"Pass that by as an impossibility."
"Then, Mr. Rogers, we are down to this: You must sell and we must buy you out."
"Right. Now, how do you propose to buy?"
For months the ablest financiers and business men of Wall Street and Boston had striven to start up negotiations with Mr. Rogers with a view to settlement, and all had dropped them without even getting in an opening wedge, and here was I at the end of fifteen minutes of my first meeting, with my task half accomplished. I went on:
"There is something more you must do, Mr. Rogers. You must assist us in buying, which means you must sell at the terms you and I agree are the only ones we can meet. Therefore I will run over our situation. You have certain property, consisting of the Brookline Company and miscellaneous investments in connection with it. What cost does it stand you?"
Frankly, he went over what his Boston gas-war equipment consisted of and what it had cost, which, boiled down, amounted to $3,500,000. He then said:
"Let us figure what it will be worth to you when, it being known you have won out, you will have additional prestige and no competition."
We agreed upon $2,000,000 as representing the probable appreciation in what we were to acquire from him over and above any increase to our own securities.
"I'll take cost, $3,500,000, if it is cash or the equivalent, or I will take $4,500,000 if it is to be credit of a nature that assures me my money eventually, and I will divide my profit of a million equally with you. This sum will of course be in addition to anything you may be paid by Addicks."