"This is what we thought would be the thing to do if you agreed, Lawson, for, of course, you are, after all, the one who must decide. First, you shall go over everything we have done, and if you feel sure we have property worth at least, at the hardest kind of hard-pan prices, $75,000,000, we want to whoop up the country to the very top notch of expectation, and while doing so begin to hint that there are to be three or four sections, and that the first one will embrace Anaconda, Colorado, Washoe, Parrott, and lots of other unnamed things. Then our idea was to offer the $75,000,000 by public subscription, and by using every dollar we receive for it to support it in the market, to make it sell afterward under all conditions at a big premium over cost, so that every one would make big profits, and so, consequently, by the time the second section came along, the demand for subscriptions would be unprecedented. We could continue this until all the good 'Coppers' were in our company, and then our consolidation would be a prodigious success, just as you outlined at the start. There cannot possibly be any loss to any one; in fact, success is so assured that William Rockefeller, Daly, Stillman, and all the others who will be associated with us, do not propose to sell a share of their stock, but, on the contrary, will go along with us to the finish. So good does it look to us that I feel it will really beat out Standard Oil itself as a money-maker, and you must remember that whatever else they may say about Standard Oil, no one who has ever owned a share has lost money; on the contrary, every one has made large profits." CHAPTER XVII "EXTRACT EVERY DOLLAR" "Standard Oil's" arguments always are absolutely flawless, and this was one of their best. I was fast becoming imbued with the wisdom of the plan which Mr. Rogers was revealing so adroitly, and began secretly to wonder if after all I was not a novice in such business. Unerringly Mr. Rogers followed my thoughts. He piled Pelions of better things on Ossas of good ones. Surely it was after watching some parallel hoodwinking put through by a remote ancestor of "Standard Oil" that Puck enunciated his famous dictum, "What fools these mortals be." I fell in like the veriest tyro--hypnotized and happy. "How much of this first section do you figure, Mr. Rogers, that we are to give to the public?" I inquired. "We, Mr. Rockefeller and myself, have carefully considered this phase of it, and as we all want to retain as much as possible of the stock, we would not sell over $5,000,000 to the public." "But can you do this?" I asked. "If the public know 'Standard Oil' is retaining nearly all the stock they will sour on it."