"There is nothing more important than to have just the right name for a company which is going to make history, is there?"
I agreed; in fact, even more than he I was impressed with the desirability of a suitable name for a corporation whose stock was bound to become a great market star, and I was not satisfied with any I had dug up. Give a stock or a book a good name, and it is sure to be numbered among the best sellers.
Mr. Rogers continued:
"Lawson, we want something as good as 'Standard Oil,' if it is possible to find it. Now"—and he drew over one of his little writing-pads and taking a slim gold pencil from his pocket slowly wrote something and handed it to me—"how do you like this?"
I read "'Amalgamated Copper Company.' Perfect!" I exclaimed.
"I thought you would say so"; and he reached over and wrote underneath the name, "A second Standard Oil." It was an impressive moment for both of us. I folded the slip, and putting it in my pocket said: "You will see this again, Mr. Rogers, when its stock sells for as much as Standard Oil."
Surely an adder crawled from that tiny golden cylinder and upon the smooth white paper distilled its subtle venom. I, poor fool, exulting in the splendid throes of accomplishment, never dreamed that the real christening of my bantling was the toast the Master of Hell drank as the name "Amalgamated" was slowly traced upon the pad before my eyes; never dreamed that this cherished offspring on whose rearing I had lavished all I possessed of dollars, of ideals, of generous hopes and high expectations—whose growth I had literally watered with my sweat—was an imp of darkness. My fool's paradise I had planted with all manner of fair flowers and lordly trees, and in my folly believed that those who had