Page:The History of the Standard Oil Company Vol 2.djvu/133

 had depended for superintending building and refining, the withdrawal of Wilson, with whom the enterprise had originated and on which it had staked its hopes of finding a ready market, and the series of suits for infringement of patents, suits which cost Matthews thousands of dollars as well as much embarrassment and delay, were troubles brought on him, so he believed, as the result of a deliberate attempt on the part of the Vacuum Oil Company to make good C. M. Everest's threat to do all in his power to ruin the Buffalo Lubricating Works, and, in the spring of 1883, he brought a civil suit against the Everests for $100,000. While Matthews was working up his case he learned that Miller had returned from California, that he had left the Everests because he claimed they had "not treated him right," and that he was idle in Rochester. Miller seems to have left California chiefly because he had gotten it into his head that the information he had about the measures the Vacuum had taken to prevent the Buffalo Works carrying on their business was valuable. H. B. Everest testified that Miller once said to him after he was settled in California: "Mr. Everest, you have always been kind to me, and I shall do nothing to injure you, but I am going to bust the Standard." I said: "Al, how will you go to work to do that?" "More ways than one," he said; "they can't afford to let me loose," he said. "Sha'n't be bought off, either, unless I get something for it. It will cost them more than twenty-five or fifty thousand dollars before they get through with me." I said: "Al, I think you can make more money raising fruit in California than you can fighting the Standard." This conversation was held immediately after the Vacuum had paid Miller $1,000, in addition to the salary of $1,500 they gave him, and for no apparent purpose except to keep him quiet.

When Matthews learned of Miller's return he asked him to come to Buffalo, and evidently got from him then, for the first time, the story of the pressure the Everests had brought