he never cared to put all his eggs in one basket, decided to secure
a second lawyer and a second dummy president, although he proposed
to keep De Soto Sippens as general practical adviser for all three
or four companies. He was thinking this matter over when there
appeared on the scene a very much younger man than the old General,
one Kent Barrows McKibben, the only son of ex-Judge Marshall Scammon
McKibben, of the State Supreme Court. Kent McKibben was thirty-three
years old, tall, athletic, and, after a fashion, handsome. He was
not at all vague intellectually--that is, in the matter of the
conduct of his business--but dandified and at times remote. He
had an office in one of the best blocks in Dearborn Street, which
he reached in a reserved, speculative mood every morning at nine,
unless something important called him down-town earlier. It so
happened that he had drawn up the deeds and agreements for the
real-estate company that sold Cowperwood his lots at Thirty-seventh
Street and Michigan Avenue, and when they were ready he journeyed
to the latter's office to ask if there were any additional details
which Cowperwood might want to have taken into consideration. When
he was ushered in, Cowperwood turned to him his keen, analytical
eyes and saw at once a personality he liked. McKibben was just
remote and artistic enough to suit him. He liked his clothes, his
agnostic unreadableness, his social air. McKibben, on his part,
caught the significance of the superior financial atmosphere at
once. He noted Cowperwood's light-brown suit picked out with
strands of red, his maroon tie, and small cameo cuff-links. His
desk, glass-covered, looked clean and official. The woodwork of
the rooms was all cherry, hand-rubbed and oiled, the pictures
interesting steel-engravings of American life, appropriately framed.
The typewriter--at that time just introduced--was in evidence, and
the stock-ticker--also new--was ticking volubly the prices current.