Peter Laughlin & Co.
The partnership which Cowperwood eventually made with an old-time Board
of Trade operator, Peter Laughlin, was eminently to his satisfaction.
Laughlin was a tall, gaunt speculator who had spent most of his living
days in Chicago, having come there as a boy from western Missouri. He
was a typical Chicago Board of Trade operator of the old school, having
an Andrew Jacksonish countenance, and a Henry Clay--Davy
Crockett--"Long John" Wentworth build of body.
Cowperwood from his youth up had had a curious interest in quaint
characters, and he was interesting to them; they "took" to him. He
could, if he chose to take the trouble, fit himself in with the odd
psychology of almost any individual. In his early peregrinations in La
Salle Street he inquired after clever traders on 'change, and then gave
them one small commission after another in order to get acquainted.
Thus he stumbled one morning on old Peter Laughlin, wheat and corn
trader, who had an office in La Salle Street near Madison, and who did
a modest business gambling for himself and others in grain and Eastern
railway shares. Laughlin was a shrewd, canny American, originally,
perhaps, of Scotch extraction, who had all the traditional American
blemishes of uncouthness, tobacco-chewing, profanity, and other small
vices. Cowperwood could tell from looking at him that he must have a
fund of information concerning every current Chicagoan of importance,
and this fact alone was certain to be of value. Then the old man was
direct, plain-spoken, simple-appearing, and wholly
unpretentious--qualities which Cowperwood deemed invaluable.
Once or twice in the last three years Laughlin had lost heavily on
private "corners" that he had attempted to engineer, and the general
feeling was that he was now becoming cautious, or, in other words,
afraid. "Just the man," Cowperwood thought. So one morning he called
upon Laughlin, intending to open a small account with him.
"Henry," he heard the old man say, as he entered Laughlin's fair-sized
but rather dusty office, to a young, preternaturally solemn-looking
clerk, a fit assistant for Peter Laughlin, "git me them there Pittsburg
and Lake Erie sheers, will you?" Seeing Cowperwood waiting, he added,
"What kin I do for ye?"
Cowperwood smiled. "So he calls them 'sheers,' does he?" he thought.
"Good! I think I'll like him."
He introduced himself as coming from Philadelphia, and went on to say
that he was interested in various Chicago ventures, inclined to invest
in any good stock which would rise, and particularly desirous to buy
into some corporation--public utility preferred--which would be certain
to grow with the expansion of the city.
Old Laughlin, who was now all of sixty years of age, owned a seat on
the Board, and was worth in the neighborhood of two hundred thousand
dollars, looked at Cowperwood quizzically.
"Well, now, if you'd 'a' come along here ten or fifteen years ago you
might 'a' got in on the ground floor of a lot of things," he observed.
"There was these here gas companies, now, that them Otway and Apperson
boys got in on, and then all these here street-railways. Why, I'm the
feller that told Eddie Parkinson what a fine thing he could make out of
it if he would go and organize that North State Street line. He
promised me a bunch of sheers if he ever worked it out, but he never
give 'em to me. I didn't expect him to, though," he added, wisely, and
with a glint. "I'm too old a trader for that. He's out of it now,
anyway. That Michaels-Kennelly crowd skinned him. Yep, if you'd 'a'
been here ten or fifteen years ago you might 'a' got in on that.
'Tain't no use a-thinkin' about that, though, any more. Them sheers is
sellin' fer clost onto a hundred and sixty."
Cowperwood smiled. "Well, Mr. Laughlin," he observed, "you must have
been on 'change a long time here. You seem to know a good deal of what
has gone on in the past."
"Yep, ever since 1852," replied the old man. He had a thick growth of
upstanding hair looking not unlike a rooster's comb, a long and what
threatened eventually to become a Punch-and-Judy chin, a slightly
aquiline nose, high cheek-bones, and hollow, brown-skinned cheeks. His
eyes were as clear and sharp as those of a lynx.
"To tell you the truth, Mr. Laughlin," went on Cowperwood, "what I'm
really out here in Chicago for is to find a man with whom I can go into
partnership in the brokerage business. Now I'm in the banking and
brokerage business myself in the East. I have a firm in Philadelphia
and a seat on both the New York and Philadelphia exchanges. I have
some affairs in Fargo also. Any trade agency can tell you about me.
You have a Board of Trade seat here, and no doubt you do some New York
and Philadelphia exchange business. The new firm, if you would go in
with me, could handle it all direct. I'm a rather strong outside man
myself. I'm thinking of locating permanently in Chicago. What would
you say now to going into business with me? Do you think we could get
along in the same office space?"
Cowperwood had a way, when he wanted to be pleasant, of beating the
fingers of his two hands together, finger for finger, tip for tip. He
also smiled at the same time--or, rather, beamed--his eyes glowing with
a warm, magnetic, seemingly affectionate light.
As it happened, old Peter Laughlin had arrived at that psychological
moment when he was wishing that some such opportunity as this might
appear and be available. He was a lonely man, never having been able
to bring himself to trust his peculiar temperament in the hands of any
woman. As a matter of fact, he had never understood women at all, his
relations being confined to those sad immoralities of the cheapest
character which only money--grudgingly given, at that--could buy. He
lived in three small rooms in West Harrison Street, near Throup, where
he cooked his own meals at times. His one companion was a small
spaniel, simple and affectionate, a she dog, Jennie by name, with whom
he slept. Jennie was a docile, loving companion, waiting for him
patiently by day in his office until he was ready to go home at night.
