paraphernalia in loans, checks, and cash necessary to pay in the seventy-five millions capital, thirty-nine millions of which must at once be "book-keepingly" available to pay for the property bought from Daly, Haggin, and Tevis, and purchased by the company.
"It couldn't have gone through easier, Lawson," Mr. Rogers said quietly, "for the fact is, Stillman seems to have got the copper fever as badly as any one else and is as anxious to take a hand as we are to have him. It will be plain sailing now unless we strike some snag with Sterling or Elliott"—referring to the principal "Standard Oil" lawyers.
By this time such substantial progress had been made with the plans that they were formulated on paper and the time had come when it seemed advisable to try them on the "Standard Oil" law-department. We arranged that night that next morning Mr. Rogers should himself go over the matter with Mr. Sterling. I was waiting in his office when he returned from this consultation, and the expression of his face as he entered indicated plainly that a real snag had been struck. His jaw and the droop of the upper corners of his eyelids gave a curiously sinister aspect to his face.
"Well," said he, "Sterling says if we carry out that plan there may be h—l to pay some day."
"Wherein does he say it is wrong?" I asked, not over-surprised.
"Everywhere. He says if there is any slip-up in the future Mr. Rockefeller and myself may have to pay back a lot of money."
"Well, what are you going to do?" I said.
"Just what we started to do." No lawyer's warnings could hold him back from the bursting barrels now in sight. He went on:
"I told Sterling to forget I had asked him to pass on the matter, and that I would have my own counsel take the responsibility. So we go right ahead,