Chapter IX
Cowperwood started in the note brokerage business
with a small office at
No. 64 South Third Street, where he very soon had the pleasure of
discovering that his former excellent business connections remembered him.
He would go to one house, where he suspected ready money might be
desirable, and offer to negotiate their notes or any paper they might issue
bearing six per cent. interest for a commission and then he would sell the
paper for a small commission to some one who would welcome a secure
investment. Sometimes his father, sometimes other people, helped him with
suggestions as to when and how. Between the two ends he might make four
and five per cent. on the total transaction. In the
first year he cleared six
thousand dollars over and above all expenses. That wasn't much, but he
was augmenting it in another way which he believed would bring great profit
in the future.
Before the first street-car line, which was a shambling affair, had been laid
on Front Street, the streets of Philadelphia had been crowded with hundreds
of springless omnibuses rattling over rough, hard, cobblestones. Now,
thanks to the idea of John Stephenson, in New York, the double rail track
idea had come, and besides the line on Fifth and Sixth Streets (the cars
running out one street and back on another) which had paid splendidly from
the start, there were many other lines proposed or under way. The city was
as eager to see street-cars replace omnibuses as it was to see railroads
replace canals. There was opposition, of course. There always is in such
cases. The cry of probable monopoly was raised.
Disgruntled and defeated
omnibus owners and drivers groaned aloud.
Cowperwood had implicit faith in the future of the street railway. In support
of this belief he risked all he could spare on new issues of stock shares in
new companies. He wanted to be on the inside wherever possible, always,
though this was a little difficult in the matter of the street-railways, he
having been so young when they started and not having yet arranged his
financial connections to make them count for much. The Fifth and Sixth
Street line, which had been but recently started, was paying six hundred
dollars a day. A project for a West Philadelphia line (Walnut and Chestnut)
was on foot, as were lines to occupy Second and Third Streets,
Race and
Vine, Spruce and Pine, Green and Coates, Tenth and Eleventh, and so forth.
They were engineered and backed by some powerful capitalists who had
influence with the State legislature and could, in spite of great public
protest, obtain franchises. Charges of corruption were in the air. It was
argued that the streets were valuable, and that the companies should pay a
road tax of a thousand dollars a mile. Somehow, however, these splendid
grants were gotten through, and the public, hearing
of the Fifth and Sixth
Street line profits, was eager to invest. Cowperwood was one of these, and
when the Second and Third Street line was engineered, he invested in that
and in the Walnut and Chestnut Street line also. He began to have vague
dreams of controlling a line himself some day, but as yet he did not see
exactly how it was to be done, since his business was far from being a
bonanza.
In the midst of this early work he married Mrs. Semple. There was no vast
to-do about it, as he did not want any and
his bride-to-be was nervous,
fearsome of public opinion. His family did not entirely approve. She was too
old, his mother and father thought, and then Frank, with his prospects,
could have done much better. His sister Anna fancied that Mrs. Semple was
designing, which was, of course, not true. His brothers, Joseph and Edward,
were interested, but not certain as to what they actually thought, since Mrs.
Semple was good-looking and had some money.
It was a warm October day when he and Lillian went to the altar, in the First
Presbyterian Church of Callowhill Street. His bride, Frank was satisfied,
looked exquisite in a trailing gown of cream lace—a
creation that had cost
months of labor. His parents, Mrs. Seneca Davis, the Wiggin family, brothers
and sisters, and some friends were present. He was a little opposed to this
idea, but Lillian wanted it. He stood up straight and correct in black
broadcloth for the wedding ceremony—because she wished it, but later
changed to a smart business suit for traveling. He had arranged his affairs
for a two weeks' trip to New York and Boston. They took an afternoon train
for
New York, which required five hours to reach. When they were finally
alone in the Astor House, New York, after hours of make-believe and public
pretense of indifference, he gathered her in his arms.
"Oh, it's delicious," he exclaimed, "to have you all to myself."
She met his eagerness with that smiling, tantalizing passivity which he had
so much admired but which this time was tinged strongly with a
communicated desire. He thought he should never have enough of her, her
beautiful face, her lovely arms, her smooth, lymphatic body. They were like
two children, billing and cooing, driving, dining, seeing the sights. He was
curious to visit the financial sections of both cities.
New York and Boston
appealed to him as commercially solid. He wondered, as he observed the
former, whether he should ever leave Philadelphia. He was going to be very
happy there now, he thought, with Lillian and possibly a brood of young
Cowperwoods. He was going to work hard and make money. With his means
and hers now at his command, he might become,
very readily, notably
wealthy.
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