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The Financier

by Theodore Dreiser

August, 1999  [Etext #1840]


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Prepared by Kirk Pearson <Kirk.Pearson@Central.Sun.COM>





The Financier
by Theodore Dreiser


Chapter I

The Philadelphia into which Frank Algernon Cowperwood was born
was a city of two hundred and fifty thousand and more.  It was
set with handsome parks, notable buildings, and crowded with
historic memories.  Many of the things that we and he knew later
were not then in existence--the telegraph, telephone, express
company, ocean steamer, city delivery of mails.  There were no
postage-stamps or registered letters.  The street car had not
arrived.  In its place were hosts of omnibuses, and for longer
travel the slowly developing railroad system still largely
connected by canals.

Cowperwood's father was a bank clerk at the time of Frank's birth,
but ten years later, when the boy was already beginning to turn a
very sensible, vigorous eye on the world, Mr. Henry Worthington
Cowperwood, because of the death of the bank's president and the
consequent moving ahead of the other officers, fell heir to the
place vacated by the promoted teller, at the, to him, munificent
salary of thirty-five hundred dollars a year.  At once he decided,
as he told his wife joyously, to remove his family from 21
Buttonwood Street to 124 New Market Street, a much better
neighborhood, where there was a nice brick house of three stories
in height as opposed to their present two-storied domicile.  There
was the probability that some day they would come into something
even better, but for the present this was sufficient.  He was
exceedingly grateful.

Henry Worthington Cowperwood was a man who believed only what he
saw and was content to be what he was--a banker, or a prospective
one.  He was at this time a significant figure--tall, lean,
inquisitorial, clerkly--with nice, smooth, closely-cropped side
whiskers coming to almost the lower lobes of his ears.  His upper
lip was smooth and curiously long, and he had a long, straight
nose and a chin that tended to be pointed.  His eyebrows were
bushy, emphasizing vague, grayish-green eyes, and his hair was
short and smooth and nicely parted.  He wore a frock-coat always--
it was quite the thing in financial circles in those days--and a
high hat.  And he kept his hands and nails immaculately clean.
His manner might have been called severe, though really it was
more cultivated than austere.

Being ambitious to get ahead socially and financially, he was
very careful of whom or with whom he talked.  He was as much
afraid of expressing a rabid or unpopular political or social
opinion as he was of being seen with an evil character, though
he had really no opinion of great political significance to
express.  He was neither anti- nor pro-slavery, though the air
was stormy with abolition sentiment and its opposition.  He
believed sincerely that vast fortunes were to be made out of
railroads if one only had the capital and that curious thing, a
magnetic personality--the ability to win the confidence of others.
He was sure that Andrew Jackson was all wrong in his opposition
to Nicholas Biddle and the United States Bank, one of the great
issues of the day; and he was worried, as he might well be, by the
perfect storm of wildcat money which was floating about and which
was constantly coming to his bank--discounted, of course, and
handed out again to anxious borrowers at a profit.  His bank was
the Third National of Philadelphia, located in that center of all
Philadelphia and indeed, at that time, of practically all national
finance--Third Street--and its owners conducted a brokerage
business as a side line.  There was a perfect plague of State
banks, great and small, in those days, issuing notes practically
without regulation upon insecure and unknown assets and failing
and suspending with astonishing rapidity; and a knowledge of all
these was an important requirement of Mr. Cowperwood's position.
As a result, he had become the soul of caution.  Unfortunately,
for him, he lacked in a great measure the two things that are
necessary for distinction in any field--magnetism and vision.  He
was not destined to be a great financier, though he was marked
out to be a moderately successful one.

Mrs. Cowperwood was of a religious temperament--a small woman,
with light-brown hair and clear, brown eyes, who had been very
attractive in her day, but had become rather prim and matter-of-fact
and inclined to take very seriously the maternal care of her three
sons and one daughter.  The former, captained by Frank, the eldest,
were a source of considerable annoyance to her, for they were
forever making expeditions to different parts of the city, getting
in with bad boys, probably, and seeing and hearing things they
should neither see nor hear.

Frank Cowperwood, even at ten, was a natural-born leader.  At the
day school he attended, and later at the Central High School, he
was looked upon as one whose common sense could unquestionably be
trusted in all cases.  He was a sturdy youth, courageous and
defiant.  From the very start of his life, he wanted to know about
economics and politics.  He cared nothing for books.  He was a
clean, stalky, shapely boy, with a bright, clean-cut, incisive
face; large, clear, gray eyes; a wide forehead; short, bristly,
dark-brown hair.  He had an incisive, quick-motioned, self-sufficient
manner, and was forever asking questions with a keen desire for an
intelligent reply.  He never had an ache or pain, ate his food with
gusto, and ruled his brothers with a rod of iron.  "Come on, Joe!"
"Hurry, Ed!" These commands were issued in no rough but always a
sure way, and Joe and Ed came.  They looked up to Frank from the
first as a master, and what he had to say was listened to eagerly.

