When it was found that this practice of charging the preferred shipper for only 20,000 pounds when it shipped 25,000, 30,000, 40,000, or 44,000, was going to be investigated by the Interstate Commerce Commission, there were intellects ready to meet the emergency. A pot of paint and a paint-brush furnished the shield of righteousness. Each car being known by its number, and only by its number, all the old numbers of the 3000 tank-cars of the oil trust were painted out, and new numbers painted on. Whether its mighty men left their luxurious palaces in New York, and stole about in person after dark, each with paint-pot and brush, or whether they asked employés to do such work, the evidence does not state. The device was simple, but it did. Rice was suing for his rights to use the highways before the Interstate Commerce Commission, and before the Supreme Court of Ohio, through the Attorney-General of the State, who had found the matter of sufficient importance to use his official power to institute suits in _quo-warranto_ against two railroads. It was necessary that evidence should be forthcoming in these suits to prove what his rate was in comparison with the others. The only way this could be done was by comparing the actual size of the cars with the size given in the freight bills, or manifests. The cars are known in the bills only by their numbers, and without its number no car could be identified. The report of Congress reprints the following from the testimony of the representative of the trust before the Interstate Commerce Commission: "Has there recently been any general change in the numbering of the cars?" "Yes, sir; there has been quite a general renumbering, repainting, and overhauling." "When did that change take place?" "I think it was commenced some time in July; it may have been later." The result of that renumbering made it practically impossible to identify any car as connected with any shipment made before that time. The cars were there, looking as fresh and innocent as good men who have donned robes of spotless white earned by the payment of generous pew-rent. The cars showed even to the unassisted eye, as the Interstate Commerce Commission said, how much larger they were than was pretended. There were still the accounts of the railroads, showing that these cars had been "blind-billed" as containing only 20,000 pounds, but the cars mentioned in the manifesto could no longer be identified with the cars on the tracks. The sin of "blind-billing" was washed out in paint. Rice went to the Interstate Commerce Commission with his complaint in this case in July. Immediately the repainting and renumbering took place. "It was commenced some time in July; it may have been later."[444] In such cases time is money, and more. "Seest thou a man diligent in business, he shall stand before kings. He shall not stand before mean men."