Having made an initial success by my experiments, like most unsophisticated inventors I also fell into the hands of a promoter of this type. He was introduced to me by an officer of a bank, and, after an investigation of my project, claimed that he could raise all the money necessary to float a project of this kind, which in his judgment had the greatest possibilities of anything he had ever learned of. He said that his friends, the Vanderbilts, "Jack" Astor, and the Goulds, would immediately subscribe large sums upon his submitting the proposition to them. He secured possession of my plans, and took me to his house, which was a handsome brownstone structure standing in beautiful grounds. Another evidence of wealth was that he always had a smart carriage with liveried coachman waiting for him at our various conferences, held frequently in the directors' room of the bank. He had himself made the general manager, myself the president, and Hon. William T. Malster, of Baltimore, the treasurer of the company. At his suggestion we sent out a notification to our subscribers that twenty-five per cent. of their subscriptions was due and payable. Mr. Malster was president of the Columbia Dry Dock and Iron Works, Baltimore, the company with which we had placed the contract for building the _Argonaut_, and as he was a Baltimorean he had kindly consented to serve as treasurer of my company. Everything now looked rosy, and I gave my attention to preparing the detailed plans of the _Argonaut_. One day the general manager came into the room and said, "Now I have arranged for the sale of $100,000 worth of our stock." (He was to get a certain percentage of the stock for selling it to his friends, the Astors, Goulds, etc.) "So," he continued, "I want you to go to Baltimore and get Mr. Malster to sign up a lot of this stock so that we can make immediate delivery of it and get the money, and it would also be advisable for you to have Mr. Malster sign some checks in blank," the checks of the company requiring the signatures of both president and treasurer.