"He's a prince of politicians. We'll have to
look sharp if we ever trap him" Mr. Ricketts would have been glad to
sell out to Mr. Cowperwood, if he had not been so heavily obligated to
Mr. Schryhart. He had no especial affection for Cowperwood, but he
recognized in him a coming man.

Young MacDonald, talking to Clifford Du Bois in the office of the
Inquirer, and reflecting how little his private telephone message had
availed him, was in a waspish, ironic frame of mind.

"Well," he said, "it seems our friend Cowperwood hasn't taken our
advice. He may make his mark, but the Inquirer isn't through with him
by a long shot. He'll be wanting other things from the city in the
future."

Clifford Du Bois regarded his acid young superior with a curious eye.
He knew nothing of MacDonald's private telephone message to Cowperwood;
but he knew how he himself would have dealt with the crafty financier
had he been in MacDonald's position.

"Yes, Cowperwood is shrewd," was his comment. "Pritchard, our
political man, says the ways of the City Hall are greased straight up
to the mayor and McKenty, and that Cowperwood can have anything he
wants at any time. Tom Dowling eats out of his hand, and you know what
that means. Old General Van Sickle is working for him in some way.
Did you ever see that old buzzard flying around if there wasn't
something dead in the woods?"

"He's a slick one," remarked MacDonald. "But as for Cowperwood, he
can't get away with this sort of thing very long. He's going too fast.
He wants too much."

Mr. Du Bois smiled quite secretly. It amused him to see how Cowperwood
had brushed MacDonald and his objections aside--dispensed for the time
being with the services of the Inquirer. Du Bois confidently believed
that if the old General had been at home he would have supported the
financier.

Within eight months after seizing the La Salle Street tunnel and
gobbling four of the principal down-town streets for his loop,
Cowperwood turned his eyes toward the completion of the second part of
the programme--that of taking over the Washington Street tunnel and the
Chicago West Division Company, which was still drifting along under its
old horse-car regime. It was the story of the North Side company all
over again. Stockholders of a certain type--the average--are extremely
nervous, sensitive, fearsome. They are like that peculiar bivalve, the
clam, which at the slightest sense of untoward pressure withdraws