However, having but so recently completed his excellent cable system, he did not see that it was advisable to throw it away.

The trolley was as yet too much of a novelty; certainly it was not advisable to have it introduced into Chicago until he was ready to introduce it himself--first on his outlying feeder lines, he thought, then perhaps generally.
But before he could take suitable action against Woolsen, that engaging young upstart, who was possessed of a high-power imagination and a gift of gab, had allied himself with such interested investors as Truman Leslie MacDonald, who saw here a heaven-sent opportunity of mulcting Cowperwood, and Jordan Jules, once the president of the North Chicago Gas Company, who had lost money through Cowperwood in the gas war.

Two better instruments for goading a man whom they considered an enemy could not well be imagined--Truman Leslie with his dark, waspish, mistrustful, jealous eyes, and his slim, vital body; and Jordan Jules, short, rotund, sandy, a sickly crop of thin, oily, light hair growing down over his coat-collar, his forehead and crown glisteningly bald, his eyes a seeking, searching, revengeful blue.

They in turn brought in Samuel Blackman, once president of the South Side Gas Company; Sunderland Sledd, of local railroad management and stock-investment fame; and Norrie Simms, president of the Douglas Trust Company, who, however, was little more than a fiscal agent.

The general feeling was that Cowperwood's defensive tactics--which consisted in having the city council refuse to act--could be easily met.
"Well, I think we can soon fix that," exclaimed young MacDonald, one morning at a meeting.