The Titan 4 страница

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local matters as he was himself. He understood his wisdom concerning

Eastern shares and things dealt in on the Eastern exchange, but

these Chicago matters?

" Whut makes you think that? " he asked Cowperwood, one day, quite

curiously.

" Why, Peter, " Cowperwood replied, quite simply, " Anton Videra"

(one of the directors of the Wheat and Corn Bank) " was in here

yesterday while you were on 'change, and he was telling me. " He

described a situation which Videra had outlined.

Laughlin knew Videra as a strong, wealthy Pole who had come up in

the last few years. It was strange how Cowperwood naturally got

in with these wealthy men and won their confidence so quickly.

Videra would never have become so confidential with him.

" Huh! " he exclaimed. " Well, if he says it it's more'n likely so. "

So Laughlin bought, and Peter Laughlin & Co. won.

But this grain and commission business, while it was yielding a

profit which would average about twenty thousand a year to each

partner, was nothing more to Cowperwood than a source of information.

He wanted to " get in" on something that was sure to bring very

great returns within a reasonable time and that would not leave

him in any such desperate situation as he was at the time of the

Chicago fire--spread out very thin, as he put it. He had interested

in his ventures a small group of Chicago men who were watching

him--Judah Addison, Alexander Rambaud, Millard Bailey, Anton

Videra--men who, although not supreme figures by any means, had

free capital. He knew that he could go to them with any truly

sound proposition. The one thing that most attracted his attention

was the Chicago gas situation, because there was a chance to step

in almost unheralded in an as yet unoccupied territory; with

franchises once secured--the reader can quite imagine how--he could

present himself, like a Hamilcar Barca in the heart of Spain or a

Hannibal at the gates of Rome, with a demand for surrender and a

division of spoils.

There were at this time three gas companies operating in the three

different divisions of the city--the three sections, or " sides, "

as they were called--South, West, and North, and of these the

Chicago Gas, Light, and Coke Company, organized in 1848 to do

business on the South Side, was the most flourishing and important.

The People's Gas, Light, and Coke Company, doing business on the

West Side, was a few years younger than the South Chicago company,

and had been allowed to spring intoexistence through the foolish

self-confidence of the organizer and directors of the South Side

company, who had fancied that neither the West Side nor the North

Side was going to develop very rapidly for a number of years to

come, and had counted on the city council's allowing them to extend

their mains at any time to these other portions of the city. A

third company, the North Chicago Gas Illuminating Company, had

been organized almost simultaneously with the West Side company

by the same process through which the other companies had been

brought into life--their avowed intention, like that of the West

Side company, being to confine their activities to the sections

from which the organizers presumably came.

Cowperwood's first project was to buy out and combine the three

old city companies. With this in view he looked up the holders

in all three corporations--their financial and social status.

It was his idea that by offering them three for one, or even four

for one, for every dollar represented by the market value of their

stock he might buy in and capitalize the three companies as one.

Then, by issuing sufficient stock to cover all his obligations,

he would reap a rich harvest and at the same time leave himself

in charge. He approached Judah Addison first as the most available

man to help float a scheme of this kind. He did not want him as

a partner so much as he wanted him as an investor.

" Well, I'll tell you how I feel about this, " said Addison, finally.

" You've hit on a great idea here. It's a wonder it hasn't occurred

to some one else before. And you'll want to keep rather quiet

about it, or some one else will rush in and do it. We have a lot

of venturesome men out here. But I like you, and I'm with you.

Now it wouldn't be advisable for me to go in on this personally

--not openly, anyhow--but I'll promise to see that you get some

of the money you want. I like your idea of a central holding

company, or pool, with you in charge as trustee, and I'm perfectly

willing that you should manage it, for I think you can do it.

Anyhow, that leaves me out, apparently, except as an Investor.

But you will have to get two or three others to help carry this

guarantee with me. Have you any one in mind? "

" Oh yes, " replied Cowperwood. " Certainly. I merely came to you

first. " He mentioned Rambaud, Videra, Bailey, and others.

" They're all right, " said Addison, " if you can get them. But I'm

not sure, even then, that you can induce these other fellows to

sell out. They're not investors in the ordinary sense. They're

people who look on this gas business as their private business.

They started it. They like it. They built the gas-tanks and laid

the mains. It won't be easy. "

Cowperwood found, as Addison predicted, that it was not such an

easy matter to induce the various stock-holders and directors in

the old companies to come in on any such scheme of reorganization.

