“Never?  That’s a hard word when it comes to whisky.  Well, no matter.  It’s a good rule.  My boys don’t touch anything, and I’m glad of it.  As I say, I’m interested in pickin’ up a few stocks on ’change; but, to tell you the truth, I’m more interested in findin’ some clever young felly like yourself through whom I can work.  One thing leads to another, you know, in this world.”  And he looked at his visitor non-committally, and yet with a genial show of interest.

“Quite so,” replied Cowperwood, with a friendly gleam in return.

“Well,” Butler meditated, half to himself, half to Cowperwood, “there are a number of things that a bright young man could do for me in the street if he were so minded.  I have two bright boys of my own, but I don’t want them to become stock-gamblers, and I don’t know that they would or could if I wanted them to.  But this isn’t a matter of stock-gambling.  I’m pretty busy as it is, and, as I said awhile ago, I’m getting along.  I’m not as light on my toes as I once was.  But if I had the right sort of a young man—­I’ve been looking into your record, by the way, never fear—­he might handle a number of little things—­investments and loans—­which might bring us each a little somethin’.  Sometimes the young men around town ask advice of me in one way and another—­they have a little somethin’ to invest, and so—­”

He paused and looked tantalizingly out of the window, knowing full well Cowperwood was greatly interested, and that this talk of political influence and connections could only whet his appetite.  Butler wanted him to see clearly that fidelity was the point in this case—­fidelity, tact, subtlety, and concealment.

“Well, if you have been looking into my record,” observed Cowperwood, with his own elusive smile, leaving the thought suspended.

Butler felt the force of the temperament and the argument.  He liked the young man’s poise and balance.  A number of people had spoken of Cowperwood to him. (It was now Cowperwood & Co.  The company was fiction purely.) He asked him something about the street; how the market was running; what he knew about street-railways.  Finally he outlined his plan of buying all he could of the stock of two given lines—­the Ninth and Tenth and the Fifteenth and Sixteenth—­without attracting any attention, if possible.  It was to be done slowly, part on ’change, part from individual holders.  He did not tell him that there was a certain amount of legislative pressure he hoped to bring to bear to get him franchises for extensions in the regions beyond where the lines now ended, in order that when the time came for them to extend their facilities they would have to see him or his sons, who might be large minority stockholders in these very concerns.  It was a far-sighted plan, and meant that the lines would eventually drop into his or his sons’ basket.

“I’ll be delighted to work with you, Mr. Butler, in any way that you may suggest,” observed Cowperwood.  “I can’t say that I have so much of a business as yet—­merely prospects.  But my connections are good.  I am now a member of the New York and Philadelphia exchanges.  Those who have dealt with me seem to like the results I get.”