Olcott told me that McCurdy intimated that he would expect Jarvie, Juilliard and Coleman to resign from our company unless the Mutual Life were taken care of in this matter. Olcott strongly advised me to defy and fight them, while on the other hand Juilliard and Jarvie told me that it was as much Mr. Olcott’s manner and forcible language as my neglect in taking care of the Mutual Life interests that had aggravated Mr. McCurdy. Juilliard told me that it would be a pity to break up our happy little family, and that if I would use my tact, I could satisfactorily adjust the matter. Although our company had progressed very nicely, in my opinion it was hardly strong enough to antagonize so important an interest as the Mutual Life. I, therefore, consented to let Juilliard arrange an interview between McCurdy and myself. I was ushered into the well-known throne-room and McCurdy told me at great length of his connections with the Title Guarantee & Trust Company and that as the Mutual Life was the largest lender on mortgages and some of its best directors were on my board, I should have given the company an opportunity to participate in this matter. He said that the company could have divided their allegiance and have done business with both the title companies. I informed him that I regretted that I had not known his desire and that now it was too late, but that I was arranging to increase the capital stock of the Lawyers’ Mortgage Company and would gladly put the Mutual Life on the same basis as the Equitable Life. That did not seem to satisfy him. He wanted to be interested in the Lawyers’ Title Company. He was insistent that he wanted some of the stock of the Title Company and rather spurned the Lawyers’ Mortgage stock. Coggeshall and I finally concluded that we would try to have Mr. Stillman sell some or all of his stock to the Mutual Life. Stillman absolutely refused to do so when first requested, and he made me accept it as a personal favour when he finally consented to sell 1,000 shares for which he had paid $174,000 for $350,000 to the Mutual Life. Stillman thought that if the Mutual and Equitable were going to fight for the control of the Lawyers’ Title Company, as he put it, the stock would go to $500 a share. While I was arguing with him as to the splendid profit this was, he said to me: “Morgenthau, you don’t understand what profits we are in the habit of making,” and told me that when the Northern Pacific was levying a $15 assessment, William Rockefeller and he had agreed to pay the assessment on all the stock on which the stockholders would default, and by so doing, had secured about 270,000 shares, had agreed not to sell it until it showed them a profit of $100 a share, which it did, and he said that even then they regretted that they had sold it before the corner in Northern Pacific had occurred, because thereby they lost a very big additional profit that they might otherwise have made.