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CHAPTER XLVIII
Lester had been doing some pretty hard thinking, but so far he had been
unable to formulate any feasible plan for his re-entrance into active life. The
successful organization of Robert's carriage trade trust had knocked in the
head any further thought on his part of taking an interest in the small
Indiana wagon manufactory. He could not be expected to sink his sense of
pride and place, and enter a petty campaign for business success with a
man who was so obviously his financial superior. He had looked up the
details of the combination, and he found that Bracebridge had barely
indicated how wonderfully complete it was. There were millions in the
combine. It would have every little manufacturer by the throat. Should he
begin now in a small way and "pike along" in the shadow of his giant
brother? He couldn't see it. It was too ignominious. He would be running
around the country trying to fight a new trust, with his own brother as his
tolerant rival and his own rightful capital arrayed against him. It couldn't be
done. Better sit still for the time being. Something else might show up. If
not—well, he had his independent income and the right to come back into
the Kane Company if he wished. Did he wish? The question was always with
him.
It was while Lester was in this mood, drifting, that he received a visit from
Samuel E. Ross, a real estate dealer, whose great, wooden signs might be
seen everywhere on the windy stretches of prairie about the city. Lester had
seen Ross once or twice at the Union Club, where he had been pointed out
as a daring and successful real estate speculator, and he had noticed his
rather conspicuous offices at La Salle and Washington streets. Ross was a
magnetic-looking person of about fifty years of age, tall, black-bearded,
black-eyed, an arched, wide-nostriled nose, and hair that curled naturally,
almost electrically. Lester was impressed with his lithe, cat-like figure, and
his long, thin, impressive white hands.
Mr. Ross had a real estate proposition to lay before Mr. Kane. Of course Mr.
Kane knew who he was. And Mr. Ross admitted fully that he knew all about
Mr. Kane. Recently, in conjunction with Mr. Norman Yale, of the wholesale
grocery firm of Yale, Simpson & Rice, he had developed "Yalewood." Mr.
Kane knew of that?
Yes, Mr. Kane knew of that.
Only within six weeks the last lots in the Ridgewood section of "Yalewood"
had been closed out at a total profit of forty-two per cent. He went over a list
of other deals in real estate which he had put through, all well-known
properties. He admitted frankly that there were failures in the business; he
had had one or two himself. But the successes far outnumbered the bad
speculations, as every one knew. Now Lester was no longer connected with
the Kane Company. He was probably looking for a good investment, and Mr.
Ross had a proposition to lay before him. Lester consented to listen, and Mr.
Ross blinked his cat-like eyes and started in.
The idea was that he and Lester should enter into a one-deal partnership,
covering the purchase and development of a forty-acre tract of land lying
between Fifty-fifth, Seventy-first, Halstead streets, and Ashland Avenue, on
the southwest side. There were indications of a genuine real estate boom
there—healthy, natural, and permanent. The city was about to pave Fifty-
fifth Street. There was a plan to extend the Halstead Street car line far below
its present terminus. The Chicago, Burlington & Quincy, which ran near
there, would be glad to put a passenger station on the property. The initial
cost of the land would be forty thousand dollars which they would share
equally. Grading, paving, lighting, tree planting, surveying would cost,
roughly, an additional twenty-five thousand. There would be expenses for
advertising—say ten per cent, of the total investment for two years, or
perhaps three—a total of nineteen thousand five hundred or twenty
thousand dollars. All told, they would stand to invest jointly the sum of
ninety-five thousand, or possibly one hundred thousand dollars, of which
Lester's share would be fifty thousand. Then Mr. Ross began to figure on the
profits.
The character of the land, its salability, and the likelihood of a rise in value
could be judged by the property adjacent, the sales that had been made
north of Fifty-fifth Street and east of Halstead. Take, for instance, the
Mortimer plot, at Halstead and Fifty-fifth streets, on the south-east corner.
Here was a piece of land that in 1882 was held at forty-five dollars an acre.
In 1886 it had risen to five hundred dollars an acre, as attested by its sale to
a Mr. John L. Slosson at that time. In 1889, three years later, it had been
sold to Mr. Mortimer for one thousand per acre, precisely the figure at which
this tract was now offered. It could be parceled out into lots fifty by one
hundred feet at five hundred dollars per lot. Was there any profit in that?
Lester admitted that there was.
Ross went on, somewhat boastfully, to explain just how real estate profits
were made. It was useless for any outsider to rush into the game, and
imagine that he could do in a few weeks or years what trained real estate
speculators like himself had been working on for a quarter of a century.
There was something in prestige, something in taste, something in psychic
apprehension. Supposing that they went into the deal, he, Ross, would be
the presiding genius. He had a trained staff, he controlled giant contractors,
he had friends in the tax office, in the water office, and in the various other
city departments which made or marred city improvements. If Lester would
come in with him he would make him some money—how much he would
not say exactly—fifty thousand dollars at the lowest—one hundred and fifty
to two hundred thousand in all likelihood. Would Lester let him go into
details, and explain just how the scheme could be worked out? After a few
days of quiet cogitation, Lester decided to accede to Mr. Ross's request; he
would look into this thing.
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