Amalgamated stock in the market. To do so on this showing would be out of the question; more than ever should I be at "Standard Oil's" mercy. The dangers that threatened me assumed cyclopean proportions as I marshalled them. Suddenly another possibility flashed across my brain, "What if they should tell you that having refused what was fair, you should have nothing—that you could go to the devil and fight? Then where would you be?" That meant ruin, crushing, irrevocable, complete; a series of disasters, so portentously realistic, began a cinematographic procession across my disordered brain, that I found myself shivering in anticipation, when suddenly the door-knob clicked and I jumped to my feet to admit Mr. Rogers. In his hand was the paper. I had eyes for it alone. I took it from his outstretched fingers and devoured its contents. It was the same sheet, the same word "balance," but underneath the old figures was a line below which appeared a new set of ciphers, showing just a fraction under five millions of dollars. In the brief interval of minutes my balance had doubled. Before I could utter a word, with his hand on my arm to arrest my attention, Mr. Rogers was exclaiming:
"Lawson, one word before you open your mouth. Remember I said you should be satisfied. Mr. Rockefeller agrees with me. He is convinced these figures now are right, but wants me to tell you if you believe they are not, to make your own and you'll have what they call for."
As I said before, Henry H. Rogers knows the human animal, and in the intimate intercourse of preceding years he had had ample opportunity to learn those very human characteristics which go to the blending of my individuality. It is a weakness of which I am intensely conscious, yet cannot altogether regret, to be easily moved by any show of generosity and fairness, however specious. When I saw the new figures and realized that all the hell I had conjured up was no more than a nightmare, a very rapture of gratitude and relief seized me. It was not that I lost sight of the fact that this new balance was far below what I knew was my right, for