"You have told me over and over again that you retained the right to issue a million and a half bonds, that you had never parted with it, and relying on your assurances, I have done business with Rogers. Let's have the truth now at once."
Addicks is a master in the management of just such tangles as had developed here. I had expected him to give way before my indignation. He looked me square in the eye and turned the tables on me. He got mad first.
"You have taken too much on yourself," he began vehemently. "You had no right to go ahead without consulting me. Because I've given you full swing you think you are the whole thing, but you're not. And as for your rushing in on me without warning and expecting me to let you turn all the assets of this corporation over to your new 'Standard Oil' friend, I won't stand for it. You can't do this corporation's business that way."
He poured on for five minutes without giving me a chance to interpose a word. He seemed to be consumed with anger and paced up and down the office. Then suddenly he stopped:
"We cannot afford to have any trouble, you and I, Lawson. I'm sure you did only what you thought best, but the fact is, I pledged some of those bonds for our war supplies a few months ago, and though I'm not going to dispute it with you, I'd swear I told you at the time."
As Addicks talked I had been mentally reviewing the situation in which I found myself. I saw myself dropped out of Rogers' consideration as the same kind of a financial trickster that Addicks was. For the moment, I had no fight left; I was knocked out.
"Don't feel bad, Lawson. You got as far with Rogers as it is possible to get, and you are dead right when you say that once we get hold of his corporation so that every one knows we've licked him, we can easily sell stock enough to pay him in a few weeks." As he talked he was again the master financial trickster, full of device and strategy. Finally I answered:
"Don't say any more, Addicks. Words won't help us. I've got to face Rogers as soon as a train can take me back to New York, and after that—then I'll have something to say to you." I started to go.
"What are you going to say to him?" he asked.
"Say to him? What can I say to him? At my solicitation he gave me a hearing—at his own home—treated me best in the world. I told him certain things, and pledged my word they were truths, and I've got to go back and tell——"