inancial showing Cowperwood was
making in Chicago. Besides, Cowperwood's manner bespoke supreme
intelligence and courage, and that is always resented by all save the
suppliants or the triumphant masters of other walks in life. Simms was
really interested at last to know something more about Cowperwood,
something definite.

Before this social situation had time to adjust itself one way or the
other, however, a matter arose which in its way was far more vital,
though Aileen might not have thought so. The feeling between the new
and old gas companies was becoming strained; the stockholders of the
older organization were getting uneasy. They were eager to find out
who was back of these new gas companies which were threatening to poach
on their exclusive preserves. Finally one of the lawyers who had been
employed by the North Chicago Gas Illuminating Company to fight the
machinations of De Soto Sippens and old General Van Sickle, finding
that the Lake View Council had finally granted the franchise to the new
company and that the Appellate Court was about to sustain it, hit upon
the idea of charging conspiracy and wholesale bribery of councilmen.
Considerable evidence had accumulated that Duniway, Jacob Gerecht, and
others on the North Side had been influenced by cash, and to bring
legal action would delay final approval of the franchises and give the
old company time to think what else to do. This North Side company
lawyer, a man by the name of Parsons, had been following up the
movements of Sippens and old General Van Sickle, and had finally
concluded that they were mere dummies and pawns, and that the real
instigator in all this excitement was Cowperwood, or, if not he, then
men whom he represented. Parsons visited Cowperwood's office one day
in order to see him; getting no satisfaction, he proceeded to look up
his record and connections. These various investigations and
counter-schemings came to a head in a court proceeding filed in the
United States Circuit Court late in November, charging Frank Algernon
Cowperwood, Henry De Soto Sippens, Judson P. Van Sickle, and others
with conspiracy; this again was followed almost immediately by suits
begun by the West and South Side companies charging the same thing. In
each case Cowperwood's name was mentioned as the secret power behind
the new companies, conspiring to force the old companies to buy him
out. His Philadelphia history was published, but only in part--a
high