Being chronically opposed to investing his private funds where stocks could just as well be unloaded on the public, and the management and control retained by him, Cowperwood, for the time being, was puzzled as to where he should get credit for the millions to be laid down in structural steel, engineering fees, labor, and equipment before ever a dollar could be taken out in passenger fares.

Owing to the advent of the World's Fair, the South Side 'L'-- to which, in order to have peace and quiet, he had finally conceded a franchise--was doing reasonably well.

Yet it was not making any such return on the investment as the New York roads.

The new lines which he was preparing would traverse even less populous sections of the city, and would in all likelihood yield even a smaller return.

Money had to be forthcoming--something between twelve and fifteen million dollars--and this on the stocks and bonds of a purely paper corporation which might not yield paying dividends for years to come.