pt as
an Investor. But you will have to get two or three others to help carry
this guarantee with me. Have you any one in mind?"

"Oh yes," replied Cowperwood. "Certainly. I merely came to you
first." He mentioned Rambaud, Videra, Bailey, and others.

"They're all right," said Addison, "if you can get them. But I'm not
sure, even then, that you can induce these other fellows to sell out.
They're not investors in the ordinary sense. They're people who look
on this gas business as their private business. They started it. They
like it. They built the gas-tanks and laid the mains. It won't be
easy."

Cowperwood found, as Addison predicted, that it was not such an easy
matter to induce the various stock-holders and directors in the old
companies to come in on any such scheme of reorganization. A closer,
more unresponsive set of men he was satisfied he had never met. His
offer to buy outright at three or four for one they refused absolutely.
The stock in each case was selling from one hundred and seventy to two
hundred and ten, and intrinsically was worth more every year, as the
city was growing larger and its need of gas greater. At the same time
they were suspicious--one and all--of any combination scheme by an
outsider. Who was he? Whom did he represent? He could make it clear
that he had ample capital, but not who his backers were. The old
officers and directors fancied that it was a scheme on the part of some
of the officers and directors of one of the other companies to get
control and oust them. Why should they sell? Why be tempted by greater
profits from their stock when they were doing very well as it was?
Because of his newness to Chicago and his lack of connection as yet
with large affairs Cowperwood was eventually compelled to turn to
another scheme--that of organizing new companies in the suburbs as an
entering-wedge of attack upon the city proper. Suburbs such as Lake
View and Hyde Park, having town or village councils of their own, were
permitted to grant franchises to water, gas, and street-railway
companies duly incorporated under the laws of the state. Cowperwood
calculated that if he could form separate and seemingly distinct
companies for each of the villages and towns, and one general company
for the city later, he would be in a position to dictate terms to the
older organizations. It was simply a question of obtaining his
charters and franchises before his rivals had awakened to the si