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