y, pondering
tone. "There are lots of sharp chaps on 'the Street' who will insist on
asking questions, questions Flower cannot possibly answer, and in a jiff
they might start in to offer the subscriptions down, and before one
could whistle a bar from 'Wait Till the Clouds Roll By' the air might be
full of falling stars."

This seemed to strike home.

"Well, what have you to propose?" he asked.

"Some one should be ready in the market to take any amount of stock--" I
argued.

He interrupted in his old aggressive way before the sentence was half
out of my mouth:

"Cut that line out, Lawson; I told you Flower has that end of the affair
entirely in his hands."

And at this point my resolution to keep quiet and play the game did
almost go by the board. For a second I literally boiled. Then there
flashed before my mind's mirror the dreadful procession of the night
before, and I once more held tight and, oh, so deferentially and
politely, like a chastened school-boy, went on:

"Oh, that will be all right. I was not going to suggest that you let me
interfere with Flower's plans, for I can gather, Mr. Rogers, that you
and the others have decided on doing things your own way, and you can
rest easy I shall not interfere."

"That's something like, Lawson," he said, with a heartiness I could see
was from the lower hold. "That's the way to look at a big thing of this
kind, and if we all just pull together for a while we shall have your
old plans going like oil again."

Yes, Mr. Rogers was plainly pleased at my complaisance and the prospect
of using me to gather in another harvest of dollars later. Playing my
game, I pursued:

"Is it fair, Mr. Rogers, to ask what arrangements Stillman has made for
loaning money to those who may want to borrow on their subscriptions?
You know we gave out before the subscription was opened that the City
Bank would loan on the stock?"

"That is one of the things I was going to tell you, Lawson. Flower is
going to let it be known that any one and every one who cares to, can
borrow the remaining seventy-five per cent. at the City at going rates,
so there will be no excuse for any one selling."

There it was as plain as a haystack: it was the old trap, the old
ambush; within were the victims lured there by the cupidity which I had
played upon; the bars were up now and "Standard Oil" was ready to begin
its familiar trick of going through their clothes.

Already "Standard Oil" had laid its h