The time had come to reason with the heated legal gentleman, and in plain language I proceeded to show him where he stood, the position of the property, the public's relation to it, and his own duty to the clients whose money he had invested in it. Under the logic of my argument he cooled. He saw the net, and that he and his friends were absolutely enmeshed. He even admitted that he and his friends had unknowingly aided in what had occurred and were mostly to blame for their present position; but while he acknowledged all this, he reiterated over and over again that in all his experience--and in Samuel Untermyer's professional position he has either prosecuted, defended, or had an inquisitorial finger in every sword-swallowing, dissolving-view, frenzied finance game that has been born or naturalized in Wall Street within the decade--he had never met the equal in high-handed bunco of this deal in Utah. Finally he said: "There's one thing I can do, if I cannot get even with Rogers; and that is, I can 'fire' the present management of this company, and I'm going to do it now, this very minute, and incidentally I'm going to state what I think of them and the whole dirty business." I called up "Standard Oil" on the telephone and told what had happened. Mr. Rogers said: "Cool him down at any cost, but particularly try to show him I had little to do with the deal; that it was largely the outgrowth of what the Clark-Ward people thrust upon us, and that I left the details to you and the lawyers." Again I had visions of what would be the cost of making "Coppers" a success. Within an hour Untermyer was back visibly relieved and glowing after his encounter. He had the resignations in his pocket, and he began joyously to detail the specific opprobriums he had cast upon the management. "I shall put in an entirely new management," he proclaimed triumphantly. "You have positively made up your mind to that?" said I. "You bet I have," he answered. "Excuse me for a few minutes, then," I said; "I want to give my brokers orders to rip out 50,000 or 60,000 shares of Utah. Rogers and Rockefeller would take me to task if I wasted a minute." "Hold on there, Lawson," he said. "Not a minute," said I; "you know the game well enough, Untermyer, to realize that there are a few millions hanging very low on the boughs at just this second. I want to get my hat under them before you and your friends have an opportunity to roll in your own hogsheads." It was no time for diplomacy, and I set forth in plain, dog-eat-dog terms to Mr. Untermyer exactly where he was "at," and that no one but himself and his associates would be the sufferers by a public explosion. Reluctantly he agreed with me that under no conditions must the "Standard Oil" management be changed, but he was bound to have one victim to show. "You have the resignations of the present board--why not put in new men, the strongest 'Standard Oil' men you know?" I suggested.