The job cut for me was one I hated to perform. I could refuse, but what then? Some one else would carry out Rogers' mandate, and where should I and my great copper structure be? If I balked here, they would go no farther with me--and remember, we were just at the beginning of our association. Had I foreseen the misery and ruin with which the future was fraught, I should have stopped then and there; but the future was hidden, and I was expectantly revelling in a glorious and delightful period in which I and all who were following me into "Coppers" should be gloriously successful and rich. So I looked at the situation in a practical business way, and I said to myself that even if we did insist on having the 100,000 shares extra Rogers had mentioned instead of the 50,000 he had decided to demand, the Clark-Ward-Untermyer combination would still have remaining more of value than their whole property could possibly have been worth without our association. Therefore I tumbled into their midst and dropped Mr. Rogers' bomb--and bomb it was. At once they realized that they were looking into the cold steel muzzles of 45-calibre revolvers, for there was no concealing the money-or-your-life inference of the message. I had honestly tried to soften the blow as well as I could, but all they could see was 50,000 shares more at something like a million dollars less than its market value--or in twenty-four hours a panic and no market for their stock at any price. What could they do? With perspiration streaming in big beads down their foreheads, they declared that even if their people were willing to submit to the knife, it was impossible in the brief time available to get to them. At least would I not beg Mr. Rogers and Mr. Rockefeller to take up the 100,000 shares pending their negotiations for the balance? Would I not, because they had made all their financial arrangements for big payments of loans next day which they could not renew at such short notice--I must!--I must!