He had moved his family from a shabby two-story frame house in South Ninth Street to a very comfortable brick one three stories in height, and three times as large, on Spring Garden Street.  His wife had a few acquaintances—­the wives of other politicians.  His children were attending the high school, a thing he had hardly hoped for in earlier days.  He was now the owner of fourteen or fifteen pieces of cheap real estate in different portions of the city, which might eventually become very valuable, and he was a silent partner in the South Philadelphia Foundry Company and the American Beef and Pork Company, two corporations on paper whose principal business was subletting contracts secured from the city to the humble butchers and foundrymen who would carry out orders as given and not talk too much or ask questions.

“Well, that is an odd name,” said Cowperwood, blandly.  “So he has it?  I never thought that road would pay, as it was laid out.  It’s too short.  It ought to run about three miles farther out into the Kensington section.”

“You’re right,” said Stener, dully.

“Did Strobik say what Colton wants for his shares?”

“Sixty-eight, I think.”

“The current market rate.  He doesn’t want much, does he?  Well, George, at that rate it will take about”—­he calculated quickly on the basis of the number of shares Cotton was holding—­“one hundred and twenty thousand to get him out alone.  That isn’t all.  There’s Judge Kitchen and Joseph Zimmerman and Senator Donovan”—­he was referring to the State senator of that name.  “You’ll be paying a pretty fair price for that stud when you get it.  It will cost considerable more to extend the line.  It’s too much, I think.”

Cowperwood was thinking how easy it would be to combine this line with his dreamed-of Seventeenth and Nineteenth Street line, and after a time and with this in view he added: 

“Say, George, why do you work all your schemes through Strobik and Harmon and Wycroft?  Couldn’t you and I manage some of these things for ourselves alone instead of for three or four?  It seems to me that plan would be much more profitable to you.”

“It would, it would!” exclaimed Stener, his round eyes fixed on Cowperwood in a rather helpless, appealing way.  He liked Cowperwood and had always been hoping that mentally as well as financially he could get close to him.  “I’ve thought of that.  But these fellows have had more experience in these matters than I have had, Frank.  They’ve been longer at the game.  I don’t know as much about these things as they do.”

Cowperwood smiled in his soul, though his face remained passive.