered I choked back, and, as countless others had done before me,
I bowed my head and--submitted. Conscience and honesty slunk sadly into
the background as I flaunted off on the arms of policy and discretion,
pirouetting to the jingling music of golden shekels.

Great fortunes are seldom achieved without sacrifice of morals--or at
least of pride--and ambition makes meaner cowards of us than conscience.
Then and there I might have made a martyr of myself by threatening an
exposure of the whole bad scheme and defying "Standard Oil" to do its
worst; but martyrs seldom give themselves to the flames, and looking
back dispassionately from the vantage-ground of the present, I doubt
seriously if by denouncing the conspiracy I should have done more than
discredit myself.

The interview ended, I returned to Boston and at once began the
execution of the