here, and of which the former
is the Vice President and managing officer, and the latter Secretary. In
June 1864, neither of these worthy gentleman was worth a cent. Rolleum
shinned up and down in some commission agency or other, and Digwell had
a small salary as clerk in some insurance or money concern. They barely
earned a living. Now, Rolleum says he is worth $200,000; and Mr.
Secretary Digwell, besides about $10,000 worth of stock in the New York
and Rangoon, has his comfortable salary and his highly respectable
"posish"--to use a little bit of business slang.

Mr. Rolleum was the originator of the scheme, and let Digwell into it;
and together they went to work. They had a few hundred dollars in cash,
no particular credit, an entirely unlimited fund of lies, a good deal of
industry, plausibility, talk, and cheek, considerable acquaintance with
business, and an instinctive appreciation of some of the more selfish
motives commonly influential among men.

First of all, Rolleum made a trip into the oil country. Here, while
picking up some of his ordinary agency business, he looked around among
the wells and oil lands, talking, and examining and inquiring of
everybody about everything, with a busy, solemn face, and the air of one
who does _not wish_ it to be supposed that he has important interests in
his care. Then he talked with some men at (we will say) Titusville and
thereabouts; told all about his valuable business connections in New
York City: and after getting a little acquainted, he laid before each
of half-a-dozen or so of them, this proposition:

"You can have a good many shares of a first class new oil company about
to be formed just for permitting your name to be used in its interest,
and for being a trustee." A thousand shares apiece, he said; to be
valued at five dollars each, the par value however, being ten dollars.
Five thousand dollars each man, and to be made ten thousand, as soon as
the proposed puffing should enable them to sell out. After a little
hesitation, a sufficient number consented. There was nothing to pay,
something handsome to get, and all they were asked for it was, to let a
man talk about them. What if he did lie? That was his business.

This fixed four out of the nine intended trustees.

Rolleum also obtained memoranda or printed circulars showing the amounts
for which a number of oil land owners would sell their holes in the
ground or the room for making others, and describing the