es!"

"Oh, I don't know," commented Mr. Skinner. "It seems to me we have
done pretty well by the North Side. We have done a good deal."

Directors Solon Kaempfaert, Albert Thorsen, Isaac White, Anthony Ewer,
Arnold C. Benjamin, and Otto Matjes, being solemn gentlemen all, merely
sat and stared.

The vigorous Kaffrath was not to be so easily repressed, however. He
repeated his complaints on other occasions. The fact that there was
also considerable complaint in the newspapers from time to time in
regard to this same North Side service pleased him in a way. Perhaps
this would be the proverbial fire under the terrapin which would cause
it to move along.

By this time, owing to Cowperwood's understanding with McKenty, all
possibility of the North Side company's securing additional franchises
for unoccupied streets, or even the use of the La Salle Street tunnel,
had ended. Kaffrath did not know this. Neither did the directors or
officers of the company, but it was true. In addition, McKenty, through
the aldermen, who were at his beck and call on the North Side, was
beginning to stir up additional murmurs and complaints in order to
discredit the present management. There was a great to-do in council
over a motion on the part of somebody to compel the North Side company
to throw out its old cars and lay better and heavier tracks.
Curiously, this did not apply so much to the West and South Sides,
which were in the same condition. The rank and file of the city,
ignorant of the tricks which were constantly being employed in politics
to effect one end or another, were greatly cheered by this so-called
"public uprising." They little knew the pawns they were in the game, or
how little sincerity constituted the primal impulse.

Quite by accident, apparently, one day Addison, thinking of the
different men in the North Side company who might be of service to
Cowperwood, and having finally picked young Kaffrath as the ideal
agent, introduced himself to the latter at the Union League.

"That's a pretty heavy load of expense that's staring you North and
West Side street-railway people in the face," he took occasion to
observe.

"How's that?" asked Kaffrath, curiously, anxious to hear anything which
concerned the development of the business.

"Well, unless I'm greatly mistaken, you, all of you, are going to be
put to the expense of doing over your lines completely in a very little
while--so I hear--introducing this new mot