brokers and
capitalists, however fearful of all things quick or tricky, had never
previously figured as candidates for what in Western parlance are
described as "come-ons."

CHAPTER XI

HOW ADDICKS CAPTURED BOSTON GAS

At the time Addicks "lit" in Boston that city numbered among her
proudest possessions several extremely rich gas companies, and they were
owned by her "best people." To do business with Boston's "best people"
is no easy task, and up to the advent of Addicks, to do business with
her "best people" without doing it through others of her "best people"
who could absolutely vouch for you was an unheard-of thing. The manner
in which the ex-flour merchant of Philadelphia managed to slip by the
barriers and into the heart of our blue-blooded citadel affords the most
unparalleled example of audacity of which I know.

In many ways Boston is unlike other great American cities. Some of her
institutions through antiquity or association have acquired a positive
sanctity. Pedigree is important. The average inhabitant spends much of
his time watching the grandson of his neighbor's father, to see the old
man's characteristics crop out in him. The boy's failures will be
remembered against his own offspring fifty years hence. It is a city of
long memories and of traditions. In 1887 Boston, as now, consisted
largely of her traditions, her blue-glass window-panes and her Somerset
Club.

Now the distinction, sanctity, and antiquity of the Somerset Club are
quite beyond peradventure. Since Boston has been Boston she has had her
Somerset Club, a club distinctively of grandfathers, fathers, and sons.
The right to membership in the Somerset Club is as much the inheritance
of a Somerset man's son as his name or as the proud title which always
will be found affixed to his signature when he reaches man's estate, "of
Boston." For a man to get into the Somerset without long years of
waiting and intense scrutiny, not only of his own record but of his
parents' before him, is a rare event. Yet the name of J. Edward
O'Sullivan Addicks was up for full membership, with Boston's picked best
for his sponsors, a few days after he "lit." How Addicks got upon the
Somerset list Boston will never tell, and the mention of the fact
nowadays within the club-house will empty its sideboard instanter.

The campaign of arrangement for the advent of Addicks in Boston was more
elaborate, more astute and expensive than was ever organized for