A closer, more unresponsive set of men he was satisfied he had

never met. His offer to buy outright at three or four for one

they refused absolutely. The stock in each case was selling from

one hundred and seventy to two hundred and ten, and intrinsically

was worth more every year, as the city was growing larger and its

need of gas greater. At the same time they were suspicious--one

and all--of any combination scheme by an outsider. Who was he?

Whom did he represent? He could make it clear that he had ample

capital, but not who his backers were. The old officers and

directors fancied that it was a scheme on the part of some of the

officers and directors of one of the other companies to get control

and oust them. Why should they sell? Why be tempted by greater

profits from their stock when they were doing very well as it was?

Because of his newness to Chicago and his lack of connection as

yet with large affairs Cowperwood was eventually compelled to turn

to another scheme--that of organizing new companies in the suburbs

as an entering-wedge of attack upon the city proper. Suburbs

such as Lake View and Hyde Park, having town or village councils

of their own, were permitted to grant franchises to water, gas,

and street-railway companies duly incorporated under the laws of

the state. Cowperwood calculated that if he could form separate

and seemingly distinct companies for each of the villages and

towns, and one general company for the city later, he would be in

a position to dictate terms to the older organizations. It was

simply a question of obtaining his charters and franchises before

his rivals had awakened to the situation.

The one difficulty was that he knew absolutely nothing of the

business of gas--its practical manufacture and distribution--and

had never been particularly interested init. Street-railroading,

his favorite form of municipal profit-seeking, and one upon which

he had acquired an almost endless fund of specialized information,

offered no present practical opportunity for him here in Chicago.

He meditated on the situation, did some reading on the manufacture

of gas, and then suddenly, as was his luck, found an implement

ready to his hand.

It appeared that in the course of the life and growth of the South

Side company there had once been a smaller organization founded by

a man by the name of Sippens--Henry De Soto Sippens--who had

entered and actually secured, by some hocus-pocus, a franchise to

manufacture and sell gas in the down-town districts, but who had

been annoyed by all sorts of legal processes until he had finally

been driven out or persuaded to get out. He was now in the

real-estate business in Lake View. Old Peter Laughlin knew him.

" He's a smart little cuss, " Laughlin told Cowperwood. " I thort

onct he'd make a go of it, but they ketched him where his hair was

short, and he had to let go. There was an explosion in his tank

over here near the river onct, an I think he thort them fellers

blew him up. Anyhow, he got out. I ain't seen ner heard sight

of him fer years. "

Cowperwood sent old Peter to look up Mr. Sippens and find out what

he was really doing, and whether he would be interested to get

back in the gas business. Enter, then, a few days later into the

office of Peter Laughlin & Co. Henry De Soto Sippens. He was a

very little man, about fifty years of age; he wore a high,

four-cornered, stiff felt hat, with a short brown business coat

(which in summer became seersucker) and square-toed shoes; he

looked for all the world like a country drug or book store owner,

with perhaps the air of a country doctor or lawyer superadded.

His cuffs protruded too far from his coat-sleeves, his necktie

bulged too far out of his vest, and his high hat was set a little

too far back on his forehead; otherwise he was acceptable, pleasant,

and interesting. He had short side-burns--reddish brown--which

stuck out quite defiantly, and his eyebrows were heavy.

" Mr. Sippens, " said Cowperwood, blandly, " you were once in the gas

manufacturing and distributing business here in Chicago, weren't

you? "

" I think I know as much about the manufacture of gas as any one, "

replied Sippens, almost contentiously. " I worked at it for a

number of years. "

" Well, now, Mr. Sippens, I was thinking that it might be interesting

to start a little gas company in one of these outlying villages

that are growing so fast and see if we couldn't make some money

out of it. I'm not a practical gas man myself, but I thought I

might interest some one who was. " He looked at Sippens in a friendly,

estimating way. " I have heard of you as some one who has had

considerable experience in this field here in Chicago. If I should

get up a company of this kind, with considerable backing, do you

think you might be willing to take the management of it? "

" Oh, I know all about this gas field, " Mr. Sippens was about to

say. " It can't be done. " But he changed his mind before opening

his lips. " If I were paid enough, " he said, cautiously. " I suppose

you know what you have to contend with? "

" Oh yes, " Cowperwood replied, smiling. " What would you consider

'paid enough' to mean? "

" Oh, if I were given six thousand a year and a sufficient interest

in the company--say, a half, or something like that--I might

consider it, " replied Sippens, determined, as he thought, to

frighten Cowperwood off by his exorbitant demands. He was making

almost six thousand dollars a year out of his present business.

