On the whole I had never seen him better pleased with himself than he was at that moment. His satisfaction was so great that for the first time in our acquaintance he gave me a little lecture for a caustic remark I had made. “That is not a Christian remark,” he said. I contended that it was a perfect expression of my notion of a Christian. “You ought to go to church more frequently,” he said. “Why don’t you come and hear my pastor, Dr. Savage?” We parted on good terms after a discussion of our religious views and churchgoing practices, and he gave me a cordial invitation to come back, which I agreed to do as soon as I had studied the new angle in the Buffalo case. Aided by a disinterested and fair-minded lawyer, I gave a thorough study to the documents; but do my best I could not convince myself that Mr. Rogers’ contention was sound. It is not an unusual thing for lawyers to take cases they believe in, knowing that their compensation depends on their winning. Many clients with just cases would be deprived of counsel if they had to insure a fixed compensation, for not infrequently, as in the Buffalo case, all that a client has is involved in a suit. The practice is so common among reputable lawyers that it certainly cannot be regarded as a proof of a conspiracy, unless there is a reason to suppose that they have taken a case of whose merits they themselves are suspicious. There was no evidence that the counsel of the independent concern were not convinced from the first that they had a strong case. Their claims were large; but lawyers are not proverbial for the modesty of their charges and, besides, exorbitant charges can hardly be construed as a proof of conspiracy. When I finally had written out my conclusion I sent a copy of it to Mr. Rogers, saying I should be glad to talk it over with him if he wished. He did wish—wrote me that he had new material to present. But before the date set for the meeting an article in our series was published which broke off our friendly relations. In studying the testimony of independents over a period of some thirty years I had found repeated complaints that their oil shipments were interfered with, their cars side-tracked en route while pressure was brought on buyers to cancel orders. There were frequent charges that freight clerks were reporting independent shipments. I did not take the matter seriously at first. The general suspicion of Standard dealings by independents had to be taken into consideration, I told myself. Then, too, I was willing to admit that a certain amount of attention to what your competitor is doing is considered legitimate business practice. I knew that in the office of _McClure’s Magazine_ we were very keen to know what other publishers were doing. And, too, there is the overzealous and unscrupulous employee who in the name of competition recognizes no rules for his game.