<h2><SPAN name="chap09"></SPAN>Chapter IX</h2>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>“Oh, it’s delicious,” he exclaimed, “to have you all to
myself.”</p>
<p>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.</p>
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