ng each
subscriber one share for every two or three subscribed.

I presumed then that some such method would be followed. It surprised me
at the time that Mr. Rogers should have given so little attention to so
vital a part of our programme, for he is in the habit of thoughtfully
thumbing over just such details to avoid slip-ups, but the idea that our
subscription would run into unwieldy amounts never occurred to him, and
he let things go, trusting to luck and "Standard Oil's" motto "To Hell
with the people anyway," to adjust the matter at the last moment. To-day
Henry H. Rogers, William Rockefeller, and James Stillman would each give
five millions from his private fortune if this seemingly unimportant
detail had then been provided for. Its neglect is the bloody
finger-print on the knife-handle of the murderer, it is the burglar's
footprint in the snow. In this case it furnishes the evidence of the
crime of Amalgamated.

CHAPTER XXV

DOLLAR HYDROPHOBIA

Our first fears of failure were soon succeeded by apprehensions of a
different nature. By Tuesday noon it was evident that the flotation
would far exceed the low expectations of Rogers and Rockefeller, and I
knew that if the people's interest continued to develop at the rate the
subscriptions indicated, the totals would be far ahead of my own most
sanguine anticipations. Every hour the excitement intensified. The
crowds on the street and in the brokers' offices; the rush of investors
to the City Bank--all demonstrated a feverish condition of the public
mind, a state of unrest that fills the conservative banker with dread
lest something happen to precipitate a disorder and a panic. The acute
sensitiveness of a body of investors to extraneous influence, however
slight, is familiar to any one who has had to do with market
manipulation. In a theatre or church one strenuous spirit can quell a
tumult with some ringing assurance, but long before the leader of a
financial movement has got word to his following, wide-spread over the
country, it has taken alarm, the rout has begun, and the field is strewn
with corpses. A great financial excitement, like a rocket, should soar
triumphantly into the air, leaving behind it a comet-like trail of
glory, climaxing in a shower of gold; diverted from its course, it runs
a mad, brief, tragic career along the earth, spreading ruin and disaster
in its path.

There comes a time when all great enterprises must emerge from the
nurs