" You wouldn't think that four thousand in several companies--say

up to fifteen thousand dollars--and an interest of about a tenth

in each would be better? "

Mr. Sippens meditated carefully on this. Plainly, the man before

him was no trifling beginner. He looked at Cowperwood shrewdly

and saw at once, without any additional explanation of any kind,

that the latter was preparing a big fight of some sort. Ten years

before Sippens had sensed the immense possibilities of the gas

business. He had tried to " get in on it, " but had been sued,

waylaid, enjoined, financially blockaded, and finally blown up.

He had always resented the treatment he had received, and he had

bitterly regretted his inability to retaliate. He had thought his

days of financial effort were over, but here was a man who was

subtly suggesting a stirring fight, and who was calling him, like

a hunter with horn, to the chase.

" Well, Mr. Cowperwood, " he replied, with less defiance and more

camaraderie, " if you could show me that you have a legitimate

proposition in hand I am a practical gas man. I know all about

mains, franchise contracts, and gas-machinery. I organized and

installed the plant at Dayton, Ohio, and Rochester, New York. I

would have been rich if I had got here a little earlier. " The echo

of regret was in his voice.

" Well, now, here's your chance, Mr. Sippens, " urged Cowperwood,

subtly. " Between you and me there's going to be a big new gas

company in the field. We'll make these old fellows step up and

see us quickly. Doesn't that interest you? There'll be plenty of

money. It isn't that that's wanting--it's an organizer, a fighter,

a practical gas man to build the plant, lay the mains, and so on. "

Cowperwood rose suddenly, straight and determined--a trick with

him when he wanted to really impress any one. He seemed to radiate

force, conquest, victory. " Do you want to come in? "

" Yes, I do, Mr. Cowperwood! " exclaimed Sippens, jumping to his

feet, putting on his hat and shoving it far back on his head. He

looked like a chest-swollen bantam rooster.

Cowperwood took his extended hand.

" Get your real-estate affairs in order. I'll want you to get me

a franchise in Lake View shortly and build me a plant. I'll give

you all the help you need. I'll arrange everything to your

satisfaction within a week or so. We will want a good lawyer or

two. "

Sippens smiled ecstatically as he left the office. Oh, the wonder

of this, and after ten years! Now he would show those crooks. Now

he had a real fighter behind him--a man like himself. Now, by

George, the fur would begin to fly! Who was this man, anyhow? What

a wonder! He would look him up. He knew that from now on he would

do almost anything Cowperwood wanted him to do.

Chapter VIII

Now This is Fighting

When Cowperwood, after failing in his overtures to the three city

gas companies, confided to Addison his plan of organizing rival

companies in the suburbs, the banker glared at him appreciatively.

" You're a smart one! " he finally exclaimed. " You'll do! I back

you to win! " He went on to advise Cowperwood that he would need

the assistance of some of the strong men on the various village

councils. " They're all as crooked as eels' teeth, " he went on.

" But there are one or two that are more crooked than others and

safer--bell-wethers. Have you got your lawyer? "

" I haven't picked one yet, but I will. I'm looking around for the

right man now.

" Well, of course, I needn't tell you how important that is. There

is one man, old General Van Sickle, who has had considerable

training in these matters. He's fairly reliable. "

The entrance of Gen. Judson P. Van Sickle threw at the very outset

a suggestive light on the whole situation. The old soldier, over

fifty, had been a general of division during the Civil War, and

had got his real start in life by filing false titles to property

in southern Illinois, and then bringing suits to substantiate his

fraudulent claims before friendly associates. He was now a prosperous

go-between, requiring heavy retainers, and yet not over-prosperous.

