anarchistic in character, and without a shred of true democracy,
yet temperamentally he was in sympathy with the mass more than he
was with the class, and he understood the mass better. Perhaps
this, in a way, will explain his desire to connect himself with a
personality so naive and strange as Peter Laughlin. He had annexed
him as a surgeon selects a special knife or instrument for an
operation, and, shrewd as old Laughlin was, he was destined to be
no more than a tool in Cowperwood's strong hands, a mere hustling
messenger, content to take orders from this swiftest of moving
brains. For the present Cowperwood was satisfied to do business
under the firm name of Peter Laughlin & Co.--as a matter of fact,
he preferred it; for he could thus keep himself sufficiently
inconspicuous to avoid undue attention, and gradually work out one
or two coups by which he hoped to firmly fix himself in the financial
future of Chicago.

As the most essential preliminary to the social as well as the
financial establishment of himself and Aileen in Chicago, Harper
Steger, Cowperwood's lawyer, was doing his best all this while to
ingratiate himself in the confidence of Mrs. Cowperwood, who had
no faith in lawyers any more than she had in her recalcitrant
husband. She was now a tall, severe, and rather plain woman, but
still bearing the marks of the former passive charm that had once
interested Cowperwood. Notable crows'-feet had come about the
corners of her nose, mouth, and eyes. She had a remote, censorious,
subdued, self-righteous, and even injured air.

The cat-like Steger, who had all the graceful contemplative air
of a prowling Tom, was just the person to deal with her. A more
suavely cunning and opportunistic soul never was. His motto might