Thursday, May 4, 1899, dawned as fair a spring morning as ever set off sacrificial rite or triumphal jubilee--a day of buoyant, delicious airs which set the blood throbbing in the veins and ambition thrilling in the heart--a day for action, achievement, for wild gallops along country lanes, for swift motion on land or water. I looked out of my lofty parlor window far up Fifth Avenue's long vista of mansions and palaces to where the sunlight glittered on the tender verdancy of Central Park.

A trickle of cabs and carriages headed southward already had begun the descent to Wall Street. Almost the first call over the telephone came from Mr. Rogers, asking for the morning's news. I told him there was not a cloud on our sky, not a single breeze but blew from the right quarter to fill our sails. "And what were my movements?" To stick to my rooms right handy for anything. Was there a sinister thought, I wonder, behind the "Good, I agree with you," that came back from him in his heartiest tones? "I will look after things down-town and we can keep each other posted at near intervals."

It was as busy a forenoon as man ever lived through. My Boston wire kept up a constant ringing; Chicago, Philadelphia, and other long distance points showered in messages. A direct wire to Wall Street informed me of the progress of events in the financial maelstrom. All went merrily and well. It was nearing noon when a lull came; I was sitting back in my chair enjoying the sudden cessation of clatter and buzzing, thinking that after all my forebodings our ship was headed right for harbor and in a few moments would be across the bar and into smooth water, when a sharp ring at the telephone summoned me back to attention. 'Twas from 26 Broadway, from whom it doesn't matter for the purpose of this story.

Suffice it to say that it was from one who, because of past acts of mine, would make any sacrifice to warn me of danger. Only a few words, for he who sends secret messages from the mysterious depths of 26 Broadway, even to dwellers on its threshold, is wise in remembering that brevity is the essence of safety--but were few words ever charged with such d.a.m.nable import? This is what I heard:

"Mr. Stillman has just left Mr. Rogers and there is deviltry afoot. You cannot get to him any too quick." "One word of its nature?" I whispered back. "They are going to grab more than five millions of the subscription money."

I hung up the receiver. The face of my world had changed. To choke back the pa.s.sion of fury that rose in my throat I went over to the open window and looked out at the brilliant world below, at the procession of pleasure carriages rolling up and down the Avenue, the sunlight flashing from gold-mounted harness and shining on the sleek, polished flanks of splendid horses. A gay rumble of traffic, the murmur of voices, the clangor of street-car bells were borne in to me on the mellow air. But for me the light had fled and the May world was black and freezing cold.

The grim agony of that moment's silence I shall never forget. I jumped for the door; a second's delay to tell my secretary to catch me with any important messages at Mr. Rogers' office, and I was flying down Fifth Avenue through Washington Square, and down the back streets my cabby knew so well how to make time on. When the recording angel calls off page after page of my life-book and comes to the black one covering that ride, I fear 'twill be no easy task excusing the murderous pa.s.sion that filled my heart and the poison-steeped curses my lips involuntarily formed. After an eternity I was at 26 Broadway. I flew to the elevator, was on the eleventh floor in an instant, bolted by Fred, the colored usher who guards Mr. Rogers' sanctum, and strode, without knock or announcement, into the large private office beyond. Mr. Rogers was alone with his secretary, who at my first words shot out of the room. He was bending over a stack of papers, and as I landed at his desk he looked up quickly, and in a surprised way asked:

"What does this mean, Lawson?"

No one ever enters Mr. Rogers' room without his permission.

"It means that I have just learned that you and Stillman have decided to break your solemn promise to me." I tried to control myself, but the seethe of rage almost choked me. "It means that you have decided to take more of that subscription money than the five millions we agreed upon, and that means h.e.l.l."

Mr. Rogers stood up, his jaws set as in their last hold, and, recognizing the crisis, he met me, not with the fierce anger I half expected and hoped he would show, but with quiet earnestness.

"Stop just there, Lawson--remember you are in my office. Who gave you this tale?"

"Never mind. Is it true? Are you going to break your promise to me? Do you intend to allot the public more than five millions?"

He hesitated only a second. Just a second, but it seemed an age; then slowly and calmly: "Yes, it has been decided that considering the tremendous number and amounts of the subscription it will be best to give them more."

"How much more?" I shouted, for I was beside myself.

"Ten millions in all," he slowly answered.