He was forever pondering, pondering--one fact astonishing him quite
as much as another--for he could not figure out how this thing he
had come into--this life--was organized.  How did all these people
get into the world? What were they doing here? Who started things,
anyhow? His mother told him the story of Adam and Eve, but he
didn't believe it.  There was a fish-market not so very far from
his home, and there, on his way to see his father at the bank, or
conducting his brothers on after-school expeditions, he liked to
look at a certain tank in front of one store where were kept odd
specimens of sea-life brought in by the Delaware Bay fishermen.
He saw once there a sea-horse--just a queer little sea-animal that
looked somewhat like a horse--and another time he saw an electric
eel which Benjamin Franklin's discovery had explained.  One day he
saw a squid and a lobster put in the tank, and in connection with
them was witness to a tragedy which stayed with him all his life
and cleared things up considerably intellectually.  The lobster,
it appeared from the talk of the idle bystanders, was offered no
food, as the squid was considered his rightful prey.  He lay at
the bottom of the clear glass tank on the yellow sand, apparently
seeing nothing--you could not tell in which way his beady, black
buttons of eyes were looking--but apparently they were never off
the body of the squid.  The latter, pale and waxy in texture,
looking very much like pork fat or jade, moved about in torpedo
fashion; but his movements were apparently never out of the eyes
of his enemy, for by degrees small portions of his body began to
disappear, snapped off by the relentless claws of his pursuer.
The lobster would leap like a catapult to where the squid was
apparently idly dreaming, and the squid, very alert, would dart
away, shooting out at the same time a cloud of ink, behind which
it would disappear.  It was not always completely successful,
however.  Small portions of its body or its tail were frequently
left in the claws of the monster below.  Fascinated by the drama,
young Cowperwood came daily to watch.

One morning he stood in front of the tank, his nose almost pressed
to the glass.  Only a portion of the squid remained, and his
ink-bag was emptier than ever.  In the corner of the tank sat the
lobster, poised apparently for action.

The boy stayed as long as he could, the bitter struggle fascinating
him.  Now, maybe, or in an hour or a day, the squid might die,
slain by the lobster, and the lobster would eat him.  He looked
again at the greenish-copperish engine of destruction in the corner
and wondered when this would be.  To-night, maybe.  He would come
back to-night.

He returned that night, and lo! the expected had happened.  There
was a little crowd around the tank.  The lobster was in the corner.
Before him was the squid cut in two and partially devoured.

"He got him at last," observed one bystander.  "I was standing
right here an hour ago, and up he leaped and grabbed him.  The
squid was too tired.  He wasn't quick enough.  He did back up, but
that lobster he calculated on his doing that.  He's been figuring
on his movements for a long time now.  He got him to-day."

Frank only stared.  Too bad he had missed this.  The least touch
of sorrow for the squid came to him as he stared at it slain.
Then he gazed at the victor.

"That's the way it has to be, I guess," he commented to himself.
"That squid wasn't quick enough."  He figured it out.

"The squid couldn't kill the lobster--he had no weapon.  The
lobster could kill the squid--he was heavily armed.  There was
nothing for the squid to feed on; the lobster had the squid as
prey.  What was the result to be? What else could it be? He didn't
have a chance," he concluded finally, as he trotted on homeward.

The incident made a great impression on him.  It answered in a
rough way that riddle which had been annoying him so much in the
past: "How is life organized?" Things lived on each other--that
was it.  Lobsters lived on squids and other things.  What lived
on lobsters? Men, of course! Sure, that was it! And what lived on
men? he asked himself.  Was it other men? Wild animals lived on
men.  And there were Indians and cannibals.  And some men were
killed by storms and accidents.  He wasn't so sure about men living
on men; but men did kill each other.  How about wars and street
fights and mobs? He had seen a mob once.  It attacked the Public
Ledger building as he was coming home from school.  His father had
explained why.  It was about the slaves.  That was it! Sure, men
lived on men.  Look at the slaves.  They were men.  That's what
all this excitement was about these days.  Men killing other men--
negroes.

He went on home quite pleased with himself at his solution.

"Mother!" he exclaimed, as he entered the house, "he finally got
him!"

"Got who? What got what?" she inquired in amazement.  "Go wash
your hands."

"Why, that lobster got that squid I was telling you and pa about
the other day."

"Well, that's too bad.  What makes you take any interest in such
things? Run, wash your hands."

"Well, you don't often see anything like that.  I never did."  He
went out in the back yard, where there was a hydrant and a post
with a little table on it, and on that a shining tin-pan and a
bucket of water.  Here he washed his face and hands.

"Say, papa," he said to his father, later, "you know that squid?"

"Yes."

"Well, he's dead.  The lobster got him."

His father continued reading.  "Well, that's too bad," he said,
indifferently.

But for days and weeks Frank thought of this and of the life he
was tossed into, for he was already pondering on what he should
be in this world, and how he should get along.  From seeing his
father count money, he was sure that he would like banking; and
Third Street, where his father's office was, seemed to him the
cleanest, most fascinating street in the world.





