burden
his good heart and over-worked head with it, but he took hold with
avidity and said it was no burden to work for his friends, but a
pleasure. We discussed it from various standpoints, and found it a
sufficiently difficult problem to solve; but he thinks that after he has
slept upon it and thought it over he will know what to suggest.

You must not think I am ever rude with Mr. Rogers, I am not. He is not
common clay, but fine--fine and delicate--and that sort do not call out
the coarsenesses that are in my sort. I am never afraid of wounding him;
I do not need to watch myself in that matter. The sight of him is peace.

He wants to go to Japan--it is his dream; wants to go with me--which
means, the two families--and hear no more about business for awhile, and
have a rest. And he needs it. But it is like all the dreams of all busy
men--fated to remain dreams.

You perceive that he is a pleasant text for me. It is easy to write
about him. When I arrived in September, lord how black the prospect
was--how desperate, how incurably desperate! Webster and Co. had to
have a small sum of money or go under at once. I flew to Hartford--to
my friends--but they were not moved, not strongly interested, and I was
ashamed that I went. It was from Mr. Rogers, a stranger, that I got
the money and was by it saved. And then--while still a stranger--he set
himself the task of saving my financial life without putting upon me (in
his native delicacy) any sense that I was the recipient of a charity,
a benevolence--and he has accomplished that task; accomplished it at a
cost of three months of wearing and difficult labor. He gave that time
to me--time which could not be bought by any man at a hundred thousand
dollars a month--no, nor for three times the money.

Well, in the midst of that great fight, that long and admirable fight,
George Warner came to me and said:

"There is a splendid chance open to you. I know a man--a prominent
man--who has written a book that will go like wildfire; a book that
arraigns the Standard Oil fiends, and gives them unmitigated hell,
individual by individual. It is the very book for you to publish; there
is a fortune in it, and I can put you in communication with the author."

I wanted to say:

"The only man I care for in the world; the only man I would give a damn
for; the only man who is lavishing his sweat and blood to save me and
mine from starvation and shame, is a Standard Oil fiend. If you kno