ded. "We get a
little something from the Maple Avenue residents."

I've forgotten what the Riverside Franchise cost. The sum was paid in a
lump sum to Mr. Bitter as his "fee,"--so, to their chagrin, a grand jury
discovered in later years, when they were barking around Mr. Jason's hole
with an eager district attorney snapping his whip over them. I remember
the cartoon. The municipal geese were gone, but it was impossible to
prove that this particular fox had used his enlightened reason in their
procurement. Mr. Bitter was a legally authorized fox, and could take
fees. How Mr. Jason was to be rewarded by the land company's left-hand,
unknown, to the land company's right hand, became a problem worthy of a
genius. The genius was found, but modesty forbids me to mention his name,
and the problem was solved, to wit: the land company bought a piece of
downtown property from--Mr. Ryerson, who was Mr. Grierson's real estate
man and the agent for the land company, for a consideration of thirty
thousand dollars. An unconfirmed rumour had it that Mr. Ryerson turned
over the thirty thousand to Mr. Jason. Then the Riverside Company issued
a secret deed of the same property back to Mr. Ryerson, and this deed was
not recorded until some years later.

Such are the elaborate transactions progress and prosperity demand.
Nature is the great teacher, and we know that her ways are at times
complicated and clumsy. Likewise, under the "natural" laws of economics,
new enterprises are not born without travail, without the aid of legal
physicians well versed in financial obstetrics. One hundred and fifty to
two hundred thousand, let us say, for the right to build tracks on
Maplewood Avenue, and we sold nearly two million dollars worth of the
securities back to the public whose aldermen had sold us the franchise.
Is there a man so dead as not to feel a thrill at this achievement? And
let no one who declares that literary talent and imagination are
nonexistent in America pronounce final judgment until he reads that
prospectus, in which was combined the best of realism and symbolism, for
the labours of Alonzo Cheyne were not to be wasted, after all. Mr.
Dickinson, who was a director in the Maplewood line, got a handsome
underwriting percentage, and Mr. Berringer, also a director, on the bonds
and preferred stock he sold. Mr. Paret, who entered both companies on the
ground floor, likewise got fees. Everybody was satisfied except the
trouble makers,