business men, office-holders, priests, saloon-keepers--in short,
the whole range and gamut of active, subtle, political life. From
McKenty they could obtain that counsel, wisdom, surety, solution
which all of them on occasion were anxious to have, and which in
one deft way and another--often by no more than gratitude and an
acknowledgment of his leadership--they were willing to pay for.
To police captains and officers whose places he occasionally saved,
when they should justly have been discharged; to mothers whose
erring boys or girls he took out of prison and sent home again;
to keepers of bawdy houses whom he protected from a too harsh
invasion of the grafting propensities of the local police; to
politicians and saloon-keepers who were in danger of being destroyed
by public upheavals of one kind and another, he seemed, in hours
of stress, when his smooth, genial, almost artistic face beamed on
them, like a heaven-sent son of light, a kind of Western god,
all-powerful, all-merciful, perfect. On the other hand, there
were ingrates, uncompromising or pharasaical religionists and
reformers, plotting, scheming rivals, who found him deadly to
contend with. There were many henchmen--runners from an almost
imperial throne--to do his bidding. He was simple in dress and
taste, married and (apparently) very happy, a professing though
virtually non-practising Catholic, a suave, genial Buddha-like
man, powerful and enigmatic.

When Cowperwood and McKenty first met, it was on a spring evening
at the latter's home. The windows of the large house were pleasantly
open, though screened, and the curtains were blowing faintly in a
light air. Along with a sense of the new green life everywhere
came a breath of stock-yards.