"Who has decided?"

"Every one, Mr. Rockefeller, Stillman, all of us."

"All of us? Have _I_ been consulted? Have _I_ decided? Have _I_ consented to the breaking of your word, Mr. Rockefeller's word? What have Stillman and the rest to say about this? What have they to do with the promises I have made the people? I have been trapped just as all the others you and I have dealt with have been trapped. I see it all now.

Trapped, trapped until now it is too late for me even to save my reputation. To think I should have been fool enough to allow myself to be made a stool-pigeon for 'Standard Oil,' and all because I took your word."

My rage was exhausted, and then, heartbroken, I turned and plead, plead for fair treatment, for an honest deal for my friends and a.s.sociates--plead for my good name in his keeping--plead as I never before plead to any man. I had lost control of myself--begged as no man should beg another even for life, though the things I sought were more than life. He calmly awaited the end of my feverish, broken pet.i.tion; then he went to work as the expert diamond cutter goes at a crystal. He focussed my position, twisted and turned my arguments, chipped and split my reasoning, smoothed off the corners, and then polished up the subject so that it might retain its old-time l.u.s.tre for the bedazzlement of the customer whose favorable decision he meant to have.

As ever, Mr. Rogers' arguments were plausible and intelligent. The subscriptions were coming in at such a rate it would be dangerous to allot as little as five millions; there might be talk, and an investigation which would so affect the market later that we could have no second section. Then where should we be with our millions of b.u.t.te, Montana, and other Boston stocks? And where would our friends be--and the public? On and on he spun, lulling my f.a.gged brain with his specious arguments until the change of plan seemed robbed of its poison and I swallowed it.

"Lawson," he concluded, "every dollar of the additional five millions will be kept intact and, with the first five millions, will be at all times behind the price, and as you are going to have the handling of it how can there be any wrong or any more danger because of it than if it were only five millions?"

I gave in, agreed to go back to the Waldorf and take hold of the lever again. I left him, driving uptown by way of Broad and Wall streets so I might see the crowds outside the Stock Exchange and in front of James Stillman's money trap. By the time I reached the hotel I had recovered some of my optimism, and went to work to catch up with the mail and messages acc.u.mulated in my absence. At three o'clock I called up Mr.

Rogers. He was very jubilant. At the stroke of twelve, he told me, it required four big policemen to close the bank doors in the faces of hundreds of belated subscribers; that it had been decided that those inside the building were legally ent.i.tled to pa.s.s in their subscriptions and at that moment they were still doing so. Sacks of mail still awaited opening; it would be well toward midnight before the last of the subscriptions were tabulated. Stillman was making a tremendous effort to get at an approximate statement in time for me to deal it out to the newspapers before they went to press at midnight.

"How does it look to Stillman now?" I asked.

"He cannot tell much about it yet," Mr. Rogers replied, "although he can see far enough ahead to be sure even your estimate was too low. It will be at least fifty millions."

"And about our big subscription--have you and Mr. Rockefeller put it in yet?" I asked, and how I strained for his answer! I well knew they had not done so, knew they would think it safe to wait until the final tally to see just how much they must put in to get their $65,000,000, which would thus leave the public $10,000,000.

"Not yet," he returned. "It's all right, but we can do nothing till Stillman gives us the total. He says there are millions and millions of such a nature that he can easily throw them out. At four o'clock we will have a meeting and figure out the best way to fix this matter up."

He saw no danger spot. I felt anyway his error was beyond correction now. I told him I would be at his office by five, so that we could arrange how much the press should have of our affair.

CHAPTER XXVII

THE BLACK FLAG HOISTED

It was a little after five when I reached 26 Broadway--my second visit that day. Mr. Rogers was still at the bank. Half an hour later he entered and threw himself wearily into a chair.

"Lawson, this is a fitting climax for all the stories you have been telling Mr. Rockefeller and myself and the public for the past year about 'Coppers.' I have talked with the Lewisohns, Governor Flower, Morgan, and many others, and I have just come from an hour with Stillman and we are all agreed this Amalgamated subscription is the greatest accomplishment in finance. It is truly marvellous. The bank is literally buried in money, and as near as we can make it out, the stock to be delivered when allotted is actually selling at forty to fifty dollars over the subscription price. The job is done, and you and I have good reason to congratulate each other."