He talked to this spaniel quite as he would to a human being (even more
intimately, perhaps), taking the dog's glances, tail-waggings, and
general movements for answer. In the morning when he arose, which was
often as early as half past four, or even four--he was a brief
sleeper--he would begin by pulling on his trousers (he seldom bathed
any more except at a down-town barber shop) and talking to Jennie.
"Git up, now, Jinnie," he would say. "It's time to git up. We've got
to make our coffee now and git some breakfast. I can see yuh, lyin'
there, pertendin' to be asleep. Come on, now! You've had sleep enough.
You've been sleepin' as long as I have."
Jennie would be watching him out of the corner of one loving eye, her
tail tap-tapping on the bed, her free ear going up and down.
When he was fully dressed, his face and hands washed, his old string
tie pulled around into a loose and convenient knot, his hair brushed
upward, Jennie would get up and jump demonstratively about, as much as
to say, "You see how prompt I am."
"That's the way," old Laughlin would comment. "Allers last. Yuh never
git up first, do yuh, Jinnie? Allers let yer old man do that, don't
you?"
On bitter days, when the car-wheels squeaked and one's ears and fingers
seemed to be in danger of freezing, old Laughlin, arrayed in a heavy,
dusty greatcoat of ancient vintage and a square hat, would carry Jennie
down-town in a greenish-black bag along with some of his beloved
"sheers" which he was meditating on. Only then could he take Jennie in
the cars. On other days they would walk, for he liked exercise. He
would get to his office as early as seven-thirty or eight, though
business did not usually begin until after nine, and remain until
four-thirty or five, reading the papers or calculating during the hours
when there were no customers. Then he would take Jennie and go for a
walk or to call on some business acquaintance. His home room, the
newspapers, the floor of the exchange, his offices, and the streets
were his only resources. He cared nothing for plays, books, pictures,
music--and for women only in his one-angled, mentally impoverished way.
His limitations were so marked that to a lover of character like
Cowperwood he was fascinating--but Cowperwood only used character. He
never idled over it long artistically.
As Cowperwood suspected, what old Laughlin did not know about Chicago
financial conditions, deals, opportunities, and individuals was
scarcely worth knowing. Being only a trader by instinct, neither an
organizer nor an executive, he had never been able to make any great
constructive use of his knowledge. His gains and his losses he took
with reasonable equanimity, exclaiming over and over, when he lost:
"Shucks! I hadn't orter have done that," and snapping his fingers.
When he won heavily or was winning he munched tobacco with a seraphic
smile and occasionally in the midst of trading would exclaim: "You
fellers better come in. It's a-gonta rain some more." He was not easy
to trap in any small gambling game, and only lost or won when there was
a free, open struggle in the market, or when he was engineering some
little scheme of his own.
The matter of this partnership was not arranged at once, although it
did not take long. Old Peter Laughlin wanted to think it over,
although he had immediately developed a personal fancy for Cowperwood.
In a way he was the latter's victim and servant from the start. They
met day after day to discuss various details and terms; finally, true
to his instincts, old Peter demanded a full half interest.
"Now, you don't want that much, Laughlin," Cowperwood suggested, quite
blandly. They were sitting in Laughlin's private office between four
and five in the afternoon, and Laughlin was chewing tobacco with the
sense of having a fine, interesting problem before him. "I have a seat
on the New York Stock Exchange," he went on, "and that's worth forty
thousand dollars. My seat on the Philadelphia exchange is worth more
than yours here. They will naturally figure as the principal assets of
the firm. It's to be in your name. I'll be liberal with you, though.
Instead of a third, which would be fair, I'll make it forty-nine per
cent., and we'll call the firm Peter Laughlin & Co. I like you, and I
think you can be of a lot of use to me. I know you will make more
money through me than you have alone. I could go in with a lot of
these silk-stocking fellows around here, but I don't want to. You'd
better decide right now, and let's get to work."
Old Laughlin was pleased beyond measure that young Cowperwood should
want to go in with him. He had become aware of late that all of the
young, smug newcomers on 'change considered him an old fogy. Here was
a strong, brave young Easterner, twenty years his junior, evidently as
shrewd as himself--more so, he feared--who actually proposed a business
alliance. Besides, Cowperwood, in his young, healthy, aggressive way,
was like a breath of spring.
"I ain't keerin' so much about the name," rejoined Laughlin. "You can
fix it that-a-way if you want to. Givin' you fifty-one per cent. gives
you charge of this here shebang. All right, though; I ain't a-kickin'.
I guess I can manage allus to git what's a-comin' to me.
"It's a bargain, then," said Cowperwood. "We'll want new offices,
Laughlin, don't you think? This one's a little dark."
"Fix it up any way you like, Mr. Cowperwood. It's all the same to me.
I'll be glad to see how yer do it."
In a week the details were completed, and two weeks later the sign of
Peter Laughlin & Co., grain and commission merchants, appeared over the
door of a handsome suite of rooms on the ground floor of a corner at La
Salle and Madison, in the heart of the Chicago financial district.
"Get onto old Laughlin, will you?" one broker observed to another, as
they passed the new, pretentious commission-house with its splendid
plate-glass windows, and observed the heavy, ornate bronze sign placed
on either side of the door, which was located exactly on the corner.
"What's struck him? I thought he was almost all through. Who's the
Company?"
"I don't know. Some fellow from the East, I think."
"Well, he's certainly moving up. Look at the plate glass, will you?"
It was thus that Frank Algernon Cowperwood's Chicago financial career
was definitely launched.