His triumphant capture of the oil trade is a twice-told tale. All the world knows how he crushed his rivals by excluding their wares from the rail-roads, which gave him rebates, and then purchased for a song their depreciated properties. At every point he won the battle. He laid stealthy hands upon the pipe-lines, designed to thwart his monopoly, as he had previously laid hands upon the railway lines. He discovered no new processes, he invented no new methods of transport. But he made the enterprise of others his own. The small refiner went the way of the small producer, and the energy of those who carried oil over the mountains helped to fill Rockefeller's pocket. The man himself spared no one who stood between him and the realisation of his dream. Friends and enemies fell down before him. He ruined the widow and orphan with the same quiet cheerfulness wherewith he defeated the competitors who had a better chance to fight their own battle. The Government was, and is, powerless to stay his advance. It has instituted prosecutions. It has passed laws directed at the Standard Oil Company. And all is of no avail. Before cross-examining counsel, in the face of the court, Rockefeller maintains an impenetrable silence. He admits nothing. He confesses nothing. "We do not talk much," he murmurs sardonically; "we saw wood." A year ago it was rumoured that he would be arrested when he returned to America from Europe. He is still at large. The body of a multi-millionaire is sacred. He is master of the world's oil, and of much else beside. Having won the control of one market, he makes his imperial hand felt in many another. His boast that "money talks" is abundantly justified. The power of money in making money is the only secret that the millionaires of America discover for themselves. The man who makes a vast fortune by the invention or manufacture of something which the people thinks it wants, may easily take a pride in the fruit of his originality. The captains of American industry can seldom boast this cause of satisfaction. It is theirs to exploit, not to create. The great day in Mr Carnegie's life was that on which "the mysterious golden visitor" came to him, as a dividend from another's toil. Mr Rockefeller remembers with the greatest pleasure the lesson which he learned as a boy, "that he could get as much interest for $50, loaned at seven per cent, as he could earn by digging potatoes ten days." The lesson of Shylock is not profound, but its mastery saves a world of trouble. Combined with a light load of scruples, it will fill the largest coffers; and it has been sufficient to carry the millionaires of America to the highest pinnacle of fame.