e passes my door. At the same time this tunnel, as I
understand it, cost in the neighborhood of eight hundred thousand or a
million dollars. It is a delicate problem. I should like to know what
the other editors think of it, and how the city council itself would
feel toward it."

Cowperwood nodded. "Certainly, certainly," he said. "With pleasure. I
would not come here at all if I did not feel that I had a perfectly
legitimate proposition--one that the press of the city should unite in
supporting. Where a corporation such as ours is facing large
expenditures, which have to be financed by outside capital, it is only
natural that we should wish to allay useless, groundless opposition in
advance. I hope we may command your support."

"I hope you may," smiled Mr. Haguenin. They parted the best of friends.

The other publishers, guardians of the city's privileges, were not
quite so genial as Haguenin in their approval of Cowperwood's
proposition. The use of a tunnel and several of the most important
down-town streets might readily be essential to the development of
Cowperwood's North Side schemes, but the gift of them was a different
matter. Already, as a matter of fact, the various publishers and
editors had been consulted by Schryhart, Merrill, and others with a
view to discovering how they felt as to this new venture, and whether
Cowperwood would be cheerfully indorsed or not. Schryhart, smarting
from the wounds he had received in the gas war, viewed this new
activity on Cowperwood's part with a suspicious and envious eye. To
him much more than to the others it spelled a new and dangerous foe in
the street-railway field, although all the leading citizens of Chicago
were interested.

"I suppose now," he said one evening to the Hon. Walter Melville
Hyssop, editor and publisher of the Transcript and the Evening Mail,
whom he met at the Union League, "that this fellow Cowperwood will
attempt some disturbing coup in connection with street-railway affairs.
He is just the sort. I think, from an editorial point of view, his
political connections will bear watching." Already there were rumors
abroad that McKenty might have something to do with the new company.

Hyssop, a medium-sized, ornate, conservative person, was not so sure.
"We shall find out soon enough, no doubt, what propositions Mr.
Cowperwood has in hand," he remarked. "He is very energetic and
capable, as I understand it."

Hyssop and Schryhart, as