"Yes, he has time and again assured me of this, and he would not dare to lie to me under existing conditions." He arose from his chair and stood directly in front of me and straightened up for what I could see was to be an unusual effort. Then with the force and the fire which in all his supreme moments make Henry H. Rogers wellnigh irresistible he said: "Lawson, I have listened to you. Now listen to me. I have taken you at your word, and have talked frankly and shown you my hand as I have seldom shown it to a stranger. To do the business I want to do, I see I must talk even more frankly than I already have, and I want you to weigh carefully what I shall say to you, for it may have a great bearing on your after-life. How old are you?" "Thirty-seven," I replied. "I thought you were about thirty-seven," he said. "Well, I am fifty-six and in experience am old enough to be your grandfather, so you can afford to give weight to what I am about to say, especially as I give you my word that I speak for your benefit first and my own afterward. I watched you before you hitched up with Addicks, and always thought that if the opportunity arose, we might do business together. We, or as you and others like to call us, 'Standard Oil,' have money enough to carry through whatever business we embark on and we know where there is all the business to be had that we care to engage in. We have everything, in fact, but men. We are always short of men to carry out our projects--young men, who are honest, therefore loyal; men to whom work is a pleasure; above all, men who have no price but our price. To such men we can afford to give the only things they have not got, or, if they have already got them, to give them in greater quantities--I mean power and money. You made a great mistake when you joined forces with Addicks, because no man can afford to be associated with the kind of a rascal Addicks is, the lowest I have yet come across. He is the type of man who cuts his best friend's throat with as much ease and satisfaction as he does his worst enemy's, if not with more. I fully expected that by this time he would have sold you out. If he had, where would you have been? Now, here you are from sheer desperation driven to me to avoid utter failure. Suppose you can do all you hope to--get the bonds, put them up and secure my property--do you not suppose that by that time Addicks will have some mine dug under you which will blow you to destruction? But grant even that he plays fair, and you bring the Boston situation up to a paying place, what good will it do you? You surely have more sense than to believe a man of Addicks' make-up can be permanently successful?" Mr. Rogers halted. I had risen, and we stood facing each other. I felt that I was right here playing for that greatest of all stakes, my self-respect, the loss of which to any man, I had long before discovered, means ebon failure. "What do you want me to do?" I asked.