Cowperwood started in the note brokerage business with a small office
at No. 64 South Third Street, where he very soon had the pleasure of
discovering that his former excellent business connections remembered
him. He would go to one house, where he suspected ready money might be
desirable, and offer to negotiate their notes or any paper they might
issue bearing six per cent. interest for a commission and then he would
sell the paper for a small commission to some one who would welcome a
secure investment. Sometimes his father, sometimes other people, helped
him with suggestions as to when and how. Between the two ends he might
make four and five per cent. on the total transaction. In the first year
he cleared six thousand dollars over and above all expenses. That wasn't
much, but he was augmenting it in another way which he believed would
bring great profit in the future.

Before the first street-car line, which was a shambling affair, had been
laid on Front Street, the streets of Philadelphia had been crowded
with hundreds of springless omnibuses rattling over rough, hard,
cobblestones. Now, thanks to the idea of John Stephenson, in New York,
the double rail track idea had come, and besides the line on Fifth and
Sixth Streets (the cars running out one street and back on another)
which had paid splendidly from the start, there were many other lines
proposed or under way. The city was as eager to see street-cars
replace omnibuses as it was to see railroads replace canals. There
was opposition, of course. There always is in such cases. The cry of
probable monopoly was raised. Disgruntled and defeated omnibus owners
and drivers groaned aloud.

Cowperwood had implicit faith in the future of the street railway. In