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_ The partnership which Cowperwood eventually made with an old-time
Board of Trade operator, Peter Laughlin, was eminently to his
satisfaction. Laughlin was a tall, gaunt speculator who had spent
most of his living days in Chicago, having come there as a boy
from western Missouri. He was a typical Chicago Board of Trade
operator of the old school, having an Andrew Jacksonish countenance,
and a Henry Clay--Davy Crockett--"Long John" Wentworth build of
body.
Cowperwood from his youth up had had a curious interest in quaint
characters, and he was interesting to them; they "took" to him.
He could, if he chose to take the trouble, fit himself in with the
odd psychology of almost any individual. In his early peregrinations
in La Salle Street he inquired after clever traders on 'change,
and then gave them one small commission after another in order to
get acquainted. Thus he stumbled one morning on old Peter Laughlin,
wheat and corn trader, who had an office in La Salle Street near
Madison, and who did a modest business gambling for himself and
others in grain and Eastern railway shares. Laughlin was a shrewd,
canny American, originally, perhaps, of Scotch extraction, who had
all the traditional American blemishes of uncouthness, tobacco-chewing,
profanity, and other small vices. Cowperwood could tell from
looking at him that he must have a fund of information concerning
every current Chicagoan of importance, and this fact alone was
certain to be of value. Then the old man was direct, plain-spoken,
simple-appearing, and wholly unpretentious--qualities which
Cowperwood deemed invaluable.
Once or twice in the last three years Laughlin had lost heavily
on private "corners" that he had attempted to engineer, and the
general feeling was that he was now becoming cautious, or, in other
words, afraid. "Just the man," Cowperwood thought. So one morning
he called upon Laughlin, intending to open a small account with him.
"Henry," he heard the old man say, as he entered Laughlin's
fair-sized but rather dusty office, to a young, preternaturally
solemn-looking clerk, a fit assistant for Peter Laughlin, "git me
them there Pittsburg and Lake Erie sheers, will you?" Seeing
Cowperwood waiting, he added, "What kin I do for ye?"
Cowperwood smiled. "So he calls them 'sheers,' does he?" he
thought. "Good! I think I'll like him."
He introduced himself as coming from Philadelphia, and went on to
say that he was interested in various Chicago ventures, inclined
to invest in any good stock which would rise, and particularly
desirous to buy into some corporation--public utility preferred
--which would be certain to grow with the expansion of the city.
Old Laughlin, who was now all of sixty years of age, owned a seat
on the Board, and was worth in the neighborhood of two hundred
thousand dollars, looked at Cowperwood quizzically.
"Well, now, if you'd 'a' come along here ten or fifteen years ago
you might 'a' got in on the ground floor of a lot of things," he
observed. "There was these here gas companies, now, that them
Otway and Apperson boys got in on, and then all these here
street-railways. Why, I'm the feller that told Eddie Parkinson
what a fine thing he could make out of it if he would go and
organize that North State Street line. He promised me a bunch of
sheers if he ever worked it out, but he never give 'em to me. I
didn't expect him to, though," he added, wisely, and with a glint.
"I'm too old a trader for that. He's out of it now, anyway. That
Michaels-Kennelly crowd skinned him. Yep, if you'd 'a' been here
ten or fifteen years ago you might 'a' got in on that. 'Tain't
no use a-thinkin' about that, though, any more. Them sheers is
sellin' fer clost onto a hundred and sixty."
Cowperwood smiled. "Well, Mr. Laughlin," he observed, "you must
have been on 'change a long time here. You seem to know a good
deal of what has gone on in the past."
Yep, ever since 1852," replied the old man. He had a thick growth
of upstanding hair looking not unlike a rooster's comb, a long and
what threatened eventually to become a Punch-and-Judy chin, a
slightly aquiline nose, high cheek-bones, and hollow, brown-skinned
cheeks. His eyes were as clear and sharp as those of a lynx.
"To tell you the truth, Mr. Laughlin," went on Cowperwood, "what
I'm really out here in Chicago for is to find a man with whom I
can go into partnership in the brokerage business. Now I'm in the
banking and brokerage business myself in the East. I have a firm
in Philadelphia and a seat on both the New York and Philadelphia
exchanges. I have some affairs in Fargo also. Any trade agency
can tell you about me. You have a Board of Trade seat here, and
no doubt you do some New York and Philadelphia exchange business.
The new firm, if you would go in with me, could handle it all
direct. I'm a rather strong outside man myself. I'm thinking of
locating permanently in Chicago. What would you say now to going
into business with me? Do you think we could get along in the same
office space?"