Chapter II




The growth of young Frank Algernon Cowperwood was through years
of what might be called a comfortable and happy family existence.
Buttonwood Street, where he spent the first ten years of his life,
was a lovely place for a boy to live.  It contained mostly small
two and three-story red brick houses, with small white marble steps
leading up to the front door, and thin, white marble trimmings
outlining the front door and windows.  There were trees in the
street--plenty of them.  The road pavement was of big, round
cobblestones, made bright and clean by the rains; and the sidewalks
were of red brick, and always damp and cool.  In the rear was a
yard, with trees and grass and sometimes flowers, for the lots were
almost always one hundred feet deep, and the house-fronts, crowding
close to the pavement in front, left a comfortable space in the
rear.

The Cowperwoods, father and mother, were not so lean and narrow
that they could not enter into the natural tendency to be happy and
joyous with their children; and so this family, which increased at
the rate of a child every two or three years after Frank's birth
until there were four children, was quite an interesting affair
when he was ten and they were ready to move into the New Market
Street home.  Henry Worthington Cowperwood's connections were
increased as his position grew more responsible, and gradually he
was becoming quite a personage.  He already knew a number of the
more prosperous merchants who dealt with his bank, and because as
a clerk his duties necessitated his calling at other banking-houses,
he had come to be familiar with and favorably known in the Bank of
the United States, the Drexels, the Edwards, and others.  The
brokers knew him as representing a very sound organization, and
while he was not considered brilliant mentally, he was known as a
most reliable and trustworthy individual.

In this progress of his father young Cowperwood definitely shared.
He was quite often allowed to come to the bank on Saturdays, when
he would watch with great interest the deft exchange of bills at
the brokerage end of the business.  He wanted to know where all the
types of money came from, why discounts were demanded and received,
what the men did with all the money they received.  His father,
pleased at his interest, was glad to explain so that even at this
early age--from ten to fifteen--the boy gained a wide knowledge of
the condition of the country financially--what a State bank was
and what a national one; what brokers did; what stocks were, and
why they fluctuated in value.  He began to see clearly what was
meant by money as a medium of exchange, and how all values were
calculated according to one primary value, that of gold.  He was
a financier by instinct, and all the knowledge that pertained to
that great art was as natural to him as the emotions and subtleties
of life are to a poet.  This medium of exchange, gold, interested
him intensely.  When his father explained to him how it was mined,
he dreamed that he owned a gold mine and waked to wish that he did.
He was likewise curious about stocks and bonds and he learned that
some stocks and bonds were not worth the paper they were written
on, and that others were worth much more than their face value
indicated.

"There, my son," said his father to him one day, "you won't often
see a bundle of those around this neighborhood."  He referred to
a series of shares in the British East India Company, deposited
as collateral at two-thirds of their face value for a loan of one
hundred thousand dollars.  A Philadelphia magnate had hypothecated
them for the use of the ready cash.  Young Cowperwood looked at
them curiously.  "They don't look like much, do they?" he commented.

"They are worth just four times their face value," said his father,
archly.

Frank reexamined them.  "The British East India Company," he read.
"Ten pounds--that's pretty near fifty dollars."

"Forty-eight, thirty-five," commented his father, dryly.  "Well,
if we had a bundle of those we wouldn't need to work very hard.
You'll notice there are scarcely any pin-marks on them.  They
aren't sent around very much.  I don't suppose these have ever
been used as collateral before."

Young Cowperwood gave them back after a time, but not without a
keen sense of the vast ramifications of finance.  What was the
East India Company? What did it do? His father told him.

At home also he listened to considerable talk of financial
investment and adventure.  He heard, for one thing, of a curious
character by the name of Steemberger, a great beef speculator
from Virginia, who was attracted to Philadelphia in those days by
the hope of large and easy credits.  Steemberger, so his father
said, was close to Nicholas Biddle, Lardner, and others of the
United States Bank, or at least friendly with them, and seemed to
be able to obtain from that organization nearly all that he asked
for.  His operations in the purchase of cattle in Virginia, Ohio,
and other States were vast, amounting, in fact, to an entire
monopoly of the business of supplying beef to Eastern cities.  He
was a big man, enormous, with a face, his father said, something
like that of a pig; and he wore a high beaver hat and a long
frock-coat which hung loosely about his big chest and stomach.
He had managed to force the price of beef up to thirty cents a
pound, causing all the retailers and consumers to rebel, and this
was what made him so conspicuous.  He used to come to the brokerage
end of the elder Cowperwood's bank, with as much as one hundred
thousand or two hundred thousand dollars, in twelve months--
post-notes of the United States Bank in denominations of one
thousand, five thousand, and ten thousand dollars.  These he would
cash at from ten to twelve per cent. under their face value, having
previously given the United States Bank his own note at four months
for the entire amount.  He would take his pay from the Third
National brokerage counter in packages of Virginia, Ohio, and
western Pennsylvania bank-notes at par, because he made his
disbursements principally in those States.  The Third National
would in the first place realize a profit of from four to five per
cent. on the original transaction; and as it took the Western
bank-notes at a discount, it also made a profit on those.