There was only one kind of business that came to the General--this

kind; and one instinctively compared him to that decoy sheep at

the stock-yards that had been trained to go forth into nervous,

frightened flocks ofits fellow-sheep, balking at being driven into

the slaughtering-pens, and lead them peacefully into the shambles,

knowing enough always to make his own way quietly to the rear

during the onward progress and thus escape. A dusty old lawyer,

this, with Heaven knows what welter of altered wills, broken

promises, suborned juries, influenced judges, bribed councilmen and

legislators, double-intentioned agreements and contracts, and a

whole world of shifty legal calculations and false pretenses

floating around in his brain. Among the politicians, judges, and

lawyers generally, by reason of past useful services, he was

supposed to have some powerful connections. He liked to be called

into any case largely because it meant something to do and kept

him from being bored. When compelled to keep an appointment in

winter, he would slip on an old greatcoat of gray twill that he

had worn until it was shabby, then, taking down a soft felt hat,

twisted and pulled out of shape by use, he would pull it low over

his dull gray eyes and amble forth. In summer his clothes looked

as crinkled as though he had slept in them for weeks. He smoked.

In cast of countenance he was not wholly unlike General Grant,

with a short gray beard and mustache which always seemed more or

less unkempt and hair that hung down over his forehead in a gray

mass. The poor General! He was neither very happy nor very unhappy

--a doubting Thomas without faith or hope in humanity and without

any particular affection for anybody.

" I'll tell you how it is with these small councils, Mr. Cowperwood, "

observed Van Sickle, sagely, after the preliminaries of the first

interview had been dispensed with.

" They're worse than the city council almost, and that's about as

bad as it can be. You can't do anything without money where these

little fellows are concerned. I don't like to be too hard on men,

but these fellows--" He shook his head.

" I understand, " commented Cowperwood. " They're not very pleasing,

even after you make all allowances. "

" Most of them, " went on the General, " won't stay put when you think

you have them. They sell out. They're just as apt as not to run

to this North Side Gas Company and tell them all about the whole

thing before you get well under way. Then you have to pay them

more money, rival bills will be introduced, and all that. " The old

General pulled a long face. " Still, there are one or two of them

that are all right, " he added, " if you can once get them interested

--Mr. Duniway and Mr. Gerecht. "

" I'm not so much concerned with how it has to be done, General, "

suggested Cowperwood, amiably, " but I want to be sure that it will

be done quickly and quietly. I don't want to be bothered with

details. Can it be done without too much publicity, and about

what do you think it is going to cost? "

" Well, that's pretty hard to say until I look into the matter, "

said the General, thoughtfully. " It might cost only four and it

might cost all of forty thousand dollars--even more. I can't tell.

I'd like to take a little time and look into it. " The old gentleman

was wondering how much Cowperwood was prepared to spend.

" Well, we won't bother about that now. I'm willing to be as liberal

as necessary. I've sent for Mr. Sippens, the president of the

Lake View Gas and Fuel Company, and he'll be here in a little

while. You will want to work with him as closely as you can. The

energetic Sippens came after a few moments, and he and Van Sickle,

after being instructed to be mutually helpful and to keep Cowperwood's

name out of all matters relating to this work, departed together.

They were an odd pair--the dusty old General phlegmatic,

disillusioned, useful, but not inclined to feel so; and the smart,

chipper Sippens, determined to wreak a kind of poetic vengeance

on his old-time enemy, the South Side Gas Company, via this seemingly

remote Northside conspiracy. In ten minutes they were hand in

glove, the General describing to Sippens the penurious and

unscrupulous brand of Councilman Duniway's politics and the friendly

but expensive character of Jacob Gerecht. Such is life.

In the organization of the Hyde Park company Cowperwood, because

he never cared to put all his eggs in one basket, decided to secure

a second lawyer and a second dummy president, although he proposed

to keep De Soto Sippens as general practical adviser for all three

or four companies. He was thinking this matter over when there

appeared on the scene a very much younger man than the old General,

one Kent Barrows McKibben, the only son of ex-Judge Marshall Scammon

McKibben, of the State Supreme Court. Kent McKibben was thirty-three

years old, tall, athletic, and, after a fashion, handsome. He was

not at all vague intellectually--that is, in the matter of the

conduct of his business--but dandified and at times remote. He

had an office in one of the best blocks in Dearborn Street, which

he reached in a reserved, speculative mood every morning at nine,

unless something important called him down-town earlier. It so

happened that he had drawn up the deeds and agreements for the

real-estate company that sold Cowperwood his lots at Thirty-seventh

Street and Michigan Avenue, and when they were ready he journeyed

to the latter's office to ask if there were any additional details

which Cowperwood might want to have taken into consideration. When

he was ushered in, Cowperwood turned to him his keen, analytical

eyes and saw at once a personality he liked. McKibben was just

remote and artistic enough to suit him. He liked his clothes, his

agnostic unreadableness, his social air. McKibben, on his part,

caught the significance of the superior financial atmosphere at

once. He noted Cowperwood's light-brown suit picked out with

strands of red, his maroon tie, and small cameo cuff-links. His

desk, glass-covered, looked clean and official. The woodwork of

the rooms was all cherry, hand-rubbed and oiled, the pictures

interesting steel-engravings of American life, appropriately framed.

