The secretary who waited on Cowperwood was a young Polish girl named Antoinette Nowak, reserved, seemingly astute, dark, and very attractive. “What sort of business is it you handle, Mr. McKibben?” asked Cowperwood, quite casually, in the course of the conversation. And after listening to McKibben’s explanation he added, idly: “You might come and see me some time next week. It is just possible that I may have something in your line.” In another man McKibben would have resented this remote suggestion of future aid. Now, instead, he was intensely pleased. The man before him gripped his imagination. His remote intellectuality relaxed. When he came again and Cowperwood indicated the nature of the work he might wish to have done McKibben rose to the bait like a fish to a fly. “I wish you would let me undertake that, Mr. Cowperwood,” he said, quite eagerly. “It’s something I’ve never done, but I’m satisfied I can do it. I live out in Hyde Park and know most of the councilmen. I can bring considerable influence to bear for you.” Cowperwood smiled pleasantly. So a second company, officered by dummies of McKibben’s selection, was organized. De Soto Sippens, without old General Van Sickle’s knowledge, was taken in as practical adviser. An application for a franchise was drawn up, and Kent Barrows McKibben began silent, polite work on the South Side, coming into the confidence, by degrees, of the various councilmen. There was still a third lawyer, Burton Stimson, the youngest but assuredly not the least able of the three, a pale, dark-haired Romeoish youth with burning eyes, whom Cowperwood had encountered doing some little work for Laughlin, and who was engaged to work on the West Side with old Laughlin as ostensible organizer and the sprightly De Soto Sippens as practical adviser. Stimson was no mooning Romeo, however, but an eager, incisive soul, born very poor, eager to advance himself. Cowperwood detected that pliability of intellect which, while it might spell disaster to some, spelled success for him. He wanted the intellectual servants. He was willing to pay them handsomely, to keep them busy, to treat them with almost princely courtesy, but he must have the utmost loyalty. Stimson, while maintaining his calm and reserve, could have kissed the arch-episcopal hand. Such is the subtlety of contact.