“You are one of the original subscribers to the Lawyers’ Title Company, yet you do all your business with the Title Guarantee & Trust Company. Why not with us?” I said: “In all our large transactions, we have to borrow money on mortgages; we do not want to wait until you offer them around and try and place them. The other company with their enormous resources and backing gave us a prompt answer. If you want to enter this very profitable field of large loans, let me double your capital of $1,000,000 and also secure for you similar backing to that possessed by your competitor. Though your stock is selling below book value, I am willing to take the extra issue at book value, and place it with interests that will give you a credit of $5,000,000 and thus enable you promptly to handle the biggest transactions, which are now monopolized by the Title Guarantee & Trust Company.” Within an hour Edward W. Coggeshall, the president of the Lawyers’ Title Company, called and asked me to repeat my proposition directly to him. I did so, and he said to me: “When can you make a definite binding offer?” I inquired whether he wanted my personal, or the Company’s offer, and when he agreed to deal with me personally, I asked him to wait until I dictated the proposition in his presence, and he did. Two days later he informed me that his Board of Directors desired to offer 3,000 shares of the new stock of their stockholders, and could therefore only sell me 7,000 shares, and hence they would be satisfied with a credit of four million dollars. I consented to this change and immediately called on the officials of the Equitable Life Insurance Company and arranged with Mr. Squires, the chairman of the Finance Committee, that they would buy 2,000 shares of the stock, and agree to loan the company two million dollars on mortgages. I suggested that Mr. Thomas N. Jordan, their comptroller, should act as one of the experts to fix the value of the stock. I next called upon Mr. Olcott, who would not obligate the Central Trust Company to make any definite loan, but authorized me to agree on behalf of the Central Realty Bond & Trust Company to loan one million dollars on mortgages and to subscribe 2,000 shares of the stock.