but Rockefeller, a few years later, got even with
the slightly arrogant Rogers by passing him this: "I would have paid you
and Pratt twice as much if you had demanded it." "Which you are
perfectly safe in saying now--since the past is a dry hole." And they
shook hands solemnly. Rockefeller ordered a glass of milk and Rogers
took ginger-ale.

Rockefeller was only one year older than Rogers, but seemed twenty. John
D. Rockefeller was always old and always discreet; he never lost his
temper; he was warranted non-explosive from childhood. Henry Rogers at
times was spiritual benzine.

* * * * *

In Eighteen Hundred Seventy-two there were twenty-six separate
oil-refineries in Cleveland. Refined oil sold to the consumer for twenty
cents a gallon; and much of it was of an unsafe and uncertain
quality--it was what you might call erratic. Some of the refineries were
poorly equipped, and fire was a factor that made the owners sit up
nights when they should have been asleep. Insurance was out of the
question.

One of these concerns was the Acme Oil Company, of which John D.
Archbold was President. Its capital was forty thousand dollars, some of
which had been paid in, in cash. William Rockefeller was at the head of
still another company; and John D. Rockefeller, brother of William, and
two years older, had an interest in three more concerns.

Outbidding each other for supplies, hiring each other's men, with a
production made up of a multiplicity of grades, made the business one of
chaotic uncertainty. The rule was "dog eat dog."

Then it was that John D. Rockefeller conceived the idea of combining all
the companies in Cleveland and as many elsewhere as possible, under the
name of The Standard Oil Company. The corporation was duly formed with a
capital of one million dollars. The Pratt Oil Company, with principal
works in Brooklyn, but a branch in Cleveland, was one of the twenty
concerns that were absorbed. The stocks of the various concerns were
taken up and paid for in Standard Oil certificates.

And so it happened that Henry H. Rogers, aged thirty-two, found himself
worth a hundred thousand dollars, not in cash, but in shares that were
supposed to be worth par, and should pay, if rightly managed, seven or
eight per cent. He was one of the directors in the new company.

It was an enviable position for any young man. Of course there were the
wiseheimers then as now, and statements were made