"Mr. Addicks," said I, "let's have no fooling about this matter. If we do business together, it will only be after there is some plain--brutally plain talk between us. It will do no good to trick, because some one will get slaughtered when the trickery is discovered, as it surely would be, after we hitched up together." Then, straight from the shoulder, free from all attempt to gloss over the raw truth, I detailed to him the things I knew he had done to his former associates, and it was a tale of unbroken duplicity and double-dealing on his part, loss and misery for his lieutenants, and profits and curses for him. I ended by saying: "If we get together, Addicks, it will be upon my terms, and I'll see to it that you never put me in the position in which you have put all the others you've been connected with. I don't trust you and I'll watch you all the time." When I had finished Addicks looked at me sadly with a wounded, "how-this-man-has misjudged-me" expression in his eyes. "Lawson," he said, "you were never more mistaken in your life, but it's a matter I don't want to argue about. You'll tell me you were all wrong after you know me better. I'll do business with you--yes, and I'll allow you to make your own terms. I'll agree to them whatever they are, and I'll live up to the very letter of them, however hard." I may mention that it is a peculiar characteristic of Addicks that one may talk to him as though he were a pick-pocket, and he will not resent it, if it is "business." Where H. H. Rogers would flash into a Vesuvius of wrath, the Delaware statesman only smiles. Addicks by no means convinced me of his sincerity. I decided I would test him pretty thoroughly before I went further. So I said: "This seems the proper time for a clean statement from you as to just where you and your companies stand." I did not believe this man could make an absolutely truthful statement on any subject of importance, but I knew enough of his real position to protect me from being fooled. What was my surprise, therefore, when in the most open way possible he calmly spread before me a condition of affairs far worse than the worst I knew. He was, indeed, bankrupt and his corporation was in little better shape. As soon as I could catch my breath I said: "No wonder you refused my proposition last night. If your bankers had dreamed of this state of affairs, they would have had a receiver to-day. You cannot meet my terms. You cannot even carry out the ones you yourself offered." Addicks leaned back on the cushions of his chair in the easiest, most _insouciant_ way imaginable. He grinned. "That's true," he replied, "but I never give up a ship till I feel her bump the bottom, and I am sure that, bad as things are, you and I can pull them out and whip Rogers to a standstill."