ago for that money. Hand, Arneel, and the rest of
that crowd have decided to combine against us. That's plain.
Something has started them off in full cry. I suppose my resignation
may have had something to do with it. Anyhow, every one of the banks
in which they have any hand has uniformly refused to come in. To make
sure that I was right I even called up the little old Third National of
Lake View and the Drovers and Traders on Forty-seventh Street. That's
Charlie Wallin's bank. When I was over in the Lake National he used to
hang around the back door asking for anything I could give him that was
sound. Now he says his orders are from his directors not to share in
anything we have to offer. It's the same story everywhere--they
daren't. I asked Wallin if he knew why the directors were down on the
Chicago Trust or on you, and at first he said he didn't. Then he said
he'd stop in and lunch with me some day. They're the silliest lot of
old ostriches I ever heard of. As if refusing to let us have money on
any loan here was going to prevent us from getting it! They can take
their little old one-horse banks and play blockhouses with them if they
want to. I can go to New York and in thirty-six hours raise twenty
million dollars if we need it."

Addison was a little warm. It was a new experience for him. Cowperwood
merely curled his mustaches and smiled sardonically.

"Well, never mind," he said. "Will you go down to New York, or shall
I?"

It was decided, after some talk, that Addison should go. When he
reached New York he found, to his surprise, that the local opposition
to Cowperwood had, for some mysterious reason, begun to take root in
the East.

"I'll tell you how it is," observed Joseph Haeckelheimer, to whom
Addison applied--a short, smug, pussy person who was the head of
Haeckelheimer, Gotloeb & Co., international bankers. "We hear odd
things concerning Mr. Cowperwood out in Chicago. Some people say he is
sound--some not. He has some very good franchises covering a large
portion of the city, but they are only twenty-year franchises, and they
will all run out by 1903 at the latest. As I understand it, he has
managed to stir up all the local elements--some very powerful ones,
too--and he is certain to have a hard time to get his franchises
renewed. I don't live in Chicago, of course. I don't know much about
it, but our Western correspondent tells me this is so. Mr. Cowperwood
is a very able ma