I had no doubt about being able to keep up with the procession,
but it looked to me as if the procession would be too slow and if
it was to be a funeral march I proposed to look on rather than take
part. I had been through the stages of creeping, then walking,
and now I wanted to run.

The problem was before me and I thought I saw the solution.

The business being done by brokers covered several different
articles. The most important of these, that is, the one on which
the most brokerages were earned, happened to be the one article
that the Standard Oil Company was the largest buyer of, that the
leading firm was most interested in, and that the talk of reduced
brokerage was aimed at.

My plan was to drop that entirely and also everything else except
one particular staple commodity in which I would be a specialist.
I had for two or three years done a large business in this and had
made a profound study of that branch of the trade.

It was yet in its infancy but I believed in a rapid and important
growth. How rapid that growth has been is shown by the fact that
in 1879 the consumption in the United States was less than five
thousand tons. It has increased every year since and is now thirty-six
thousand tons per year.

Another point that decided me on the commodity I was to handle
exclusively was its adaptability to speculative operations. In
London for many years it has been a favorite medium of speculation
and I believed I could build up a speculative clientele and thereby