There was another man his father talked about--one Francis J.
Grund, a famous newspaper correspondent and lobbyist at Washington,
who possessed the faculty of unearthing secrets of every kind,
especially those relating to financial legislation.  The secrets
of the President and the Cabinet, as well as of the Senate and the
House of Representatives, seemed to be open to him.  Grund had been
about, years before, purchasing through one or two brokers large
amounts of the various kinds of Texas debt certificates and bonds.
The Republic of Texas, in its struggle for independence from Mexico,
had issued bonds and certificates in great variety, amounting in
value to ten or fifteen million dollars.  Later, in connection
with the scheme to make Texas a State of the Union, a bill was
passed providing a contribution on the part of the United States
of five million dollars, to be applied to the extinguishment of
this old debt.  Grund knew of this, and also of the fact that some
of this debt, owing to the peculiar conditions of issue, was to be
paid in full, while other portions were to be scaled down, and
there was to be a false or pre-arranged failure to pass the bill
at one session in order to frighten off the outsiders who might
have heard and begun to buy the old certificates for profit.  He
acquainted the Third National Bank with this fact, and of course
the information came to Cowperwood as teller.  He told his wife
about it, and so his son, in this roundabout way, heard it, and
his clear, big eyes glistened.  He wondered why his father did not
take advantage of the situation and buy some Texas certificates for
himself.  Grund, so his father said, and possibly three or four
others, had made over a hundred thousand dollars apiece.  It wasn't
exactly legitimate, he seemed to think, and yet it was, too.  Why
shouldn't such inside information be rewarded?  Somehow, Frank
realized that his father was too honest, too cautious, but when he
grew up, he told himself, he was going to be a broker, or a
financier, or a banker, and do some of these things.

Just at this time there came to the Cowperwoods an uncle who had
not previously appeared in the life of the family.  He was a
brother of Mrs. Cowperwood's--Seneca Davis by name--solid,
unctuous, five feet ten in height, with a big, round body, a
round, smooth head rather bald, a clear, ruddy complexion, blue
eyes, and what little hair he had of a sandy hue.  He was
exceedingly well dressed according to standards prevailing in
those days, indulging in flowered waistcoats, long, light-colored
frock-coats, and the invariable (for a fairly prosperous man) high
hat.  Frank was fascinated by him at once.  He had been a planter
in Cuba and still owned a big ranch there and could tell him tales
of Cuban life--rebellions, ambuscades, hand-to-hand fighting with
machetes on his own plantation, and things of that sort.  He
brought with him a collection of Indian curies, to say nothing of
an independent fortune and several slaves--one, named Manuel, a
tall, raw-boned black, was his constant attendant, a bodyservant,
as it were.  He shipped raw sugar from his plantation in boat-loads
to the Southwark wharves in Philadelphia.  Frank liked him because
he took life in a hearty, jovial way, rather rough and offhand for
this somewhat quiet and reserved household.

"Why, Nancy Arabella," he said to Mrs Cowperwood on arriving one
Sunday afternoon, and throwing the household into joyous astonishment
at his unexpected and unheralded appearance, "you haven't grown an
inch! I thought when you married old brother Hy here that you were
going to fatten up like your brother.  But look at you! I swear to
Heaven you don't weigh five pounds."  And he jounced her up and
down by the waist, much to the perturbation of the children, who
had never before seen their mother so familiarly handled.

Henry Cowperwood was exceedingly interested in and pleased at the
arrival of this rather prosperous relative; for twelve years
before, when he was married, Seneca Davis had not taken much notice
of him.

"Look at these little putty-faced Philadelphians," he continued,
"They ought to come down to my ranch in Cuba and get tanned up.
That would take away this waxy look."  And he pinched the cheek
of Anna Adelaide, now five years old.  "I tell you, Henry, you
have a rather nice place here."  And he looked at the main room
of the rather conventional three-story house with a critical eye.

Measuring twenty by twenty-four and finished in imitation cherry,
with a set of new Sheraton parlor furniture it presented a
quaintly harmonious aspect.  Since Henry had become teller the
family had acquired a piano--a decided luxury in those days--
brought from Europe; and it was intended that Anna Adelaide, when
she was old enough, should learn to play.  There were a few
uncommon ornaments in the room--a gas chandelier for one thing, a
glass bowl with goldfish in it, some rare and highly polished
shells, and a marble Cupid bearing a basket of flowers.  It was
summer time, the windows were open, and the trees outside, with
their widely extended green branches, were pleasantly visible
shading the brick sidewalk.  Uncle Seneca strolled out into the
back yard.

