at a headline which, after the old-fashioned pyramids then in
vogue, read: "Conspiracy charged against various Chicago citizens.
Frank Algernon Cowperwood, Judson P. Van Sickle, Henry De Soto
Sippens, and others named in Circuit Court complaint." It went on
to specify other facts. "I supposed he was just a broker."

"I don't know much about them," replied his wife, "except what
Bella Simms tells me. What does it say?"

He handed her the paper.

"I have always thought they were merely climbers," continued Mrs.
Merrill. "From what I hear she is impossible. I never saw her."

"He begins well for a Philadelphian," smiled Merrill. "I've seen
him at the Calumet. He looks like a very shrewd man to me. He's
going about his work in a brisk spirit, anyhow."

Similarly Mr. Norman Schryhart, a man who up to this time had taken
no thought of Cowperwood, although he had noted his appearance
about the halls of the Calumet and Union League Clubs, began to
ask seriously who he was. Schryhart, a man of great physical and
mental vigor, six feet tall, hale and stolid as an ox, a very
different type of man from Anson Merrill, met Addison one day at
the Calumet Club shortly after the newspaper talk began. Sinking
into a great leather divan beside him, he observed:

"Who is this man Cowperwood whose name is in the papers these days,
Addison? You know: all these people. Didn't you introduce him to
me once?"