get
a franchise, and build a street-railroad out Maplewood Avenue, an
extension of the Park Street line. We can get the franchise for next
to nothing, if we work it right." (Mr. Grierson's eye fell on me), "and
sell it out to the public, if you underwrite it, for two million or so."

"Well, you've got your nerve with you, Fred, as usual," said Dickinson.
But he rolled his cigar in his mouth, an indication, to those who knew
him well, that he was considering the matter. When Leonard Dickinson
didn't say "no" at once, there was hope. "What do you think the property
holders on Maplewood Avenue would say? Wasn't it understood, when
that avenue was laid out, that it was to form part of the system of
boulevards?"

"What difference does it make what they say?" Ralph interposed.

Dickinson smiled. He, too, had an exaggerated respect for Ralph. We all
thought the proposal daring, but in no way amazing; the public existed
to be sold things to, and what did it matter if the Maplewood residents,
as Ralph said; and the City Improvement League protested?

Perry Blackwood was the Secretary of the City Improvement League, the
object of which was to beautify the city by laying out a system of
parkways.

The next day some of us gathered in Dickinson's office and decided that
Grierson should go ahead and get the options. This was done; not, of
course, in Grierson's name. The next move, before the formation of the
Riverside Company, was to "see" Mr. Judd Jason. The success or failure
of the enterprise was in his hands. Mahomet must go to the mountain, and
I went to Monahan's saloon, first having made an appointment. It was not
the first time I had been there since I had made that first memorable
visit, but I never quite got over the feeling of a neophyte before
Buddha, though I did not go so far as to analyze the reason,--that in
Mr. Jason I was brought face to face with the concrete embodiment of
the philosophy I had adopted, the logical consequence of enlightened
self-interest. If he had ever heard of it, he would have made no
pretence of being anything else. Greatness, declares some modern
philosopher, has no connection with virtue; it is the continued, strong
and logical expression of some instinct; in Mr. Jason's case, the
predatory instinct. And like a true artist, he loved his career for
itself--not for what its fruits could buy. He might have built a palace
on the Heights with the tolls he took from the disreputable houses of