Underwood gave me an option in November, 1909, to purchase from him 40 per cent. of the Common stock. He gave this option without any payment down. I invited Mr. Jacob Wertheim to join me and when I gave him all the facts that I had learned while acting as director for years--he found them so convincing that he waived making an investigation and proposed that we confine the matter entirely to ourselves--he offered to finance the operation to any extent that I was unable to do. I accepted this on condition that he would give his son Maurice, who had married my daughter Alma, an interest in his half. He consented and I gave my son an interest in my share. After we had made this arrangement, we decided that it would be better for Underwood and the other stockholders of the enterprise that, instead of creating a market for the then existing shares, we should create a new issue of $5,000,000 of Preferred stock, dispose of it to the public, and with the proceeds redeem the First and Second Preferred, and also the outstanding Common stock, pay off the notes then outstanding, and have enough cash left to more than double the facilities of the Company at Hartford. When I made the suggestion to Underwood, he said he would not entertain it until I had consummated my option. We did this promptly, and then refinanced the Company. It was one of the first companies, if not the very first, that sold its Preferred stock to the bankers without giving them, or their purchasers, any of the Common stock as a bonus. My experience as president of the Central Realty Trust Company had taught me that this could be done, and I insisted upon trying it, so that when we finished with the entire operation, Wertheim and I and our sons were owners of very substantial amounts of the Common stock at a very moderate price. Underwood and Strauss and the other Preferred and Common stockholders of the Company were all, and still are, pleased with the refinancing, as everybody concerned was benefitted by the operation. In the meantime, the Underwood Company has completely outstripped all the other companies, and Underwood has had the satisfaction of metamorphosing from the discharged purveyor of supplies to the Remington and other typewriter companies, into the unquestioned, outstanding leader of the typewriter business, and he is still the same modest, energetic, tireless executive that he was in 1903. It has been no small satisfaction for all of us to see the steady, healthy growth of this infant into the magnificent giant that it is to-day, and some of the credit is due to our most efficient superintendent, Mr. Charles A. Rice.