n, as I understand it, but if all these influential
men are opposed to him they can make him a great deal of trouble. The
public is very easily aroused."

"You do a very able man a great injustice, Mr. Haeckelheimer," Addison
retorted. "Almost any one who starts out to do things successfully and
intelligently is sure to stir up a great deal of feeling. The
particular men you mention seem to feel that they have a sort of
proprietor's interest in Chicago. They really think they own it. As a
matter of fact, the city made them; they didn't make the city."

Mr. Haeckelheimer lifted his eyebrows. He laid two fine white hands,
plump and stubby, over the lower buttons of his protuberant waistcoat.
"Public favor is a great factor in all these enterprises," he almost
sighed. "As you know, part of a man's resources lies in his ability to
avoid stirring up opposition. It may be that Mr. Cowperwood is strong
enough to overcome all that. I don't know. I've never met him. I'm
just telling you what I hear."

This offish attitude on the part of Mr. Haeckelheimer was indicative of
a new trend. The man was enormously wealthy. The firm of
Haeckelheimer, Gotloeb & Co. represented a controlling interest in some
of the principal railways and banks in America. Their favor was not to
be held in light esteem.

It was plain that these rumors against Cowperwood in New York, unless
offset promptly by favorable events in Chicago, might mean--in the
large banking quarters, anyhow--the refusal of all subsequent
Cowperwood issues. It might even close the doors of minor banks and
make private investors nervous.

Addison's report of all this annoyed Cowperwood no little. It made him
angry. He saw in it the work of Schryhart, Hand, and others who were
trying their best to discredit him. "Let them talk," he declared,
crossly. "I have the street-railways. They're not going to rout me
out of here. I can sell stocks and bonds to the public direct if need
be! There are plenty of private people who are glad to invest in these
properties."

At this psychological moment enter, as by the hand of Fate, the planet
Mars and the University. This latter, from having been for years a
humble Baptist college of the cheapest character, had suddenly, through
the beneficence of a great Standard Oil multimillionaire, flared upward
into a great university, and was causing a stir throughout the length
and breadth of the educational world.

It was