"It will be only a matter of a few days with the Buffalo institution at the furthest. We will crush them out, and you will lose what little you have got." Albert was shown an elaborate statement of the cost of making oil and its selling price, proving that there was no money in oil.[457] The record of dividends was produced in court afterwards. It showed that just before this--January 18, 1881--a dividend of 50 per cent. had been paid in one month.[458] Dividends of $300,000 had been paid in 1881 on the capital of $100,000. "No wonder they did not want competition," said the New York _World_. These negotiations had been with the son. Albert not yielding to this pressure, and pushing ahead with the construction of the rival stills, the father, who was in California, came back. At his request Albert again interrupted the work on the new refinery, which he alone of the partners could direct, and came from Buffalo to Rochester for an interview. "You have made a grand mistake," said his old employer, "by going out with those fellows.... The company will not last long.... The result will be, if you stay with them, you will lose all you have got in it.... We are going to commence suits against them. We will not only sue them, but serve an injunction on them and stop their work. The result of it is that when these suits commence, if you are in it, you will be responsible, and you have got a little money, and you will lose it all.... If you come back and work with us everything will be all right, and we will make everything satisfactory to you." "If I leave them it will leave them in bad shape," Albert urged. "That is just exactly what I want to do,"[459] his former employer replied. Albert began to weaken. "I had," he afterwards told in court, ... "about $6000 altogether, or a little more. They had reason to know that I had some property there."[460] This was all he had to show for the work of a lifetime, and it began to look as if it were fading away under these reiterated threats and warnings, which went on from March to June. Albert gave way. He went to his lawyer, Mr. Truesdale, of Rochester. "We have come," said his former employer, who accompanied him, "to see what disposition can be made of Al's property." "They are going to bust the company up," said Albert to his lawyer, when asked why he was going back to the Vacuum Company. "I am an indorser on one of its notes, and if I do not come back with the Vacuum, what property and money I have will be taken away from me." The lawyer was pressed to tell how Albert could get out of his arrangement with his company. They could not get along without him, and were not likely to discharge him. "If they won't release him or buy him out, the only other way," said the lawyer, "is to leave them, and take the consequences. If he has entered into a contract and violated it, I presume there will be a liability for damages as well as for the debts."