And with only twenty shares (two thousand dollars' worth of stock), taken to oblige friends who wished our name on their list of shareholders! The lesson was not lost.

The sound rule in business is that you may give money freely when you have a surplus, but your name never--neither as endorser nor as member of a corporation with individual liability.

A trifling investment of a few thousand dollars, a mere trifle--yes, but a trifle possessed of deadly explosive power.
The rapid substitution of steel for iron in the immediate future had become obvious to us.

Even in our Keystone Bridge Works, steel was being used more and more in place of iron.

King Iron was about to be deposed by the new King Steel, and we were becoming more and more dependent upon it.