"Well, this is pleasant enough," he observed, noting a large elm
and seeing that the yard was partially paved with brick and
enclosed within brick walls, up the sides of which vines were
climbing.  "Where's your hammock? Don't you string a hammock here
in summer? Down on my veranda at San Pedro I have six or seven."

"We hadn't thought of putting one up because of the neighbors,
but it would be nice," agreed Mrs. Cowperwood.  "Henry will have
to get one."

"I have two or three in my trunks over at the hotel.  My niggers
make 'em down there.  I'll send Manuel over with them in the
morning."

He plucked at the vines, tweaked Edward's ear, told Joseph, the
second boy, he would bring him an Indian tomahawk, and went back
into the house.

"This is the lad that interests me," he said, after a time, laying
a hand on the shoulder of Frank.  "What did you name him in full,
Henry?"

"Frank Algernon."

"Well, you might have named him after me.  There's something to
this boy.  How would you like to come down to Cuba and be a planter,
my boy?"

"I'm not so sure that I'd like to," replied the eldest.

"Well, that's straight-spoken.  What have you against it?"

"Nothing, except that I don't know anything about it."

"What do you know?"

The boy smiled wisely.  "Not very much, I guess."

"Well, what are you interested in?"

"Money!"

"Aha! What's bred in the bone, eh? Get something of that from
your father, eh? Well, that's a good trait.  And spoken like a
man, too! We'll hear more about that later.  Nancy, you're
breeding a financier here, I think.  He talks like one."

He looked at Frank carefully now.  There was real force in that
sturdy young body--no doubt of it.  Those large, clear gray eyes
were full of intelligence.  They indicated much and revealed
nothing.

"A smart boy!" he said to Henry, his brother-in-law.  "I like
his get-up.  You have a bright family."

Henry Cowperwood smiled dryly.  This man, if he liked Frank,
might do much for the boy.  He might eventually leave him some of
his fortune.  He was wealthy and single.

Uncle Seneca became a frequent visitor to the house--he and his
negro body-guard, Manuel, who spoke both English and Spanish,
much to the astonishment of the children; and he took an increasing
interest in Frank.

"When that boy gets old enough to find out what he wants to do, I
think I'll help him to do it," he observed to his sister one day;
and she told him she was very grateful.  He talked to Frank about
his studies, and found that he cared little for books or most of
the study he was compelled to pursue.  Grammar was an abomination.
Literature silly.  Latin was of no use.  History--well, it was
fairly interesting.

"I like bookkeeping and arithmetic," he observed.  "I want to get
out and get to work, though.  That's what I want to do."

"You're pretty young, my son," observed his uncle.  "You're only how
old now? Fourteen?"

"Thirteen."

"Well, you can't leave school much before sixteen.  You'll do
better if you stay until seventeen or eighteen.  It can't do you
any harm.  You won't be a boy again."

"I don't want to be a boy. I want to get to work."

"Don't go too fast, son.  You'll be a man soon enough.  You want
to be a banker, do you?"

"Yes, sir!"

"Well, when the time comes, if everything is all right and you've
behaved yourself and you still want to, I'll help you get a start
in business.  If I were you and were going to be a banker, I'd
first spend a year or so in some good grain and commission house.
There's good training to be had there.  You'll learn a lot that
you ought to know.  And, meantime, keep your health and learn all
you can.  Wherever I am, you let me know, and I'll write and find
out how you've been conducting yourself."

He gave the boy a ten-dollar gold piece with which to start a
bank-account.  And, not strange to say, he liked the whole
Cowperwood household much better for this dynamic, self-sufficient,
sterling youth who was an integral part of it.





Chapter III




It was in his thirteenth year that young Cowperwood entered into
his first business venture.  Walking along Front Street one day,
a street of importing and wholesale establishments, he saw an
auctioneer's flag hanging out before a wholesale grocery and from
the interior came the auctioneer's voice: "What am I bid for this
exceptional lot of Java coffee, twenty-two bags all told, which
is now selling in the market for seven dollars and thirty-two
cents a bag wholesale? What am I bid? What am I bid? The whole
lot must go as one.  What am I bid?"

"Eighteen dollars," suggested a trader standing near the door,
more to start the bidding than anything else.  Frank paused.

"Twenty-two!" called another.

"Thirty!" a third.  "Thirty-five!" a fourth, and so up to
seventy-five, less than half of what it was worth.

"I'm bid seventy-five! I'm bid seventy-five!" called the auctioneer,
loudly.  "Any other offers? Going once at seventy-five; am I offered
eighty? Going twice at seventy-five, and"--he paused, one hand
raised dramatically.  Then he brought it down with a slap in the
palm of the other--"sold to Mr. Silas Gregory for seventy-five.
Make a note of that, Jerry," he called to his red-haired,
freckle-faced clerk beside him.  Then he turned to another lot
of grocery staples--this time starch, eleven barrels of it.