"I am not so sure, Mr. Rogers, that we should, right now. There's lots of work ahead, and we may strike big snags yet," I began. He interrupted impatiently:

"Oh, no, you're wrong, Lawson! We have the money safely housed at the bank. Nothing can now turn it into failure."

There was a new note in his voice as he spoke. Tired though he was, I detected a sharpness that seemed to indicate at once a relief and an indifference which said plainer than words: "I am now beyond all your power to hurt or harm me." I went on:

"I don't want to bring up any new things to-day, for you must be tired out, Mr. Rogers, but surely you are taking into consideration that unless everything is steered carefully to-morrow and for some time to come, we may have a crash in the market which will throw back on our hands the ten millions of stock, and it might take us years to bring out the other section. Don't lose sight of the fact that the people are all expecting to see fifty or one hundred points profit to-morrow on whatever stock they secure."

As I talked I saw that he was getting impatient, irritated, angry, that he wanted to hear of no more unfavorable things.

"Good Lord, Lawson, it is about time for you to let up on your croaking about what may happen. You have done a big thing and you have been paid handsomely; you have made millions, and we have just now decided that you are ent.i.tled to a good rest. Governor Flower has agreed to take charge of the market end and he is amply able to keep us out of all trouble in that direction."

A cold chill struck into my heart and crept over my whole being. I looked straight at him and he gave me back the look with a defiance which plainly said that we might as well have it out now as any other time.

"Mr. Rockefeller and myself have tried to play fair with you, Lawson, and we think we have been generous, but at times you have been almost intolerable. The only way you know how to do things is to do them your own way, and we cannot do business except in our way. This morning you kicked up a disturbance because we decided to adjust ourselves to conditions as they arose. I did tell you five millions would be all we would sell, but when we agreed to that we had no idea the subscription would be so large. Since then we have got far enough to see that the subscription will run even beyond fifty millions, and you may as well hear now that in consequence it has been decided by every one interested with the exception of yourself to raise it still another five millions, that is, fifteen millions instead of ten, and I don't want to go through any more scenes about broken promises and what the people will think, either. The people have gone into this thing with their eyes wide open; we are giving them good value; you are in no way their guardian, and you are not going to run this affair any more than others who are interested. You may as well make up your mind to it right now."

He let himself go as he talked, breathing fire and defiance, but I cared nothing for all the terrors of his anger. A blind fury seized me--I don't believe there was ever such a scene before at 26 Broadway, and I think it has had but one parallel since, when Mr. Rogers and myself again had it out over another matter. This time there were no pleas or pet.i.tions. I denounced, demanded, threatened. He had straight and strong my version of the vampire history of "Standard Oil," and also in rough, crude terms my opinion of his trickery and double-dealing. My voice was raised. I had lost all thought of what his people in the outer office would think. As I went on he wilted and tried to stop me, for I had shown him, until he knew it was so, that nothing but my death before I left the building would prevent me from taking the whole miserable affair, first to the newspapers, and then to the courts. I proved to him that I would have injunctions against Stillman, the National City Bank, and every one in interest, before the allotment could be made. Gradually his rage subsided and he broke down--not as other men break down, but as much as it is possible for his stern nature to give way. We remained there until seven o'clock. The building was as still as a set mouse-trap, and he strove with me. Such action, he demonstrated, would precipitate a panic. His argument was perfect in its logic.

"Not one man in a million, Lawson, will agree with you that you are justified in bringing about all this disaster simply because you think that we are taking too much of the cash that has been voluntarily paid in by people well able to attend to their own affairs. You must remember once this scandal and trouble are public they never can be smothered.

There can be no more consolidation, no more copper boom in your lifetime and mine, and when the collapse comes every one will look for the victim, and that victim will be you. Even your best friend will say if you were going to turn informer you should have been smart enough to have discovered your mare's nest before you let it grow so big. Look at it, Lawson, look at it, and in the name of everything that is reasonable get back your senses."

My readers must remember that the Henry H. Rogers I am portraying here is no ordinary man, but the strongest, most acute, and most persuasive human being that in the thirty-five active years of my life I have encountered. And on me all the magic of his wonderful individuality, all the resources of his fertile mind, all the histrionic power of his dramatic personality were concentrated. His logic was resistless. As he spun the web of his argument my position seemed hopeless; even more forcible than his reasoning was the graphic recital of how both increases had been made. His eyes watered as he spoke. They were not his proposals, but Stillman's and the others' who had been let in on the several floors, but to whom he had never explained my rights nor my position in the enterprise.

