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