certainly three times greater than the cost at which we could construct equal or better facilities; but wishing to take a liberal view of it, I urged the proposal of paying the $60,000, which was thought much too high by some of our parties. I believe that if you would reconsider what you have written in your letter, to which this is a reply, you must admit having done me great injustice, and I am satisfied to await upon innate sense of right for such admission. However, in view of what seems your present feelings, I now offer to restore to you the purchase made by us, you simply returning the amount of money which we have invested and leaving us as though no purchase had been made. Should you not desire to accept this proposal, I offer to you one hundred, two hundred, or three hundred shares of the stock at the same price that we paid for the same, with this addition, that we keep the property we are under engagement to pay into the treasury of the B—— Oil Company, an amount which, added to the amount already paid, would make a total of $100,000, and thereby make the shares $100 each. “That you may not be compelled to hastily come to conclusion, I will leave open for three days these propositions for your acceptance or declination, and in the meantime believe me, Yours very truly, “JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER.” Mr. Rockefeller says further in the affidavit from which this letter is drawn: “It is not true that I made any promises that I did not keep in the letter and spirit, and it is not true that I was instrumental to any degree in her being obliged to sell the property much below its true value, and I aver that she was not obliged to sell out, and that such was a voluntary one upon her part and for a sum far in excess of its value; and that the construction which was purchased of her could be replaced for a sum not exceeding $20,000.”[65] It is probably true, as Mr. Rockefeller states, that he could have reproduced Mrs. B——’s plant for $20,000; but the plant was but a small part of her assets. She owned one of the oldest lubricating oil refineries in the country, one with an enviable reputation for good work and fair dealing, and with a trade that had been paying an annual net income of from $30,000 to $40,000. It was this income for which Mr. Rockefeller paid $79,000; this income with the old and honourable name of the B—— Oil Company, with not a few stills and tanks and agitators.