The Titan | Page 6

builded them an empire crying glory in the mud.
From New York, Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine had come a strange
company, earnest, patient, determined, unschooled in even the primer
of refinement, hungry for something the significance of which, when

they had it, they could not even guess, anxious to be called great,
determined so to be without ever knowing how. Here came the dreamy
gentleman of the South, robbed of his patrimony; the hopeful student of
Yale and Harvard and Princeton; the enfranchised miner of California
and the Rockies, his bags of gold and silver in his hands. Here was
already the bewildered foreigner, an alien speech confounding him--the
Hun, the Pole, the Swede, the German, the Russian--seeking his
homely colonies, fearing his neighbor of another race.
Here was the negro, the prostitute, the blackleg, the gambler, the
romantic adventurer par excellence. A city with but a handful of the
native-born; a city packed to the doors with all the riffraff of a thousand
towns. Flaring were the lights of the bagnio; tinkling the banjos, zithers,
mandolins of the so-called gin-mill; all the dreams and the brutality of
the day seemed gathered to rejoice (and rejoice they did) in this
new-found wonder of a metropolitan life in the West.
The first prominent Chicagoan whom Cowperwood sought out was the
president of the Lake City National Bank, the largest financial
organization in the city, with deposits of over fourteen million dollars.
It was located in Dearborn Street, at Munroe, but a block or two from
his hotel.
"Find out who that man is," ordered Mr. Judah Addison, the president
of the bank, on seeing him enter the president's private waiting-room.
Mr. Addison's office was so arranged with glass windows that he could,
by craning his neck, see all who entered his reception-room before they
saw him, and he had been struck by Cowperwood's face and force.
Long familiarity with the banking world and with great affairs
generally had given a rich finish to the ease and force which the latter
naturally possessed. He looked strangely replete for a man of
thirty-six--suave, steady, incisive, with eyes as fine as those of a
Newfoundland or a Collie and as innocent and winsome. They were
wonderful eyes, soft and spring-like at times, glowing with a rich,
human understanding which on the instant could harden and flash
lightning. Deceptive eyes, unreadable, but alluring alike to men and to
women in all walks and conditions of life.

The secretary addressed came back with Cowperwood's letter of
introduction, and immediately Cowperwood followed.
Mr. Addison instinctively arose--a thing he did not always do. "I'm
pleased to meet you, Mr. Cowperwood," he said, politely. "I saw you
come in just now. You see how I keep my windows here, so as to spy
out the country. Sit down. You wouldn't like an apple, would you?" He
opened a left-hand drawer, producing several polished red winesaps,
one of which he held out. "I always eat one about this time in the
morning."
"Thank you, no," replied Cowperwood, pleasantly, estimating as he did
so his host's temperament and mental caliber. "I never eat between
meals, but I appreciate your kindness. I am just passing through
Chicago, and I thought I would present this letter now rather than later.
I thought you might tell me a little about the city from an investment
point of view."
As Cowperwood talked, Addison, a short, heavy, rubicund man with
grayish-brown sideburns extending to his ear-lobes and hard, bright,
twinkling gray eyes--a proud, happy, self-sufficient man--munched his
apple and contemplated Cowperwood. As is so often the case in life, he
frequently liked or disliked people on sight, and he prided himself on
his judgment of men. Almost foolishly, for one so conservative, he was
taken with Cowperwood--a man immensely his superior--not because
of the Drexel letter, which spoke of the latter's "undoubted financial
genius" and the advantage it would be to Chicago to have him settle
there, but because of the swimming wonder of his eyes. Cowperwood's
personality, while maintaining an unbroken outward reserve, breathed a
tremendous humanness which touched his fellow-banker. Both men
were in their way walking enigmas, the Philadelphian far the subtler of
the two. Addison was ostensibly a church-member, a model citizen; he
represented a point of view to which Cowperwood would never have
stooped. Both men were ruthless after their fashion, avid of a physical
life; but Addison was the weaker in that he was still afraid--very much
afraid--of what life might do to him. The man before him had no sense
of fear. Addison contributed judiciously to charity, subscribed

outwardly to a dull social routine, pretended to love his wife, of whom
he was weary, and took his human pleasure secretly. The man before
him subscribed to nothing, refused to talk save to