Fortunately, at this stage of the duel Mr. Rogers' secretary arrived with my checks and stock, and while we were verifying these, I had time to study my mental chess-board for the next move. The papers were all passed at last and then I entered into some explanation of my own intentions. I told Mr. Rogers that for the time being I would hold all my stock, but that I intended to borrow a stack of money on it from Stillman through my brokers, for I fully intended to support the market, as my belief in the stock was absolute.
I could have sworn Mr. Rogers inwardly chuckled at my fatuity, but I went right on:
"If Mr. Rockefeller has decided that your share and his of the allotment must, in whole or in part, be turned into money before the second section is tackled, there's nothing for it but to go ahead, and I will put in great work for you (I didn't add, "my work, if I can make it, will keep you in as long as the public have a share"), because," said I, "my one ambition now is to complete the second section and get things in such shape that those people I have had locked-in so long can get out, if they care to."
It was an intricate problem that was thus settled, for Mr. Rogers well knew that it would be useless to attempt to sell big quantities of Amalgamated without my detecting it, and he dared not ask me to have a hand in his plot without including my own stock. When he saw I intended to stand by my baby, and yet was so anxious to get to the second section that I would accede to Mr. Rockefeller's wishes, he perceived that the situation was ideal for his purposes.
"Let me glance over that subscription list," I said; and I opened up the book, for book it really was.
My readers may surmise how intense was my interest in scanning the results of my work. This great stack of bank sheets before me was the official list of the subscription, stitched together in seventeen sections of