ble to the eye by a well-cut suit of brownish-gray cloth;
and his neck was now surrounded by a low, wing-point white collar and
brown-silk tie. His ample chest, which spread out a little lower in
around and constantly enlarging stomach, was ornamented by a heavy-link
gold chain, and his white cuffs had large gold cuff-buttons set with
rubies of a very notable size. He was rosy and decidedly well fed. In
fact, he was doing very well indeed.

He had moved his family from a shabby two-story frame house in South
Ninth Street to a very comfortable brick one three stories in height,
and three times as large, on Spring Garden Street. His wife had a
few acquaintances--the wives of other politicians. His children were
attending the high school, a thing he had hardly hoped for in earlier
days. He was now the owner of fourteen or fifteen pieces of cheap real
estate in different portions of the city, which might eventually become
very valuable, and he was a silent partner in the South Philadelphia
Foundry Company and the American Beef and Pork Company, two corporations
on paper whose principal business was subletting contracts secured
from the city to the humble butchers and foundrymen who would carry out
orders as given and not talk too much or ask questions.

"Well, that is an odd name," said Cowperwood, blandly. "So he has it? I
never thought that road would pay, as it was laid out. It's too short.
It ought to run about three miles farther out into the Kensington
section."

"You're right," said Stener, dully.

"Did Strobik say what Colton wants for his shares?"

"Sixty-eight, I think."

"The current market rate. He doesn't want much, does he? Well, George,
at that rate it will take about"--he calculated quickly on the basis
of the number of shares Cotton was holding--"one hundred and twenty
thousand to get him out alone. That isn't all. There's Judge Kitchen
and Joseph Zimmerman and Senator Donovan"--he was referring to the State
senator of that name. "You'll be paying a pretty fair price for that
stud when you get it. It will cost considerable more to extend the line.
It's too much, I think."

Cowperwood was thinking how easy it would be to combine this line with
his dreamed-of Seventeenth and Nineteenth Street line, and after a time
and with this in view he added:

"Say, George, why do you work all your schemes through Strobik and
Harmon and Wycroft? Couldn't you and I manage some of these things for
ourselves alone