knowledge. His gains and his losses he took
with reasonable equanimity, exclaiming over and over, when he lost:
"Shucks! I hadn't orter have done that," and snapping his fingers.
When he won heavily or was winning he munched tobacco with a seraphic
smile and occasionally in the midst of trading would exclaim: "You
fellers better come in. It's a-gonta rain some more." He was not easy
to trap in any small gambling game, and only lost or won when there was
a free, open struggle in the market, or when he was engineering some
little scheme of his own.

The matter of this partnership was not arranged at once, although it
did not take long. Old Peter Laughlin wanted to think it over,
although he had immediately developed a personal fancy for Cowperwood.
In a way he was the latter's victim and servant from the start. They
met day after day to discuss various details and terms; finally, true
to his instincts, old Peter demanded a full half interest.

"Now, you don't want that much, Laughlin," Cowperwood suggested, quite
blandly. They were sitting in Laughlin's private office between four
and five in the afternoon, and Laughlin was chewing tobacco with the
sense of having a fine, interesting problem before him. "I have a seat
on the New York Stock Exchange," he went on, "and that's worth forty
thousand dollars. My seat on the Philadelphia exchange is worth more
than yours here. They will naturally figure as the principal assets of
the firm. It's to be in your name. I'll be liberal with you, though.
Instead of a third, which would be fair, I'll make it forty-nine per
cent., and we'll call the firm Peter Laughlin & Co. I like you, and I
think you can be of a lot of use to me. I know you will make more
money through me than you have alone. I could go in with a lot of
these silk-stocking fellows around here, but I don't want to. You'd
better decide right now, and let's get to work."

Old Laughlin was pleased beyond measure that young Cowperwood should
want to go in with him. He had become aware of late that all of the
young, smug newcomers on 'change considered him an old fogy. Here was
a strong, brave young Easterner, twenty years his junior, evidently as
shrewd as himself--more so, he feared--who actually proposed a business
alliance. Besides, Cowperwood, in his young, healthy, aggressive way,
was like a breath of spring.

"I ain't keerin' so much about the name," rejoined Laughlin. "You can
fix it that-a-way i