346 WALL STREET AND THE WILDS 



all the shares without preference to any one, but 

 that wasn't Robert's style. John B. Alley, of 

 Lynn, was the chief owner of the Postal Tele- 

 graph and sent his agent, Bartlett, to buy of me 

 control of the Bankers and Merchants. I re- 

 fused to make any deal that did not protect my 

 associates and sent him to the Philadelphian who 

 was president of the company. 



He agreed to sell our stock to the Postal for 

 100 per cent in cash, 100 per cent in Postal 

 bonds and 200 per cent in Postal stock and the 

 directors joined me in confirming his action. 

 There was a few days' delay by the Postal be- 

 yond the appointed time for rounding up the 

 deal and the president of the Bankers and Mer- 

 chants refused to carry it out and the Philadel- 

 phians followed his lead without knowing why. 

 I went to Philadelphia where we held a meeting 

 and had a monkey and a parrot time. The pres- 

 ident said he could make a better contract with 

 the Postal people if we refused to carry out the 

 old agreement. I insisted that we were in honor 

 bound to carry out a contract to which all had 



