chbold as
understudy.

Since John D. Rockefeller slipped out from under the burden of active
management of The Standard Oil Company, about the year Eighteen Hundred
Eighty-eight, the business has more than quadrupled.

John D. Rockefeller never got mad, and Rogers and Archbold made it a
rule never to get mad at the same time. When the stress and strife began
to cause Rockefeller to lose his hair and his appetite, he once pulled
down his long upper lip and placidly bewailed his inability to take a
vacation. Like many another good man, he thought his presence was a
necessity to the business.

"Go on with you," said H. H.; "am I not here? Then there is Archbold--he
is always Johnny on the spot." Rockefeller smiled a sphinx-like smile,
as near as he ever came to indulging in a laugh, and mosied out of the
room. That night he went up to the Catskills. The next day a telegram
came from Rockefeller addressed to "Johnny-on-the-Spot, Twenty-six
Broadway." The message was carried directly to John D. Archbold, without
question, and duly receipted for.

Since then the phrase has become almost a classic; but few people there
be who know that it was Rogers who launched it, or who generally are
aware that the original charter member of the On-the-Spot Club was
Johnny Archbold.

* * * * *

H. H. Rogers was a trail-maker, and as a matter of course was not
understanded of the people who hug close to the friendly backlog and
talk of other days and the times that were.

Rogers was an economist--perhaps the greatest economist of his time. And
an economist deals with conditions, not theories; facts, not fancies.

A few years ago, all retail grocers sold kerosene. The kerosene-can with
its spud on the spout was a household sign. Moreover, we not only had
kerosene in the can, but we had it on the loaf of bread, and on almost
everything that came from the grocer's. For, if the can did not leak, it
sweat, and the oil of gladness was on the hands and clothes of the
clerk. The grocers lifted no howl when the handling of kerosene was
taken out of their hands. In truth, they were never so happy, as
kerosene was hazardous to handle and entailed little profit--the stuff
was that cheap! Besides that, a barrel of forty-two gallons measured out
to the user about thirty-eight gallons. Loaded into cars, bumped out,
lying in the sun on station-platforms, it always and forever hunted the
crevices. Schemes were devised