“Well,” McKenty replied, lingering his thin gold watch-chain in a thoughtful manner, “that’s an interesting scheme you have. Of course the old companies wouldn’t like your asking for a rival franchise, but once you had it they couldn’t object very well, could they?” He smiled. Mr. McKenty spoke with no suggestion of a brogue. “From one point of view it might be looked upon as bad business, but not entirely. They would be sure to make a great cry, though they haven’t been any too kind to the public themselves. But if you offered to combine with them I see no objection. It’s certain to be as good for them in the long run as it is for you. This merely permits you to make a better bargain.”
“Exactly,” said Cowperwood.
“And you have the means, you tell me, to lay mains in every part of the city, and fight with them for business if they won’t give in?”
“I have the means,” said Cowperwood, “or if I haven’t I can get them.”
Mr. McKenty looked at Mr. Cowperwood very solemnly. There was a kind of mutual sympathy, understanding, and admiration between the two men, but it was still heavily veiled by self-interest. To Mr. McKenty Cowperwood was interesting because he was one of the few business men he had met who were not ponderous, pharasaical, even hypocritical when they were dealing with him.
“Well, I’ll tell you what I’ll do, Mr. Cowperwood,” he said, finally. “I’ll take it all under consideration. Let me think it over until Monday, anyhow. There is more of an excuse now for the introduction of a general gas ordinance than there would be a little later—I can see that. Why don’t you draw up your proposed franchise and let me see it? Then we might find out what some of the other gentlemen of the city council think.”
Cowperwood almost smiled at the word “gentlemen.”
“I have already done that,” he said. “Here it is.”
McKenty took it, surprised and yet pleased at this evidence of business proficiency. He liked a strong manipulator of this kind—the more since he was not one himself, and most of those that he did know were thin-blooded and squeamish.
“Let me take this,” he said. “I’ll see you next Monday again if you wish. Come Monday.”
Cowperwood got up. “I thought I’d come and talk to you direct, Mr. McKenty,” he said, “and now I’m glad that I did. You will find, if you will take the trouble to look into this matter, that it is just as I represent it. There is a very great deal of money here in one way and another, though it will take some little time to work it out.”
Mr. McKenty saw the point. “Yes,” he said, sweetly, “to be sure.”
They looked into each other’s eyes as they shook hands.
“I’m not sure but you haven’t hit upon a very good idea here,” concluded McKenty, sympathetically. “A very good idea, indeed. Come and see me again next Monday, or about that time, and I’ll let you know what I think. Come any time you have anything else you want of me. I’ll always be glad to see you. It’s a fine night, isn’t it?” he added, looking out as they neared the door. “A nice moon that!” he added. A sickle moon was in the sky. “Good night.”
XIII
The Die Is Cast
The significance of this visit was not long in manifesting itself. At the top, in large affairs, life goes off into almost inexplicable tangles of personalities. Mr. McKenty, now that the matter had been called to his attention, was interested to learn about this gas situation from all sides—whether it might not be more profitable to deal with the Schryhart end of the argument, and so on. But his eventual conclusion was that Cowperwood’s plan, as he had outlined it, was the most feasible for political purposes, largely because the Schryhart faction, not being in a position where they needed to ask the city council for anything at present, were so obtuse as to forget to make overtures of any kind to the bucaneering forces at the City Hall.
When Cowperwood next came to McKenty’s house the latter was in a receptive frame of mind. “Well,” he said, after a few genial preliminary remarks, “I’ve been learning what’s going on. Your proposition is fair enough. Organize your company, and arrange your plan conditionally. Then introduce your ordinance, and we’ll see what can be done.” They went into a long, intimate discussion as to how the forthcoming stock should be divided, how it was to be held in escrow by a favorite bank of Mr. McKenty’s until the terms of the agreement under the eventual affiliation with the old companies or the new union company should be fulfilled, and details of that sort. It was rather a complicated arrangement, not as satisfactory to Cowperwood as it might have been, but satisfactory in that it permitted him to win. It required the undivided services of General Van Sickle, Henry De Soto Sippens, Kent Barrows McKibben, and Alderman Dowling for some little time. But finally all was in readiness for the coup.
On a certain Monday night, therefore, following the Thursday on which, according to the rules of the city council, an ordinance of this character would have to be introduced, the plan, after being publicly broached but this very little while, was quickly considered by the city council and passed. There had been really no
