There were several features then becoming prominent that led me to this conclusion. The Standard Oil Company had absorbed all the refining concerns and had then established its own broker. It paid him a salary for his services and he paid to the Company the brokerages he collected from the sellers. I had been doing a large business with the constituent companies which would now cease. The leading firm with which my relations had been most intimate had taken into its employ as a confidential man my most active competitor and I knew his influence would work against me to the utmost. New competitors, young men who had been clerks in the trade, were coming into the field. Then a movement looking to a reduction in the rate of brokerage was being agitated. I had no doubt about being able to keep up with the procession, but it looked to me as if the procession would be too slow and if it was to be a funeral march I proposed to look on rather than take part. I had been through the stages of creeping, then walking, and now I wanted to run. The problem was before me and I thought I saw the solution. The business being done by brokers covered several different articles. The most important of these, that is, the one on which the most brokerages were earned, happened to be the one article that the Standard Oil Company was the largest buyer of, that the leading firm was most interested in, and that the talk of reduced brokerage was aimed at. My plan was to drop that entirely and also everything else except one particular staple commodity in which I would be a specialist. I had for two or three years done a large business in this and had made a profound study of that branch of the trade. It was yet in its infancy but I believed in a rapid and important growth. How rapid that growth has been is shown by the fact that in 1879 the consumption in the United States was less than five thousand tons. It has increased every year since and is now thirty-six thousand tons per year. Another point that decided me on the commodity I was to handle exclusively was its adaptability to speculative operations. In London for many years it has been a favorite medium of speculation and I believed I could build up a speculative clientele and thereby largely increase my brokerage account. As business continued good through the spring and early summer I concluded to delay my action until the fall. Each month I was adding to my surplus and there was no need for haste. CHAPTER XIV NEAR THE DARK VALLEY It was the middle of July. After a most oppressively hot and a very busy day in the city I returned home with a feeling of weariness that was unusual, my head ached badly. At dinner I ate but little and then retired early. My wife petted and nursed me until I had fallen asleep. After a restless night I was too ill to rise in the morning.