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Within an hour Edward W. Coggeshall, the president of the Lawyers’ Title Company, called and asked me to repeat my proposition directly to him. I did so, and he said to me: “When can you make a definite binding offer?” I inquired whether he wanted my personal, or the Company’s offer, and when he agreed to deal with me personally, I asked him to wait until I dictated the proposition in his presence, and he did. Two days later he informed me that his Board of Directors desired to offer 3,000 shares of the new stock of their stockholders, and could therefore only sell me 7,000 shares, and hence they would be satisfied with a credit of four million dollars. I consented to this change and immediately called on the officials of the Equitable Life Insurance Company and arranged with Mr. Squires, the chairman of the Finance Committee, that they would buy 2,000 shares of the stock, and agree to loan the company two million dollars on mortgages. I suggested that Mr. Thomas N. Jordan, their comptroller, should act as one of the experts to fix the value of the stock.