"Well, to tell the truth," replied Schryhart, staring at the
financier, "I am interested in this local gas situation myself.
It offers a rather profitable field for investment, and several
members of the old companies have come to me recently to ask me
to help them combine." (This was not true at all.) "I have been
wondering what chance you thought you had of winning along the
lines you are now taking."

Cowperwood smiled. "I hardly care to discuss that," he said,
"unless I know much more of your motives and connections than I
do at present. Do I understand that you have really been appealed
to by stockholders of the old companies to come in and help adjust
this matter?"

"Exactly," said Schryhart.

"And you think you can get them to combine? On what basis?"

"Oh, I should say it would be a simple matter to give each of them
two or three shares of a new company for one in each of the old.
We could then elect one set of officers. have one set of offices,
stop all these suits, and leave everybody happy."

He said this in an easy, patronizing way, as though Cowperwood had
not really thought it all out years before. It amazed the latter
no little to see his own scheme patronizingly brought back to him,
and that, too, by a very powerful man locally--one who thus far
had chosen to overlook him utterly.

"On what basis," asked Cowperwood, cautiously, "would you expect