Cowperwood had a way, when he wanted to be pleasant, of beating
the fingers of his two hands together, finger for finger, tip for
tip. He also smiled at the same time--or, rather, beamed--his
eyes glowing with a warm, magnetic, seemingly affectionate light.
As it happened, old Peter Laughlin had arrived at that psychological
moment when he was wishing that some such opportunity as this might
appear and be available. He was a lonely man, never having been
able to bring himself to trust his peculiar temperament in the
hands of any woman. As a matter of fact, he had never understood
women at all, his relations being confined to those sad immoralities
of the cheapest character which only money--grudgingly given, at
that--could buy. He lived in three small rooms in West Harrison
Street, near Throup, where he cooked his own meals at times. His
one companion was a small spaniel, simple and affectionate, a she
dog, Jennie by name, with whom he slept. Jennie was a docile,
loving companion, waiting for him patiently by day in his office
until he was ready to go home at night. He talked to this spaniel
quite as he would to a human being (even more intimately, perhaps),
taking the dog's glances, tail-waggings, and general movements for
answer. In the morning when he arose, which was often as early
as half past four, or even four--he was a brief sleeper--he would
begin by pulling on his trousers (he seldom bathed any more except
at a down-town barber shop) and talking to Jennie.
"Git up, now, Jinnie," he would say. "It's time to git up. We've
got to make our coffee now and git some breakfast. I can see yuh,
lyin' there, pertendin' to be asleep. Come on, now! You've had
sleep enough. You've been sleepin' as long as I have."
Jennie would be watching him out of the corner of one loving eye,
her tail tap-tapping on the bed, her free ear going up and down.
When he was fully dressed, his face and hands washed, his old
string tie pulled around into a loose and convenient knot, his
hair brushed upward, Jennie would get up and jump demonstratively
about, as much as to say, "You see how prompt I am."
"That's the way," old Laughlin would comment. "Allers last. Yuh
never git up first, do yuh, Jinnie? Allers let yer old man do that,
don't you?"
On bitter days, when the car-wheels squeaked and one's ears and
fingers seemed to be in danger of freezing, old Laughlin, arrayed
in a heavy, dusty greatcoat of ancient vintage and a square hat,
would carry Jennie down-town in a greenish-black bag along with
some of his beloved "sheers" which he was meditating on. Only
then could he take Jennie in the cars. On other days they would
walk, for he liked exercise. He would get to his office as early
as seven-thirty or eight, though business did not usually begin
until after nine, and remain until four-thirty or five, reading
the papers or calculating during the hours when there were no
customers. Then he would take Jennie and go for a walk or to call
on some business acquaintance. His home room, the newspapers, the
floor of the exchange, his offices, and the streets were his only
resources. He cared nothing for plays, books, pictures, music--and
for women only in his one-angled, mentally impoverished way. His
limitations were so marked that to a lover of character like
Cowperwood he was fascinating--but Cowperwood only used character.
He never idled over it long artistically.
As Cowperwood suspected, what old Laughlin did not know about
Chicago financial conditions, deals, opportunities, and individuals
was scarcely worth knowing. Being only a trader by instinct,
neither an organizer nor an executive, he had never been able to
make any great constructive use of his 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 be 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 if you want to. Givin' you fifty-one per
cent. gives you charge of this here shebang. All right, though;
I ain't a-kickin'. I guess I can manage allus to git what's
a-comin' to me.
"It's a bargain, then," said Cowperwood. "We'll want new offices,
Laughlin, don't you think? This one's a little dark."
"Fix it up any way you like, Mr. Cowperwood. It's all the same
to me. I'll be glad to see how yer do it."
In a week the details were completed, and two weeks later the sign
of Peter Laughlin & Co., grain and commission merchants, appeared
over the door of a handsome suite of rooms on the ground floor of
a corner at La Salle and Madison, in the heart of the Chicago
financial district.
"Get onto old Laughlin, will you?" one broker observed to another,
as they passed the new, pretentious commission-house with its
splendid plate-glass windows, and observed the heavy, ornate bronze
sign placed on either side of the door, which was located exactly
on the corner. "What's struck him? I thought he was almost all
through. Who's the Company?"
"I don't know. Some fellow from the East, I think."
"Well, he's certainly moving up. Look at the plate glass, will
you?"
It was thus that Frank Algernon Cowperwood's Chicago financial
career was definitely launched. _
Read next: chapter V - Concerning A Wife And Family
Read previous: chapter III - A Chicago Evening
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