He paused and looked tantalizingly out of the window, knowing full well Cowperwood was greatly interested, and that this talk of political influence and connections could only whet his appetite. Butler wanted him to see clearly that fidelity was the point in this case—fidelity, tact, subtlety, and concealment.
“Well, if you have been looking into my record,” observed Cowperwood, with his own elusive smile, leaving the thought suspended.
Butler felt the force of the temperament and the argument. He liked the young man’s poise and balance. A number of people had spoken of Cowperwood to him. (It was now Cowperwood & Co. The company was fiction purely.) He asked him something about the street; how the market was running; what he knew about street-railways. Finally he outlined his plan of buying all he could of the stock of two given lines—the Ninth and Tenth and the Fifteenth and Sixteenth—without attracting any attention, if possible. It was to be done slowly, part on ’change, part from individual holders. He did not tell him that there was a certain amount of legislative pressure he hoped to bring to bear to get him franchises for extensions in the regions beyond where the lines now ended, in order that when the time came for them to extend their facilities they would have to see him or his sons, who might be large minority stockholders in these very concerns. It was a farsighted plan, and meant that the lines would eventually drop into his or his sons’ basket.
“I’ll be delighted to work with you, Mr. Butler, in any way that you may suggest,” observed Cowperwood. “I can’t say that I have so much of a business as yet—merely prospects. But my connections are good. I am now a member of the New York and Philadelphia exchanges. Those who have dealt with me seem to like the results I get.”
“I know a little something about your work already,” reiterated Butler, wisely.
“Very well, then; whenever you have a commission you can call at my office, or write, or I will call here. I will give you my secret operating code, so that anything you say will be strictly confidential.”
“Well, we’ll not say anything more now. In a few days I’ll have somethin’ for you. When I do, you can draw on my bank for what you need, up to a certain amount.” He got up and looked out into the street, and Cowperwood also arose.
“It’s a fine day now, isn’t it?”
“It surely is.”
“Well, we’ll get to know each other better, I’m sure.”
He held out his hand.
“I hope so.”
Cowperwood went out, Butler accompanying him to the door. As he did so a young girl bounded in from the street, red-cheeked, blue-eyed, wearing a scarlet cape with the peaked hood thrown over her red-gold hair.
“Oh, daddy, I almost knocked you down.”
She gave her father, and incidentally Cowperwood, a gleaming, radiant, inclusive smile. Her teeth were bright and small, and her lips bud-red.
“You’re home early. I thought you were going to stay all day?”
“I was, but I changed my mind.”
She passed on in, swinging her arms.
“Yes, well—” Butler continued, when she had gone. “Then well leave it for a day or two. Good day.”
“Good day.”
Cowperwood, warm with this enhancing of his financial prospects, went down the steps; but incidentally he spared a passing thought for the gay spirit of youth that had manifested itself in this red-cheeked maiden. What a bright, healthy, bounding girl! Her voice had the subtle, vigorous ring of fifteen or sixteen. She was all vitality. What a fine catch for some young fellow some day, and her father would make him rich, no doubt, or help to.
XII
It was to Edward Malia Butler that Cowperwood turned now, some nineteen months later when he was thinking of the influence that might bring him an award of a portion of the State issue of bonds. Butler could probably be interested to take some of them himself, or could help him place some. He had come to like Cowperwood very much and was now being carried on the latter’s books as a prospective purchaser of large blocks of stocks. And Cowperwood liked this great solid Irishman. He liked his history. He had met Mrs. Butler, a rather fat and phlegmatic Irish woman with a world of hard sense who cared nothing at all for show and who still liked to go into the kitchen and superintend the cooking. He had met Owen and Callum Butler, the boys, and Aileen and Norah, the girls. Aileen was the one who had bounded up the steps the first day he had called at the Butler house several seasons before.
There was a cozy grate-fire burning in Butler’s improvised private office when Cowperwood called. Spring was coming on, but the evenings were cool. The older man invited Cowperwood to make himself comfortable in one of the large leather chairs before the fire and then proceeded to listen to his recital of what he hoped to accomplish.
“Well, now, that isn’t so easy,” he commented at the end. “You ought to know more about that than I do. I’m not a financier, as you well know.” And he
