l have what's right. I will be back in a
few minutes and I swear to you you shall have your full share. Yes, I
swear to you you shall have what you say is right, even if it takes
every dollar of the profits, every dollar."

I handed him the paper without a word and he was out of the room. I
heard gates bang and knew he had, as he promised, "gone upstairs." I
locked the door and waited. I shall never forget the racking torture of
that period of inaction. To make real all the terrors I was suffering it
would be necessary for me to enter into elaborate details of the
wide-spread financial commitment into which I had been led by my
relationship with the Consolidation. I was staggering under immense
lines of Boston "Coppers," which were to be included in the second
section of Amalgamated, but had been purchased to make part of the first
section. Some of these Mr. Rockefeller was carrying for me; the rest
were portioned among two dozen banks, trust companies, and brokers. With
a portion of the profits I had legitimately calculated upon, I had
proposed to lighten my burden and to devote the balance to carrying
through the contract I had taken on my shoulders of protecting
Amalgamated stock in the market. To do so on this showing would be out
of the question; more than ever should I be at "Standard Oil's" mercy.
The dangers that threatened me assumed cyclopean proportions as I
marshalled them. Suddenly another possibility flashed across my brain,
"What if they should tell you that having refused what was fair, you
should have nothing--that you could go to the devil and fight? Then
where would you be?" That meant ruin, crushing, irrevocable, complete; a
series of disasters, so portentously realistic, began a cinematographic
procession across my disordered brain, that I found myself shivering in
anticipation, when suddenly the door-knob clicked and I jumped to my
feet to admit Mr. Rogers. In his hand was the paper. I had eyes for it
alone. I took it from his outstretched fingers and devoured its
contents. It was the same sheet, the same word "balance," but underneath
the old figures was a line below which appeared a new set of ciphers,
showing just a fraction under five millions of dollars. In the brief
interval of minutes my balance had doubled. Before I could utter a word,
with his hand on my arm to arrest my attention, Mr. Rogers was
exclaiming:

"Lawson, one word before you open your mouth. Remember I said you should
be sat