One of the earliest members of the oil combination was present at the meeting to consummate this purchase. Something over $3,000,000 of his and his associates' cash changed hands. The meeting was important enough to command the presence of a brigade of lawyers for the great corporations, and of the president, vice-president, and several directors of the Pennsylvania Railroad, and, representing the Poor Man's Light, the vice-president, the secretary, and five of the leading members of the combination, besides himself.[140] But when asked in court about it he could not remember any such meeting. Finally, he recalled "being at a meeting," but he could not remember when it was, or who was there, or what it was for, or whether any money was paid.[141] Three years later this transaction having been quoted against the combination in a way likely to affect the decision of a case in court,[142] the treasurer denied it likewise. "It is not true as stated ... directly or indirectly...."[143] Eight years later, when the exigencies of this suit of 1880, in Cleveland, had passed away, and a new exigency demanded a "revised version," the secretary of the combination told Congress that it was true.[144] "The pleasures of memory" are evidently for poets, not for such millionaires. That appears to be the only indulgence they cannot afford. The managers of the Pennsylvania road went back with the zeal of backsliders reconverted to their yoke in the service of the men who had given them this terrific whipping. They sent word to the independent refiners, whom they had secured as shippers by the pledge of 1872 of equal treatment, that equal rates and facilities could be given no longer. The producers and refiners did not sit down dumb under the death sentence. They begged for audience of their masters, masters of them because masters of the highway. The third vice-president, the official in charge of the freight business, was sent to meet them. "As you know," they began by reminding him, "we have been for the past year the largest shippers of petroleum the Pennsylvania Railroad has had." He acknowledged it. "Shall we, after the 1st of May, have as low a rate of freight as anybody else?" they then asked. "No," he said; "after the 1st of May we shall give the Standard Oil Company lower rates than to you." "How much discrimination will we have to submit to?" the poor "outsiders" asked. "I decline to tell you," was the reply. "How much business must we bring your road to get as good rates as the combination?" they then asked, and again-- "I decline to tell you," was the only answer they got. "If we will ship as much, will you give us as low freight rates?" "No." "We have been shipping over the Pennsylvania Railroad a year," they persisted, "why can we not continue?" "It would make them mad; they are the only people who can make peace between the railroads."