litically and
financially for that. But he was not above a plan, in which Simpson if
not Butler shared, of using political and commercial stool-pigeons to
bleed the city treasury as much as possible without creating a scandal.
In fact, for some years previous to this, various agents had already
been employed--Edward Strobik, president of council, Asa Conklin, the
then incumbent of the mayor's chair, Thomas Wycroft, alderman, Jacob
Harmon, alderman, and others--to organize dummy companies under various
names, whose business it was to deal in those things which the city
needed--lumber, stone, steel, iron, cement--a long list--and of course,
always at a fat profit to those ultimately behind the dummy companies,
so organized. It saved the city the trouble of looking far and wide for
honest and reasonable dealers.

Since the action of at least three of these dummies will have something
to do with the development of Cowperwood's story, they may be briefly
described. Edward Strobik, the chief of them, and the one most useful to
Mollenhauer, in a minor way, was a very spry person of about thirty-five
at this time--lean and somewhat forceful, with black hair, black eyes,
and an inordinately large black mustache. He was dapper, inclined to
noticeable clothing--a pair of striped trousers, a white vest, a black
cutaway coat and a high silk hat. His markedly ornamental shoes were
always polished to perfection, and his immaculate appearance gave him
the nickname of "The Dude" among some. Nevertheless he was quite able on
a small scale, and was well liked by many.

His two closest associates, Messrs. Thomas Wycroft and Jacob Harmon,
were rather less attractive and less brilliant. Jacob Harmon was a thick
wit socially, but no fool financially. He was big and rather doleful to
look upon, with sandy brown hair and brown eyes, but fairly intelligent,
and absolutely willing to approve anything which was not too broad in
its crookedness and which would afford him sufficient protection to keep
him out of the clutches of the law. He was really not so cunning as dull
and anxious to get along.

Thomas Wycroft, the last of this useful but minor triumvirate, was a
tall, lean man, candle-waxy, hollow-eyed, gaunt of face, pathetic to
look at physically, but shrewd. He was an iron-molder by trade and had
gotten into politics much as Stener had--because he was useful; and he
had managed to make some money--via this triumvirate of which Strobik
was