Having some legal business at that time which I thought he might be able to handle because of his experience in the Navy Department, I called upon him in regard to it. He stated that, as he was then free, he could handle it for me, and when I recalled my visit to him when he was Secretary of the Navy he said he remembered it very well. He laughingly remarked that I may have thought him a little slow in receiving me at that time; and then explained that, previous to his accepting the portfolio as assistant secretary of the navy, he had been the attorney for a rival submarine boat company; that he knew all about their boats, and the fact that they had expended large sums of money in the development of submarines; and that, although he had resigned as attorney for the company before he became acting secretary, perhaps his former association with them had led him to give less consideration to my proposition than he otherwise might have done. As I believed the submarine to have great possibilities commercially as well as for war, I gave up my other business and came to New York, opened an office in the old Cheeseborough Building, and tried to secure capital to build a commercial submarine. I advertised in the papers and visited a number of capitalists in the effort to interest them, but usually, after obtaining an interview, as soon as I asserted that it was possible to navigate over the bottom of the ocean as readily as it was over the land, and that when on the bottom I could open a door in the boat but that no water would come in; and, further, that divers could very readily pass in and out of this open door, I observed in most cases a look of dread in their eyes and their hands would slide over and push a button. An attendant immediately came to the door and reminded Mr. "Blank," whoever he might be, that he had a very important engagement or that some other visitor was waiting to see him. Unfortunately for me, this was about the time that a madman had attempted to bomb Russell Sage in his office.