tuation.

The one difficulty was that he knew absolutely nothing of the business
of gas--its practical manufacture and distribution--and had never been
particularly interested init. Street-railroading, his favorite form of
municipal profit-seeking, and one upon which he had acquired an almost
endless fund of specialized information, offered no present practical
opportunity for him here in Chicago. He meditated on the situation, did
some reading on the manufacture of gas, and then suddenly, as was his
luck, found an implement ready to his hand.

It appeared that in the course of the life and growth of the South Side
company there had once been a smaller organization founded by a man by
the name of Sippens--Henry De Soto Sippens--who had entered and
actually secured, by some hocus-pocus, a franchise to manufacture and
sell gas in the down-town districts, but who had been annoyed by all
sorts of legal processes until he had finally been driven out or
persuaded to get out. He was now in the real-estate business in Lake
View. Old Peter Laughlin knew him.

"He's a smart little cuss," Laughlin told Cowperwood. "I thort onct
he'd make a go of it, but they ketched him where his hair was short,
and he had to let go. There was an explosion in his tank over here
near the river onct, an I think he thort them fellers blew him up.
Anyhow, he got out. I ain't seen ner heard sight of him fer years."

Cowperwood sent old Peter to look up Mr. Sippens and find out what he
was really doing, and whether he would be interested to get back in the
gas business. Enter, then, a few days later into the office of Peter
Laughlin & Co. Henry De Soto Sippens. He was a very little man, about
fifty years of age; he wore a high, four-cornered, stiff felt hat, with
a short brown business coat (which in summer became seersucker) and
square-toed shoes; he looked for all the world like a country drug or
book store owner, with perhaps the air of a country doctor or lawyer
superadded. His cuffs protruded too far from his coat-sleeves, his
necktie bulged too far out of his vest, and his high hat was set a
little too far back on his forehead; otherwise he was acceptable,
pleasant, and interesting. He had short side-burns--reddish
brown--which stuck out quite defiantly, and his eyebrows were heavy.

"Mr. Sippens," said Cowperwood, blandly, "you were once in the gas
manufacturing and distributing business here in Chicago, weren't you?"

"I think I k