"Is it satisfactory to you or not? I am half beginning to think you are crowding this good thing we have in copper a bit too much. I simply ask now, Is this satisfactory to you? Do you leave it to us, or not? But whether you do or not, this particular part does not go to the public in any way."
He really showed a heap of irritation, and even now I think a little of it was genuine anger. It came over me that perhaps I was overcrowding it and treating the whole copper enterprise too much as if it were my personal property; for here was something I had had nothing to do with, the setting out, pruning, and gathering the fruit from, this particular plum-tree, and so I answered without any hesitation:
"It is you, I think, Mr. Rogers, who are a little unreasonable in not giving me a chance to tell you how I look at it. Yes, it is perfectly satisfactory. I will leave it entirely to you and Mr. Rockefeller. Whatever you do will be all right."
At once Mr. Rogers' expression changed. He looked relieved, making no attempt to disguise the fact that he had discharged a troublesome duty. "That is the way to look at it, Lawson," he said. "You'll not suffer, I promise you."
Meditating over the conversation afterward, I realized how delicate his task really had been, and how well he had performed it. It had been to settle this matter and to rearrange our copper plans that he had summoned me to New York, and if I had proved refractory I can see he would have been badly snagged in his negotiations with the Lewisohns. If there had been a trace of dissension in our camp, that firm would never have surrendered their great business on such terms as Rogers proposed to exact.