Young Cowperwood was making a rapid calculation.  If, as the
auctioneer said, coffee was worth seven dollars and thirty-two
cents a bag in the open market, and this buyer was getting this
coffee for seventy-five dollars, he was making then and there
eighty-six dollars and four cents, to say nothing of what his
profit would be if he sold it at retail.  As he recalled, his
mother was paying twenty-eight cents a pound.  He drew nearer,
his books tucked under his arm, and watched these operations
closely.  The starch, as he soon heard, was valued at ten dollars
a barrel, and it only brought six.  Some kegs of vinegar were
knocked down at one-third their value, and so on.  He began to
wish he could bid; but he had no money, just a little pocket
change.  The auctioneer noticed him standing almost directly
under his nose, and was impressed with the stolidity--solidity--of
the boy's expression.

"I am going to offer you now a fine lot of Castile soap--seven
cases, no less--which, as you know, if you know anything about
soap, is now selling at fourteen cents a bar.  This soap is worth
anywhere at this moment eleven dollars and seventy-five cents a
case.  What am I bid? What am I bid? What am I bid?" He was talking
fast in the usual style of auctioneers, with much unnecessary
emphasis; but Cowperwood was not unduly impressed.  He was already
rapidly calculating for himself.  Seven cases at eleven dollars
and seventy-five cents would be worth just eighty-two dollars and
twenty-five cents; and if it went at half--if it went at half--

"Twelve dollars," commented one bidder.

"Fifteen," bid another.

"Twenty," called a third.

"Twenty-five," a fourth.

Then it came to dollar raises, for Castile soap was not such a
vital commodity.  "Twenty-six."  "Twenty-seven."  "Twenty-eight."
"Twenty-nine."  There was a pause.  "Thirty," observed young
Cowperwood, decisively.

The auctioneer, a short lean faced, spare man with bushy hair and
an incisive eye, looked at him curiously and almost incredulously
but without pausing.  He had, somehow, in spite of himself, been
impressed by the boy's peculiar eye; and now he felt, without
knowing why, that the offer was probably legitimate enough, and
that the boy had the money.  He might be the son of a grocer.

"I'm bid thirty! I'm bid thirty! I'm bid thirty for this fine lot
of Castile soap.  It's a fine lot.  It's worth fourteen cents a
bar.  Will any one bid thirty-one? Will any one bid thirty-one?
Will any one bid thirty-one?"

"Thirty-one," said a voice.

"Thirty-two," replied Cowperwood.  The same process was repeated.

"I'm bid thirty-two! I'm bid thirty-two! I'm bid thirty-two! Will
anybody bid thirty-three? It's fine soap.  Seven cases of fine
Castile soap.  Will anybody bid thirty-three?"

Young Cowperwood's mind was working.  He had no money with him;
but his father was teller of the Third National Bank, and he could
quote him as reference.  He could sell all of his soap to the family
grocer, surely; or, if not, to other grocers.  Other people were
anxious to get this soap at this price.  Why not he?

The auctioneer paused.

"Thirty-two once! Am I bid thirty-three? Thirty-two twice! Am I bid
thirty-three? Thirty-two three times! Seven fine cases of soap.
Am I bid anything more?" Once, twice! Three times! Am I bid anything
more?"--his hand was up again--"and sold to Mr.--?" He leaned over
and looked curiously into the face of his young bidder.

"Frank Cowperwood, son of the teller of the Third National Bank,"
replied the boy, decisively.

"Oh, yes," said the man, fixed by his glance.

"Will you wait while I run up to the bank and get the money?"

"Yes.  Don't be gone long.  If you're not here in an hour I'll
sell it again."

Young Cowperwood made no reply.  He hurried out and ran fast; first,
to his mother's grocer, whose store was within a block of his home.

Thirty feet from the door he slowed up, put on a nonchalant air,
and strolling in, looked about for Castile soap.  There it was,
the same kind, displayed in a box and looking just as his soap
looked.

"How much is this a bar, Mr. Dalrymple?" he inquired.

"Sixteen cents," replied that worthy.

"If I could sell you seven boxes for sixty-two dollars just like
this, would you take them?"

"The same soap?"

"Yes, sir."

Mr. Dalrymple calculated a moment.

"Yes, I think I would," he replied, cautiously.

"Would you pay me to-day?"

"I'd give you my note for it.  Where is the soap?"

He was perplexed and somewhat astonished by this unexpected
proposition on the part of his neighbor's son.  He knew Mr.
Cowperwood well--and Frank also.

"Will you take it if I bring it to you to-day?"

"Yes, I will," he replied.  "Are you going into the soap business?"

"No.  But I know where I can get some of that soap cheap."

He hurried out again and ran to his father's bank.  It was after
banking hours; but he knew how to get in, and he knew that his
father would be glad to see him make thirty dollars.  He only
wanted to borrow the money for a day.

"What's the trouble, Frank?" asked his father, looking up from his
desk when he appeared, breathless and red faced.

"I want you to loan me thirty-two dollars! Will you?"

"Why, yes, I might.  What do you want to do with it?"

