Cowperwood knew that there were such properties.  His very alert mind had long since sensed the general opportunities here.  The omnibuses were slowly disappearing.  The best routes were already preempted.  Still, there were other streets, and the city was growing.  The incoming population would make great business in the future.  One could afford to pay almost any price for the short lines already built if one could wait and extend the lines into larger and better areas later.  And already he had conceived in his own mind the theory of the “endless chain,” or “argeeable formula,” as it was later termed, of buying a certain property on a long-time payment and issuing stocks or bonds sufficient not only to pay your seller, but to reimburse you for your trouble, to say nothing of giving you a margin wherewith to invest in other things—­allied properties, for instance, against which more bonds could be issued, and so on, ad infinitum.  It became an old story later, but it was new at that time, and he kept the thought closely to himself.  None the less he was glad to have Stener speak of this, since street-railways were his hobby, and he was convinced that he would be a great master of them if he ever had an opportunity to control them.

“Why, yes, George,” he said, noncommittally, “there are two or three that offer a good chance if a man had money enough.  I notice blocks of stock being offered on ’change now and then by one person and another.  It would be good policy to pick these things up as they’re offered, and then to see later if some of the other stockholders won’t want to sell out.  Green and Coates, now, looks like a good proposition to me.  If I had three or four hundred thousand dollars that I thought I could put into that by degrees I would follow it up.  It only takes about thirty per cent. of the stock of any railroad to control it.  Most of the shares are scattered around so far and wide that they never vote, and I think two or three hundred thousand dollars would control that road.”  He mentioned one other line that might be secured in the same way in the course of time.

Stener meditated.  “That’s a good deal of money,” he said, thoughtfully.  “I’ll talk to you about that some more later.”  And he was off to see Strobik none the less.

Cowperwood knew that Stener did not have any two or three hundred thousand dollars to invest in anything.  There was only one way that he could get it—­and that was to borrow it out of the city treasury and forego the interest.  But he would not do that on his own initiative.  Some one else must be behind him and who else other than Mollenhauer, or Simpson, or possibly even Butler, though he doubted that, unless the triumvirate were secretly working together.  But what of it?  The larger politicians were always using the treasury, and he was thinking now, only, of his own attitude in regard to the use of this money.  No harm could come to him, if Stener’s ventures were successful; and there was no reason why they should not be.  Even if they were not he would be merely acting as an agent.  In addition, he saw how in the manipulation of this money for Stener he could probably eventually control certain lines for himself.