“Why,” he said, “that’s a preposterous proposition! The idea of offering a second mortgage on a leasehold for the fee of a first-class Fifth Avenue corner, and to make it to so conservative a man as Mr. Parish! He has never even had a telephone in the offices of the New York Life Insurance & Trust Company, of which he is president! You must want me to be kicked downstairs.” “You’re absolutely mistaken,” I answered. “Mr. Parish is constantly buying mercantile notes for his Trust Company, and will know that this personal bond of Andrew Alexander’s, guaranteed by me, is as good as any note that he has in his wallet. His office is on the ground floor--you needn’t be afraid of being kicked downstairs.” Ball presented the offer and Parish accepted it. The mortgage was paid on its due date: I made a small profit on the Parish house and disposed of an almost unmarketable mortgage without any loss; Ball made a good commission, and so all were happy. Shortly after I had another deal with William Waldorf Astor. It involved a part of the Semler farm on the east side from Fourth to Tenth streets. My negotiations with Charles A. Peabody, now president of the Mutual Life Insurance Company of New York, were drawn out for over six months, as his letters had to follow Astor all over Europe. After we had come to a definite arrangement, war was declared with Spain. Peabody surprised me one day when he came unannounced to my office to ask me whether I was still willing to make the purchase. I told him that I was convinced that the war would not affect the thirty Germans who were occupying these houses, and to whom I expected to sell the fees; and that I would be more pleased if he would sell me one hundred houses instead of forty. We entered into a contract to purchase forty lots on which the leases expired within a year. There was tremendous excitement among the tenants; protest meetings were called and cables sent to Astor. This brought me another visit from Mr. Peabody. “Now, Morgenthau,” he said after sketching his predicament, “will you try to help us out?” “I am perfectly willing,” I said, “to take other property of Mr. Astor’s, and let him deal direct with the objecting tenants, but I want a corner plot for a corner plot, and an inside avenue plot for an inside avenue plot and as many inside street lots as I was to have had. Although you have no properties on which the leases terminate the same time as these for which I am under contract, I am willing to buy them on the same basis,”--which was multiplying the annual ground rent by twenty.