"The truth is, Lawson," he said--"and I'll not mince matters further: From the beginning I have done business with you on a basis entirely different from that on which it is our rule to deal with agents or a.s.sociates. At the start I expected that you would, as all others have done, fall into our ways. Instead, you have grown more stubborn, and the result is, I have been forced into all kinds of holes, some of which I have not even let William Rockefeller know about. Here at last I am in between the grinders. I cannot go to such men as Stillman and Morgan and admit that you are the one who has been doing this copper business that I have had them think I was doing myself. You would not ask me to put myself in such a humiliating position. Think what John D. Rockefeller would say of such a confession. It's impossible. And when these a.s.sociates of mine get down to this matter and all agree upon the way it should be closed up, what can I do but go with them? If they knew the facts it would be easy to run you in between us, and then you would either have to convince them or give way yourself, but this is not possible here."

The straight and narrow way is easy to follow, but once lost is hard to find. The defaulting bank president who overnight "borrows" a few thousands from his inst.i.tution, fully intends to return the "loan" next day, but repairing an error is even more difficult than resisting a temptation, and when a man is in crime's net, his struggles to escape seem only to tighten around him its meshes. When the incidents of his downfall are before the jury or the coroner, there will always appear a dozen places where the unfortunate might have cut his way out of the strangling coils, but he who surveys such situations from the outside has a clearer vision than the blinded and desperate wretch in the trap.

He who enlists with the brigands of "frenzied finance" and takes the oath of addition, division, and silence cannot discharge himself because his comrades are needlessly harsh to their victims. Eventually he may decide on desertion as preferable to throat-cutting, but to suggest resignation is to invite destruction, for it is a tradition of the fraternity that the best cure for repentance is a knife-thrust.

Mr. Rogers and myself wrestled with the situation until both were fairly exhausted. Finally we went uptown together; he home, to return later to the bank, I to the Waldorf to meet the newspaper men who were there awaiting the news of the subscription. I left him at Thirty-third Street, the question between us still unsolved. In the years that have pa.s.sed since that ill-starred night, over and over again I have sifted and pounded the talk that then pa.s.sed between us, and never have I been able to decide how much of what Mr. Rogers said to me was true and how much cunning argument to make me accede to his wishes. I hope none of my readers will ever find themselves so caught between the high cliffs and the deep water as I was that night. I recalled the old story of the sea-captain whose ship was captured by pirates and who was offered the alternative of hoisting the black flag and joining the band with his crew, or walking the plank. If he became a pirate, at least he saved the lives of his men, for their fate hung on his decision. If he refused--well, he retained his own virtue and kept intact that of his crew. The captain in my story had preferred propriety to piracy, and fifteen men lost their lives to no purpose, whereas the part of wisdom would have been to submit, with reservations, on the chance of throwing the pirates to the sharks at the first opportunity. If I should throw the bomb that I had threatened Rogers with, I felt sure it would put an end to all his evil machinations, but I could not limit the area of destruction to the guilty. I let my mind dwell on Mr. Rogers' words: "Lawson, no harm can come to your people, for the fifteen millions will be used in the market to protect the stock, just as I promised you." If this promise were kept, what was there to fear? But would it be kept? In the face of the evidence of broken pledges already crowded on me, and the bitter knowledge I had acquired of the wolfish greed of this man and his a.s.sociates, it would be paltering with facts to say that even then I felt certain the money would be so used. Yet "Standard Oil" avoids such direct illegality as might bring it within the law's clutches, and I knew that already a fraud had been committed. I might hold that over them and compel them to go straight. Then I recalled the pa.s.sion that possessed them to grab at real money when it came within their clutches, and the "Governor Flower to handle the market in such a way that no harm can come to us."

I carried my heart-tearing perplexities to dinner, cogitated over the arguments pro and con, and finally made up my mind that the percentage of wisdom was in favor of sticking by the ship. On board I was in better shape to protect my friends and followers than if I jumped into the ocean. Time has shown since that it would have been far better for all concerned for me to have touched off the powder magazine that night, had one grand and glorious explosion, and gone down with the wreckage, than to have sailed through the h.e.l.l of after years. I am not the first man who has balked at amputation and got blood-poisoning.