The impediments that can arise to baffle a great and swelling career are strange and various. In some instances all the cross-waves of life must be cut by the strong swimmer. With other personalities there is a chance, or force, that happily allies itself with them; or they quite unconsciously ally themselves with it, and find that there is a tide that bears them on. Divine will? Not necessarily. There is no understanding of it. Guardian spirits? There are many who so believe, to their utter undoing.
(Witness Macbeth). An unconscious drift in the direction of right, virtue, duty? These are banners of mortal manufacture. Nothing is proved; all is permitted.
Not long after Cowperwood's accession to control on the West Side, for instance, a contest took place between his corporation and a citizen by the name of Redmond Purdy--real-estate investor, property-trader, and money-lender--which set Chicago by the ears.
The La Salle and Washington Street tunnels were now in active service, but because of the great north and south area of the West Side, necessitating the cabling of Van Buren Street and Blue Island Avenue, there was need of a third tunnel somewhere south of Washington Street, preferably at Van Buren Street, because the business heart was thus more directly reached. Cowperwood was willing and anxious to build this tunnel, though he was puzzled how to secure from the city a right of way under Van Buren Street, where a bridge loaded with heavy traffic now swung. There were all sorts of complications. In the first place, the consent of the War Department at Washington had to be secured in order to tunnel under the river at all. Secondly, the excavation, if directly under the bridge, might prove an intolerable nuisance, necessitating the closing or removal of the bridge. Owing to the critical, not to say hostile, attitude of the newspapers which, since the La Salle and Washington tunnel grants, were following his every move with a searchlight, Cowperwood decided not to petition the city for privileges in this case, but instead to buy the property rights of sufficient land just north of the bridge, where the digging of the tunnel could proceed without interference.
The piece of land most suitable for this purpose, a lot 150 x 150, lying a little way from the river-bank, and occupied by a seven-story loft-building, was owned by the previously mentioned Redmond Purdy, a long, thin, angular, dirty person, who wore celluloid collars and cuffs and spoke with a nasal intonation.
Cowperwood had the customary overtures made by seemingly disinterested parties endeavoring to secure the land at a fair price. But Purdy, who was as stingy as a miser and as incisive as a rat-trap, had caught wind of the proposed tunnel scheme. He was all alive for a fine profit. "No, no, no," he declared, over and over, when approached by the representatives of Mr. Sylvester Toomey, Cowperwood's ubiquitous land-agent. "I don't want to sell. Go away."
Mr. Sylvester Toomey was finally at his wit's end, and complained to Cowperwood, who at once sent for those noble beacons of dark and stormy waters, General Van Sickle and the Hon. Kent Barrows McKibben. The General was now becoming a little dolty, and Cowperwood was thinking of pensioning him; but McKibben was in his prime--smug, handsome, deadly, smooth. After talking it over with Mr. Toomey they returned to Cowperwood's office with a promising scheme. The Hon. Nahum Dickensheets, one of the judges of the State Court of Appeals, and a man long since attached, by methods which need not here be described, to Cowperwood's star, had been persuaded to bring his extensive technical knowledge to bear on the emergency. At his suggestion the work of digging the tunnel was at once begun--first at the east or Franklin Street end; then, after eight months' digging, at the west or Canal Street end. A shaft was actually sunk some thirty feet back of Mr. Purdy's building--between it and the river--while that gentleman watched with a quizzical gleam in his eye this defiant procedure. He was sure that when it came to the necessity of annexing his property the North and West Chicago Street Railways would be obliged to pay through the nose.
"Well, I'll be cussed," be frequently observed to himself, for he could not see how his exaction of a pound of flesh was to be evaded, and yet he felt strangely restless at times. Finally, when it became absolutely necessary for Cowperwood to secure without further delay this coveted strip, he sent for its occupant, who called in pleasant anticipation of a profitable conversation; this should be worth a small fortune to him.
"Mr. Purdy," observed Cowperwood, glibly, "you have a piece of land on the other side of the river that I need. Why don't you sell it to me? Can't we fix this up now in some amicable way?"
He smiled while Purdy cast shrewd, wolfish glances about the place, wondering how much he could really hope to exact. The building, with all its interior equipment, land, and all, was worth in the neighborhood of two hundred thousand dollars.
"Why should I sell? The building is a good building. It's as useful to me as it would be to you. I'm making money out of it."
"Quite true," replied Cowperwood, "but I am willing to pay you a fair price for it. A public utility is involved. This tunnel will be a good thing for the West Side and any other land you may own over there. With what I will pay you you can buy more land in that neighborhood or elsewhere, and make a good thing out of it. We need to put this tunnel just where it is, or I wouldn't trouble to argue with you.
"That's just it," replied Purdy, fixedly. "You've gone ahead and dug your tunnel without consulting me, and now you expect me to get out of the way. Well, I don't see that I'm called on to get out of there just to please you."
"But I'll pay you a fair price."
"How much will you pay me?"
"How much do you want?"
Mr. Purdy scratched a fox-like ear. "One million dollars."
