The Financier a novel by Theodore Dreiser

partner in his business affairs. His second son, Callum, was a clerk in the 
city water department and an assistant to his father also. Aileen, his eldest 
daughter, fifteen years of age, was still in St. Agatha's, a convent school in 
Germantown. Norah, his second daughter and youngest child, thirteen years 
old, was in attendance at a local private school conducted by a Catholic 
sisterhood. The Butler family had moved away from South Philadelphia into 
Girard Avenue, near the twelve hundreds, where a new and rather 
interesting social life was beginning. They were not of it, but Edward Butler, 
contractor, now fifty-five years of age, worth, say, five hundred thousand 
dollars, had many political and financial friends. No longer a "rough neck," 
but a solid, reddish-faced man, slightly tanned, with broad shoulders and a 
solid chest, gray eyes, gray hair, a typically Irish face made wise and calm 
and undecipherable by much experience. His big hands and feet indicated a 
day when he had not worn the best English cloth suits and tanned leather, 
but his presence was not in any way offensive—rather the other way about. 
Though still possessed of a brogue, he was soft-spoken, winning, and 
persuasive. 
He had been one of the first to become interested in the development of the 
street-car system and had come to the conclusion, as had Cowperwood and 
many others, that it was going to be a great thing. The money returns on the 
stocks or shares he had been induced to buy had been ample evidence of 
that, He had dealt through one broker and another, having failed to get in 
on the original corporate organizations. He wanted to pick up such stock as 
he could in one organization and another, for he believed they all had a 
future, and most of all he wanted to get control of a line or two. In 
connection with this idea he was looking for some reliable young man, 
honest and capable, who would work under his direction and do what he 
said. Then he learned of Cowperwood, and one day sent for him and asked 
him to call at his house. 
Cowperwood responded quickly, for he knew of Butler, his rise, his 
connections, his force. He called at the house as directed, one cold, crisp 
February morning. He remembered the appearance of the street afterward—
broad, brick-paved sidewalks, macadamized roadway, powdered over with a 

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light snow and set with young, leafless, scrubby trees and lamp-posts. 
Butler's house was not new—he had bought and repaired it—but it was not 
an unsatisfactory specimen of the architecture of the time. It was fifty feet 
wide, four stories tall, of graystone and with four wide, white stone steps 
leading up to the door. The window arches, framed in white, had U-shaped 
keystones. There were curtains of lace and a glimpse of red plush through 
the windows, which gleamed warm against the cold and snow outside. A 
trim Irish maid came to the door and he gave her his card and was invited 
into the house. 
"Is Mr. Butler home?" 
"I'm not sure, sir. I'll find out. He may have gone out." 
In a little while he was asked to come upstairs, where he found Butler in a 
somewhat commercial-looking room. It had a desk, an office chair, some 
leather furnishings, and a bookcase, but no completeness or symmetry as 
either an office or a living room. There were several pictures on the wall—an 
impossible oil painting, for one thing, dark and gloomy; a canal and barge 
scene in pink and nile green for another; some daguerreotypes of relatives 
and friends which were not half bad. Cowperwood noticed one of two girls, 
one with reddish-gold hair, another with what appeared to be silky brown. 
The beautiful silver effect of the daguerreotype had been tinted. They were 
pretty girls, healthy, smiling, Celtic, their heads close together, their eyes 
looking straight out at you. He admired them casually, and fancied they 
must be Butler's daughters. 
"Mr. Cowperwood?" inquired Butler, uttering the name fully with a peculiar 
accent on the vowels. (He was a slow-moving man, solemn and deliberate.) 
Cowperwood noticed that his body was hale and strong like seasoned 
hickory, tanned by wind and rain. The flesh of his cheeks was pulled taut 
and there was nothing soft or flabby about him. 
"I'm that man." 
"I have a little matter of stocks to talk over with you" ("matter" almost 
sounded like "mather"), "and I thought you'd better come here rather than 
that I should come down to your office. We can be more private-like, and, 
besides, I'm not as young as I used to be." 
He allowed a semi-twinkle to rest in his eye as he looked his visitor over. 
Cowperwood smiled. 
"Well, I hope I can be of service to you," he said, genially. 
"I happen to be interested just at present in pickin' up certain street-railway 
stocks on 'change. I'll tell you about them later. Won't you have somethin' to 
drink? It's a cold morning." 

