I explained how many groups of men had formed real estate corporations, only to discover that even then their resources were inadequate to handle all the profitable business that was coming to them. I told of some of my own larger transactions; how I always had to get others to help me finance them, and how, therefore, such a company as the one we proposed forming would undoubtedly become the syndicate manager of some of the larger operations. I told him if he had no objections, we could secure large deposits. Olcott replied that my plans would in no way conflict with his corporation, and that I should do any business that I deemed profitable. He asked me whom I wanted on the board, and I told him that I should like to have some representatives of the Mutual Life Insurance Company, who were then the largest investors in mortgages on New York City real estate, and suggested Messrs. Juilliard and Jarvie, the two best known and most influential members of its board. We settled on a number of other directors, and a few days later Stillman sent word that he wanted some of the stock. Olcott agreed that he should only be given some of the stock if he consented to serve on the Executive Committee. Post and Southack, who had brought the message, hesitated to deliver this answer, as they thought we ought heartily to welcome Stillman’s interest in our corporation, and when they put the proposition to Mr. Stillman, he asked them, in his mystifying manner, whether this was an ultimatum. They hesitated to admit it. They were really afraid of him, and he was simply tantalizing them about his acceptance, which he finally gave them. He was allotted only 200 shares, and within a year he sent for me and in his peculiar teasing way told me that he was dissatisfied with his connection with the company. When I asked him why, he said that he had not a sufficiently large interest. I had to coax Olcott to sell 300 of his 1,000 shares for as much as he had paid for his entire 1,000. I doubt if I could have persuaded him to sell to any one else. It was simply, as he put it, that he wanted the satisfaction of making “that smart neighbour of his”--as he often called Stillman, their offices in adjoining buildings--“put him on velvet in this transaction.” I shall tell later on how, several times, I had to go on bended knees to have some of these men accept what seemed to me tremendous profits. I was now ready to proceed to business, as president of the Central Realty, Bond & Trust Company. CHAPTER V FINANCE I had suddenly been catapulted from my comparatively unknown law office into the very midst of high finance. I was president of a board of directors in which but a few weeks ago I should have rejoiced to have been the junior member. My associates were all leaders in their various pursuits, and gloried in the power and wealth that they had accumulated while struggling to reach these eminent positions.