Stimson, while maintaining his calm and reserve, could have kissed the arch-episcopal hand.

Such is the subtlety of contact.
Behold then at once on the North Side, the South Side, the West Side--dark goings to and fro and walkings up and down in the earth.

In Lake View old General Van Sickle and De Soto Sippens, conferring with shrewd Councilman Duniway, druggist, and with Jacob Gerecht, ward boss and wholesale butcher, both of whom were agreeable but exacting, holding pleasant back-room and drug-store confabs with almost tabulated details of rewards and benefits.

In Hyde Park, Mr.Kent Barrows McKibben, smug and well dressed, a Chesterfield among lawyers, and with him one J.J.Bergdoll, a noble hireling, long-haired and dusty, ostensibly president of the Hyde Park Gas and Fuel Company, conferring with Councilman Alfred B.Davis, manufacturer of willow and rattan ware, and Mr.Patrick Gilgan, saloon-keeper, arranging a prospective distribution of shares, offering certain cash consideration, lots, favors, and the like.

Observe also in the village of Douglas and West Park on the West Side, just over the city line, the angular, humorous Peter Laughlin and Burton Stimson arranging a similar deal or deals.
The enemy, the city gas companies, being divided into three factions, were in no way prepared for what was now coming.