Houston's hard-drinking, risk-taking Oilman Glenn McCarthy has a habit of making comebacks just when things look blackest. Once, when he had gone $1,500,000 in the red, and a creditors' committee had taken over his affairs, he didn't even have the $20,000 needed to finish the mansion he was building. Then, from an oilman he scarcely knew, came a check for $50,000 and a note: "Pay me when you can." McCarthy finished his mansion and launched new oil explorations that made him millions.
Once more down on his luck, McCarthy is trying another comeback. But when he talked of starting a...