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“Now, Morgenthau,” he said after sketching his predicament, “will you try to help us out?”

“I am perfectly willing,” I said, “to take other property of Mr. Astor’s, and let him deal direct with the objecting tenants, but I want a corner plot for a corner plot, and an inside avenue plot for an inside avenue plot and as many inside street lots as I was to have had. Although you have no properties on which the leases terminate the same time as these for which I am under contract, I am willing to buy them on the same basis,”—which was multiplying the annual ground rent by twenty.

Peabody said that this was eminently fair; he would try and show his appreciation, which he did, by selling us forty-four plots instead of forty. We consummated the transaction on July 18, 1898. The deed that was given was the first in which William Waldorf Astor failed to describe himself as “of the City of New York.” It was a very satisfactory transaction, as all but three of the tenants availed themselves of the privilege we gave them to buy the property from us at a reasonable profit.