In summer his clothes looked as crinkled as though he had slept in them for weeks. He smoked. In cast of countenance he was not wholly unlike General Grant, with a short gray beard and mustache which always seemed more or less unkempt and hair that hung down over his forehead in a gray mass. The poor General! He was neither very happy nor very unhappy—a doubting Thomas without faith or hope in humanity and without any particular affection for anybody. “I’ll tell you how it is with these small councils, Mr. Cowperwood,” observed Van Sickle, sagely, after the preliminaries of the first interview had been dispensed with. “They’re worse than the city council almost, and that’s about as bad as it can be. You can’t do anything without money where these little fellows are concerned. I don’t like to be too hard on men, but these fellows—” He shook his head. “I understand,” commented Cowperwood. “They’re not very pleasing, even after you make all allowances.” “Most of them,” went on the General, “won’t stay put when you think you have them. They sell out. They’re just as apt as not to run to this North Side Gas Company and tell them all about the whole thing before you get well under way. Then you have to pay them more money, rival bills will be introduced, and all that.” The old General pulled a long face. “Still, there are one or two of them that are all right,” he added, “if you can once get them interested—Mr. Duniway and Mr. Gerecht.” “I’m not so much concerned with how it has to be done, General,” suggested Cowperwood, amiably, “but I want to be sure that it will be done quickly and quietly. I don’t want to be bothered with details. Can it be done without too much publicity, and about what do you think it is going to cost?” “Well, that’s pretty hard to say until I look into the matter,” said the General, thoughtfully. “It might cost only four and it might cost all of forty thousand dollars—even more. I can’t tell. I’d like to take a little time and look into it.” The old gentleman was wondering how much Cowperwood was prepared to spend.