"I want to buy some soap--seven boxes of Castile soap.  I know
where I can get it and sell it.  Mr. Dalrymple will take it.  He's
already offered me sixty-two for it.  I can get it for thirty-two.
Will you let me have the money?  I've got to run back and pay the
auctioneer."

His father smiled.  This was the most business-like attitude he
had seen his son manifest.  He was so keen, so alert for a boy of
thirteen.

"Why, Frank," he said, going over to a drawer where some bills were,
"are you going to become a financier already? You're sure you're
not going to lose on this? You know what you're doing, do you?"

"You let me have the money, father, will you?" he pleaded.  "I'll
show you in a little bit.  Just let me have it.  You can trust me."

He was like a young hound on the scent of game.  His father could
not resist his appeal.

"Why, certainly, Frank," he replied.  "I'll trust you."  And he
counted out six five-dollar certificates of the Third National's
own issue and two ones.  "There you are."

Frank ran out of the building with a briefly spoken thanks and
returned to the auction room as fast as his legs would carry him.
When he came in, sugar was being auctioned.  He made his way to
the auctioneer's clerk.

"I want to pay for that soap," he suggested.

"Now?"

"Yes.  Will you give me a receipt?"

"Yep."

"Do you deliver this?"

"No.  No delivery.  You have to take it away in twenty-four hours."

That difficulty did not trouble him.

"All right," he said, and pocketed his paper testimony of purchase.

The auctioneer watched him as he went out.  In half an hour he was
back with a drayman--an idle levee-wharf hanger-on who was waiting
for a job.

Frank had bargained with him to deliver the soap for sixty cents.
In still another half-hour he was before the door of the astonished
Mr. Dalrymple whom he had come out and look at the boxes before
attempting to remove them.  His plan was to have them carried on
to his own home if the operation for any reason failed to go
through.  Though it was his first great venture, he was cool as
glass.

"Yes," said Mr. Dalrymple, scratching his gray head reflectively.
"Yes, that's the same soap.  I'll take it.  I'll be as good as my
word.  Where'd you get it, Frank?"

"At Bixom's auction up here," he replied, frankly and blandly.

Mr. Dalrymple had the drayman bring in the soap; and after some
formality--because the agent in this case was a boy--made out his
note at thirty days and gave it to him.

Frank thanked him and pocketed the note.  He decided to go back
to his father's bank and discount it, as he had seen others doing,
thereby paying his father back and getting his own profit in ready
money.  It couldn't be done ordinarily on any day after business
hours; but his father would make an exception in his case.

He hurried back, whistling; and his father glanced up smiling when
he came in.

"Well, Frank, how'd you make out?" he asked.

"Here's a note at thirty days," he said, producing the paper
Dalrymple had given him.  "Do you want to discount that for me? You
can take your thirty-two out of that."

His father examined it closely.  "Sixty-two dollars!" he observed.
"Mr. Dalrymple! That's good paper! Yes, I can.  It will cost you
ten per cent.," he added, jestingly.  "Why don't you just hold it,
though? I'll let you have the thirty-two dollars until the end of
the month."

"Oh, no," said his son, "you discount it and take your money.  I
may want mine."

His father smiled at his business-like air.  "All right," he said.
"I'll fix it to-morrow.  Tell me just how you did this."  And his
son told him.

At seven o'clock that evening Frank's mother heard about it, and
in due time Uncle Seneca.

"What'd I tell you, Cowperwood?" he asked.  "He has stuff in him,
that youngster.  Look out for him."

Mrs. Cowperwood looked at her boy curiously at dinner.  Was this
the son she had nursed at her bosom not so very long before? Surely
he was developing rapidly.

"Well, Frank, I hope you can do that often," she said.

"I hope so, too, ma," was his rather noncommittal reply.

Auction sales were not to be discovered every day, however, and
his home grocer was only open to one such transaction in a
reasonable period of time, but from the very first young Cowperwood
knew how to make money.  He took subscriptions for a boys' paper;
handled the agency for the sale of a new kind of ice-skate, and
once organized a band of neighborhood youths into a union for the
purpose of purchasing their summer straw hats at wholesale.  It
was not his idea that he could get rich by saving.  From the first
he had the notion that liberal spending was better, and that
somehow he would get along.

It was in this year, or a little earlier, that he began to take
an interest in girls.  He had from the first a keen eye for the
beautiful among them; and, being good-looking and magnetic himself,
it was not difficult for him to attract the sympathetic interest
of those in whom he was interested.  A twelve-year old girl,
Patience Barlow, who lived further up the street, was the first
to attract his attention or be attracted by him.  Black hair and
snapping black eyes were her portion, with pretty pigtails down
her back, and dainty feet and ankles to match a dainty figure.
She was a Quakeress, the daughter of Quaker parents, wearing a
demure little bonnet.  Her disposition, however, was vivacious,
and she liked this self-reliant, self-sufficient, straight-spoken
boy.  One day, after an exchange of glances from time to time, he
said, with a smile and the courage that was innate in him: "You
live up my way, don't you?"

