usual 'National City Bank,' but 'James Stillman, President.' This will immediately follow the company's advertisement, which I shall so word that the enormous properties composing the consolidation will be set forth, yet without details of the extent of our holdings in any of them. In its own advertisement offering the stock the City Bank will refer to the advertisement of the Amalgamated as though all particulars had there been given, and I will see that it reads openly and frankly and yet contains nothing that need scare Stillman. Then there will be a third advertisement, signed by myself, in which, in the plainest and strongest terms at my command, I shall tell just what the company is and what it proposes to do."
"So far all right," assented Mr. Rogers.
"There is one more thing," I went on. "It cannot openly be put forward that I am the authorized agent of the Amalgamated Company and the City Bank—well, I must have the equivalent of this. It must be shown by inference. If I insert these three advertisements in the papers and pay for them, and the company pays me for them, it will be proof positive for all time that I acted as the authorized agent of not only the company and the City Bank, but of Marcus Daly, yourself, William Rockefeller's son, and James Stillman, and therefore that whatever my advertisement says is binding upon them. Remember, though, it will be your affair whether you tell them of it or not."
"You persist, Lawson, that this is necessary?" Mr. Rogers interrogated. "You seem to lose sight of the position I shall be in should anything happen later to reveal to these men with whom I am so closely associated in business that they were binding themselves without their knowledge, and that I was fully aware of the fact."