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"No, thanks; I never drink." 
"Never? That's a hard word when it comes to whisky. Well, no matter. It's a 
good rule. My boys don't touch anything, and I'm glad of it. As I say, I'm 
interested in pickin' up a few stocks on 'change; but, to tell you the truth, 
I'm more interested in findin' some clever young felly like yourself through 
whom I can work. One thing leads to another, you know, in this world." And 
he looked at his visitor non-committally, and yet with a genial show of 
interest. 
"Quite so," replied Cowperwood, with a friendly gleam in return. 
"Well," Butler meditated, half to himself, half to Cowperwood, "there are a 
number of things that a bright young man could do for me in the street if he 
were so minded. I have two bright boys of my own, but I don't want them to 
become stock-gamblers, and I don't know that they would or could if I 
wanted them to. But this isn't a matter of stock-gambling. I'm pretty busy as 
it is, and, as I said awhile ago, I'm getting along. I'm not as light on my toes 
as I once was. But if I had the right sort of a young man—I've been looking 
into your record, by the way, never fear—he might handle a number of little 
things—investments and loans—which might bring us each a little 
somethin'. Sometimes the young men around town ask advice of me in one 
way and another—they have a little somethin' to invest, and so—" 
He paused and looked tantalizingly out of the window, knowing full well 
Cowperwood was greatly interested, and that this talk of political influence 
and connections could only whet his appetite. Butler wanted him to see 
clearly that fidelity was the point in this case—fidelity, tact, subtlety, and 
concealment. 
"Well, if you have been looking into my record," observed Cowperwood, with 
his own elusive smile, leaving the thought suspended. 
Butler felt the force of the temperament and the argument. He liked the 
young man's poise and balance. A number of people had spoken of 
Cowperwood to him. (It was now Cowperwood & Co. The company was 
fiction purely.) He asked him something about the street; how the market 
was running; what he knew about street-railways. Finally he outlined his 
plan of buying all he could of the stock of two given lines—the Ninth and 
Tenth and the Fifteenth and Sixteenth—without attracting any attention, if 
possible. It was to be done slowly, part on 'change, part from individual 
holders. He did not tell him that there was a certain amount of legislative 
pressure he hoped to bring to bear to get him franchises for extensions in 
the regions beyond where the lines now ended, in order that when the time 
came for them to extend their facilities they would have to see him or his 
sons, who might be large minority stockholders in these very concerns. It 

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was a far-sighted plan, and meant that the lines would eventually drop into 
his or his sons' basket. 
"I'll be delighted to work with you, Mr. Butler, in any way that you may 
suggest," observed Cowperwood. "I can't say that I have so much of a 
business as yet—merely prospects. But my connections are good. I am now 
a member of the New York and Philadelphia exchanges. Those who have 
dealt with me seem to like the results I get." 
"I know a little something about your work already," reiterated Butler, 
wisely. 
"Very well, then; whenever you have a commission you can call at my office, 
or write, or I will call here. I will give you my secret operating code, so that 
anything you say will be strictly confidential." 
"Well, we'll not say anything more now. In a few days I'll have somethin' for 
you. When I do, you can draw on my bank for what you need, up to a 
certain amount." He got up and looked out into the street, and Cowperwood 
also arose. 
"It's a fine day now, isn't it?" 
"It surely is." 
"Well, we'll get to know each other better, I'm sure." 
He held out his hand. 
"I hope so." 
Cowperwood went out, Butler accompanying him to the door. As he did so a 
young girl bounded in from the street, red-cheeked, blue-eyed, wearing a 
scarlet cape with the peaked hood thrown over her red-gold hair. 
"Oh, daddy, I almost knocked you down." 
She gave her father, and incidentally Cowperwood, a gleaming, radiant, 
inclusive smile. Her teeth were bright and small, and her lips bud-red. 
"You're home early. I thought you were going to stay all day?" 
"I was, but I changed my mind." 
She passed on in, swinging her arms. 
"Yes, well—" Butler continued, when she had gone. "Then well leave it for a 
day or two. Good day." 
"Good day." 
Cowperwood, warm with this enhancing of his financial prospects, went 
down the steps; but incidentally he spared a passing thought for the gay 
spirit of youth that had manifested itself in this red-cheeked maiden. What a 

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bright, healthy, bounding girl! Her voice had the subtle, vigorous ring of 
fifteen or sixteen. She was all vitality. What a fine catch for some young 
fellow some day, and her father would make him rich, no doubt, or help to.