The typewriter--at that time just introduced--was in evidence, and

the stock-ticker--also new--was ticking volubly the prices current.

The secretary who waited on Cowperwood was a young Polish girl

named Antoinette Nowak, reserved, seemingly astute, dark, and very

attractive.

" What sort of business is it you handle, Mr. McKibben? " asked

Cowperwood, quite casually, in the course of the conversation.

And after listening to McKibben's explanation he added, idly: " You

might come and see me some time next week. It is just possible

that I may have something in your line. "

In another man McKibben would have resented this remote suggestion

of future aid. Now, instead, he was intensely pleased. The man

before him gripped his imagination. His remote intellectuality

relaxed. When he came again and Cowperwood indicated the nature

of the work he might wish to have done McKibben rose to the bait

like a fish to a fly.

" I wish you would let me undertake that, Mr. Cowperwood, " he said,

quite eagerly. " It's something I've never done, but I'm satisfied

I can do it. I live out in Hyde Park and know most of the councilmen.

I can bring considerable influence to bear for you. "

Cowperwood smiled pleasantly.

So a second company, officered by dummies of McKibben's selection,

was organized. De Soto Sippens, without old General Van Sickle's

knowledge, was taken in as practical adviser. An application for

a franchise was drawn up, and Kent Barrows McKibben began silent,

polite work on the South Side, coming into the confidence, by

degrees, of the various councilmen.

There was still a third lawyer, Burton Stimson, the youngest but

assuredly not the least able of the three, a pale, dark-haired

Romeoish youth with burning eyes, whom Cowperwood had encountered

doing some little work for Laughlin, and who was engaged to work

on the West Side with old Laughlin as ostensible organizer and the

sprightly De Soto Sippens as practical adviser. Stimson was no

mooning Romeo, however, but an eager, incisive soul, born very

poor, eager to advance himself. Cowperwood detected that pliability

of intellect which, while it might spell disaster to some, spelled

success for him. He wanted the intellectual servants. He was

willing to pay them handsomely, to keep them busy, to treat them

with almost princely courtesy, but he must have the utmost loyalty.

Stimson, while maintaining his calm and reserve, could have kissed

the arch-episcopal hand. Such is the subtlety of contact.

Behold then at once on the North Side, the South Side, the West

Side--dark goings to and fro and walkings up and down in the earth.

In Lake View old General Van Sickle and De Soto Sippens, conferring

with shrewd Councilman Duniway, druggist, and with Jacob Gerecht,

ward boss and wholesale butcher, both of whom were agreeable but

exacting, holding pleasant back-room and drug-store confabs with

almost tabulated details of rewards and benefits. In Hyde Park,

Mr. Kent Barrows McKibben, smug and well dressed, a Chesterfield

among lawyers, and with him one J. J. Bergdoll, a noble hireling,

long-haired and dusty, ostensibly president of the Hyde Park Gas

and Fuel Company, conferring with Councilman Alfred B. Davis,

manufacturer of willow and rattan ware, and Mr. Patrick Gilgan,

saloon-keeper, arranging a prospective distribution of shares,

offering certain cash consideration, lots, favors, and the like.

Observe also in the village of Douglas and West Park on the West

Side, just over the city line, the angular, humorous Peter Laughlin

and Burton Stimson arranging a similar deal or deals.

The enemy, the city gas companies, being divided into three factions,

were in no way prepared for what was now coming. When the news

finally leaked out that applications for franchises had been made

to the several corporate village bodies each old company suspected

the other of invasion, treachery, robbery. Pettifogging lawyers

were sent, one by each company, to the village council in each

particular territory involved, but no one of the companies had as

yet the slightest idea who was back of it all or of the general

plan of operations. Before any one of them could reasonably

protest, before it could decide that it was willing to pay a very

great deal to have the suburb adjacent to its particular territory

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