When Cowperwood, after failing in his overtures to the three city gas companies, confided to Addison his plan of organizing rival companies in the suburbs, the banker glared at him appreciatively.
"You're a smart one!" he finally exclaimed. "You'll do! I back you to win!" He went on to advise Cowperwood that he would need the assistance of some of the strong men on the various village councils. "They're all as crooked as eels' teeth," he went on.
"But there are one or two that are more crooked than others and safer--bell-wethers. Have you got your lawyer?"
"I haven't picked one yet, but I will. I'm looking around for the right man now.
"Well, of course, I needn't tell you how important that is. There is one man, old General Van Sickle, who has had considerable training in these matters. He's fairly reliable."
The entrance of Gen. Judson P. Van Sickle threw at the very outset a suggestive light on the whole situation. The old soldier, over fifty, had been a general of division during the Civil War, and had got his real start in life by filing false titles to property in southern Illinois, and then bringing suits to substantiate his fraudulent claims before friendly associates. He was now a prosperous go-between, requiring heavy retainers, and yet not over-prosperous.
There was only one kind of business that came to the General--this kind; and one instinctively compared him to that decoy sheep at the stock-yards that had been trained to go forth into nervous, frightened flocks ofits fellow-sheep, balking at being driven into the slaughtering-pens, and lead them peacefully into the shambles, knowing enough always to make his own way quietly to the rear during the onward progress and thus escape. A dusty old lawyer, this, with Heaven knows what welter of altered wills, broken promises, suborned juries, influenced judges, bribed councilmen and legislators, double-intentioned agreements and contracts, and a whole world of shifty legal calculations and false pretenses floating around in his brain. Among the politicians, judges, and lawyers generally, by reason of past useful services, he was supposed to have some powerful connections. He liked to be called into any case largely because it meant something to do and kept him from being bored. When compelled to keep an appointment in winter, he would slip on an old greatcoat of gray twill that he had worn until it was shabby, then, taking down a soft felt hat, twisted and pulled out of shape by use, he would pull it low over his dull gray eyes and amble forth. In summer his clothes looked as crinkled as though he had slept in them for weeks. He smoked.
In cast of countenance he was not wholly unlike General Grant, with a short gray beard and mustache which always seemed more or less unkempt and hair that hung down over his forehead in a gray mass. The poor General! He was neither very happy nor very unhappy --a doubting Thomas without faith or hope in humanity and without any particular affection for anybody.
"I'll tell you how it is with these small councils, Mr. Cowperwood," observed Van Sickle, sagely, after the preliminaries of the first interview had been dispensed with.
"They're worse than the city council almost, and that's about as bad as it can be. You can't do anything without money where these little fellows are concerned. I don't like to be too hard on men, but these fellows--" He shook his head.
"I understand," commented Cowperwood. "They're not very pleasing, even after you make all allowances."
"Most of them," went on the General, "won't stay put when you think you have them. They sell out. They're just as apt as not to run to this North Side Gas Company and tell them all about the whole thing before you get well under way. Then you have to pay them more money, rival bills will be introduced, and all that." The old General pulled a long face. "Still, there are one or two of them that are all right," he added, "if you can once get them interested --Mr. Duniway and Mr. Gerecht."
"I'm not so much concerned with how it has to be done, General," suggested Cowperwood, amiably, "but I want to be sure that it will be done quickly and quietly. I don't want to be bothered with details. Can it be done without too much publicity, and about what do you think it is going to cost?"
"Well, that's pretty hard to say until I look into the matter," said the General, thoughtfully. "It might cost only four and it might cost all of forty thousand dollars--even more. I can't tell.
I'd like to take a little time and look into it." The old gentleman was wondering how much Cowperwood was prepared to spend.
"Well, we won't bother about that now. I'm willing to be as liberal as necessary. I've sent for Mr. Sippens, the president of the Lake View Gas and Fuel Company, and he'll be here in a little while. You will want to work with him as closely as you can. The energetic Sippens came after a few moments, and he and Van Sickle, after being instructed to be mutually helpful and to keep Cowperwood's name out of all matters relating to this work, departed together.
They were an odd pair--the dusty old General phlegmatic, disillusioned, useful, but not inclined to feel so; and the smart, chipper Sippens, determined to wreak a kind of poetic vengeance on his old-time enemy, the South Side Gas Company, via this seemingly remote Northside conspiracy. In ten minutes they were hand in glove, the General describing to Sippens the penurious and unscrupulous brand of Councilman Duniway's politics and the friendly but expensive character of Jacob Gerecht. Such is life.
