The Titan by Theodore Dreiser
page 54 of 717 (07%)
page 54 of 717 (07%)
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his rivals had awakened to the situation.
The one difficulty was that he knew absolutely nothing of the business of gas--its practical manufacture and distribution--and had never been particularly interested init. Street-railroading, his favorite form of municipal profit-seeking, and one upon which he had acquired an almost endless fund of specialized information, offered no present practical opportunity for him here in Chicago. He meditated on the situation, did some reading on the manufacture of gas, and then suddenly, as was his luck, found an implement ready to his hand. It appeared that in the course of the life and growth of the South Side company there had once been a smaller organization founded by a man by the name of Sippens--Henry De Soto Sippens--who had entered and actually secured, by some hocus-pocus, a franchise to manufacture and sell gas in the down-town districts, but who had been annoyed by all sorts of legal processes until he had finally been driven out or persuaded to get out. He was now in the real-estate business in Lake View. Old Peter Laughlin knew him. "He's a smart little cuss," Laughlin told Cowperwood. "I thort onct he'd make a go of it, but they ketched him where his hair was short, and he had to let go. There was an explosion in his tank over here near the river onct, an I think he thort them fellers blew him up. Anyhow, he got out. I ain't seen ner heard sight of him fer years." Cowperwood sent old Peter to look up Mr. Sippens and find out what he was really doing, and whether he would be interested to get |
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