This is where I sat up amazed. "But, Mr.--," I gasped. I remember reading somewhere that New York's infamous Boss Tweed, at the zenith of his extraordinary corrupt career, actually began negotiations with a syndicate composed of his friends to sell them the New York City Hall on a long-time note. When some curious heelers asked where the city fathers should conduct the affairs of the metropolis, he beamed on them in a paternal way as he explained: "Oh, a detail of the sale will be a hundred years' lease back to the city at a rental which will give us enough each five years to pay the purchase price." Absurd, you say. Not so far-fetched as you may think, if you will remember the conditions under which the National City--the "Standard Oil" Bank--acquired New York's old Custom House on Wall Street. They bought it from the United States Government, credited the purchase price to Uncle Sam on their books, then rented it for a good round price to the Government, whose new Custom House was not ready for occupancy, and because it remained in Uncle Sam's possession, evaded municipal taxation on the investment. They got the property absolutely without paying a cent, and have ever since collected a splendid interest on the million they did not invest. But this deal which Mr. Rogers outlined to me seemed to go both of these transactions a point or two better, inasmuch as neither of the parties were corrupt city or government officials, but merely private citizens in a country where all are free and equal, and where the Constitution guarantees that no man's property shall be taken from him without due process of law. Before I could get my breath, Mr. Rogers, as if he divined my thought, quietly said: "One of the inducements I offer will be to allow them to reinvest the money we pay them in the new consolidated company's stock, at a good big advance over what it will cost us." This was too much. I roared and roared, and even he had to laugh as he quietly remarked: "I said you would find we had done better for you than you could do for yourself, Lawson, for you must remember you are in on this at actual cost." I stopped laughing. "How is that? I thought you intended the new copper company to have the fifty-one per cent. of the selling company?" He looked at me with something akin to disgust. Then his voice changed, and he let me have it straight from the shoulder: