Cowperwood could tell from looking at him that he must have a fund of information concerning every current Chicagoan of importance, and this fact alone was certain to be of value.

Then the old man was direct, plain-spoken, simple-appearing, and wholly unpretentious--qualities which Cowperwood deemed invaluable.
Once or twice in the last three years Laughlin had lost heavily on private "corners" that he had attempted to engineer, and the general feeling was that he was now becoming cautious, or, in other words, afraid.

"Just the man," Cowperwood thought.

So one morning he called upon Laughlin, intending to open a small account with him.
"Henry," he heard the old man say, as he entered Laughlin's fair-sized but rather dusty office, to a young, preternaturally solemn-looking clerk, a fit assistant for Peter Laughlin, "git me them there Pittsburg and Lake Erie sheers, will you ?" Seeing Cowperwood waiting, he added, "What kin I do for ye ?" Cowperwood smiled.

"So he calls them 'sheers,' does he ?" he thought.
"Good! I think I'll like him." He introduced himself as coming from Philadelphia, and went on to say that he was interested in various Chicago ventures, inclined to invest in any good stock which would rise, and particularly desirous to buy into some corporation--public utility preferred--which would be certain to grow with the expansion of the city.
Old Laughlin, who was now all of sixty years of age, owned a seat on the Board, and was worth in the neighborhood of two hundred thousand dollars, looked at Cowperwood quizzically.
"Well, now, if you'd 'a' come along here ten or fifteen years ago you might 'a' got in on the ground floor of a lot of things," he observed.
"There was these here gas companies, now, that them Otway and Apperson boys got in on, and then all these here street-railways.