“You do a very able man a great injustice, Mr. Haeckelheimer,” Addison retorted. “Almost any one who starts out to do things successfully and intelligently is sure to stir up a great deal of feeling. The particular men you mention seem to feel that they have a sort of proprietor’s interest in Chicago. They really think they own it. As a matter of fact, the city made them; they didn’t make the city.” Mr. Haeckelheimer lifted his eyebrows. He laid two fine white hands, plump and stubby, over the lower buttons of his protuberant waistcoat. “Public favor is a great factor in all these enterprises,” he almost sighed. “As you know, part of a man’s resources lies in his ability to avoid stirring up opposition. It may be that Mr. Cowperwood is strong enough to overcome all that. I don’t know. I’ve never met him. I’m just telling you what I hear.” This offish attitude on the part of Mr. Haeckelheimer was indicative of a new trend. The man was enormously wealthy. The firm of Haeckelheimer, Gotloeb & Co. represented a controlling interest in some of the principal railways and banks in America. Their favor was not to be held in light esteem. It was plain that these rumors against Cowperwood in New York, unless offset promptly by favorable events in Chicago, might mean—in the large banking quarters, anyhow—the refusal of all subsequent Cowperwood issues. It might even close the doors of minor banks and make private investors nervous. Addison’s report of all this annoyed Cowperwood no little. It made him angry. He saw in it the work of Schryhart, Hand, and others who were trying their best to discredit him. “Let them talk,” he declared, crossly. “I have the street-railways. They’re not going to rout me out of here. I can sell stocks and bonds to the public direct if need be! There are plenty of private people who are glad to invest in these properties.” At this psychological moment enter, as by the hand of Fate, the planet Mars and the University. This latter, from having been for years a humble Baptist college of the cheapest character, had suddenly, through the beneficence of a great Standard Oil multimillionaire, flared upward into a great university, and was causing a stir throughout the length and breadth of the educational world. It was already a most noteworthy spectacle, one of the sights of the city. Millions were being poured into it; new and beautiful buildings were almost monthly erected. A brilliant, dynamic man had been called from the East as president. There were still many things needed—dormitories, laboratories of one kind and another, a great library; and, last but not least, a giant telescope—one that would sweep the heavens with a hitherto unparalleled receptive eye, and wring from it secrets not previously decipherable by the eye and the mind of man.