"Yes," she replied, a little flustered--this last manifested in a
nervous swinging of her school-bag--"I live at number one-forty-one."

"I know the house," he said.  "I've seen you go in there.  You go
to the same school my sister does, don't you? Aren't you Patience
Barlow?" He had heard some of the boys speak her name.  "Yes.  How
do you know?"

"Oh, I've heard," he smiled.  "I've seen you.  Do you like licorice?"

He fished in his coat and pulled out some fresh sticks that were
sold at the time.

"Thank you," she said, sweetly, taking one.

"It isn't very good.  I've been carrying it a long time.  I had some
taffy the other day."

"Oh, it's all right," she replied, chewing the end of hers.

"Don't you know my sister, Anna Cowperwood?" he recurred, by way
of self-introduction.  "She's in a lower grade than you are, but I
thought maybe you might have seen her."

"I think I know who she is.  I've seen her coming home from school."

"I live right over there," he confided, pointing to his own home
as he drew near to it, as if she didn't know.  "I'll see you around
here now, I guess."

"Do you know Ruth Merriam?" she asked, when he was about ready to
turn off into the cobblestone road to reach his own door.

"No, why?"

"She's giving a party next Tuesday," she volunteered, seemingly
pointlessly, but only seemingly.

"Where does she live?"

"There in twenty-eight."

"I'd like to go," he affirmed, warmly, as he swung away from her.

"Maybe she'll ask you," she called back, growing more courageous
as the distance between them widened.  "I'll ask her."

"Thanks," he smiled.

And she began to run gayly onward.

He looked after her with a smiling face.  She was very pretty.
He felt a keen desire to kiss her, and what might transpire at
Ruth Merriam's party rose vividly before his eyes.

This was just one of the early love affairs, or puppy loves, that
held his mind from time to time in the mixture of after events.
Patience Barlow was kissed by him in secret ways many times before
he found another girl.  She and others of the street ran out to
play in the snow of a winter's night, or lingered after dusk before
her own door when the days grew dark early.  It was so easy to catch
and kiss her then, and to talk to her foolishly at parties.  Then
came Dora Fitler, when he was sixteen years old and she was fourteen;
and Marjorie Stafford, when he was seventeen and she was fifteen.
Dora Fitter was a brunette, and Marjorie Stafford was as fair as
the morning, with bright-red cheeks, bluish-gray eyes, and flaxen
hair, and as plump as a partridge.

It was at seventeen that he decided to leave school.  He had not
graduated.  He had only finished the third year in high school;
but he had had enough.  Ever since his thirteenth year his mind
had been on finance; that is, in the form in which he saw it
manifested in Third Street.  There had been odd things which he
had been able to do to earn a little money now and then.  His
Uncle Seneca had allowed him to act as assistant weigher at the
sugar-docks in Southwark, where three-hundred-pound bags were
weighed into the government bonded warehouses under the eyes of
United States inspectors.  In certain emergencies he was called
to assist his father, and was paid for it.  He even made an
arrangement with Mr. Dalrymple to assist him on Saturdays; but
when his father became cashier of his bank, receiving an income
of four thousand dollars a year, shortly after Frank had reached
his fifteenth year, it was self-evident that Frank could no longer
continue in such lowly employment.

Just at this time his Uncle Seneca, again back in Philadelphia
and stouter and more domineering than ever, said to him one day:

"Now, Frank, if you're ready for it, I think I know where there's
a good opening for you.  There won't be any salary in it for the
first year, but if you mind your p's and q's, they'll probably
give you something as a gift at the end of that time.  Do you know
of Henry Waterman & Company down in Second Street?"

"I've seen their place."

"Well, they tell me they might make a place for you as a bookkeeper.
They're brokers in a way--grain and commission men.  You say you
want to get in that line.  When school's out, you go down and see
Mr. Waterman--tell him I sent you, and he'll make a place for you,
I think.  Let me know how you come out."

Uncle Seneca was married now, having, because of his wealth,
attracted the attention of a poor but ambitious Philadelphia
society matron; and because of this the general connections of
the Cowperwoods were considered vastly improved.  Henry Cowperwood
was planning to move with his family rather far out on North Front
Street, which commanded at that time a beautiful view of the river
and was witnessing the construction of some charming dwellings.
His four thousand dollars a year in these pre-Civil-War times was
considerable.  He was making what he considered judicious and
conservative investments and because of his cautious, conservative,
clock-like conduct it was thought he might reasonably expect some
day to be vice-president and possibly president, of his bank.

This offer of Uncle Seneca to get him in with Waterman & Company
seemed to Frank just the thing to start him off right.  So he
reported to that organization at 74 South Second Street one day
in June, and was cordially received by Mr. Henry Waterman, Sr.
There was, he soon learned, a Henry Waterman, Jr., a young man of
twenty-five, and a George Waterman, a brother, aged fifty, who
was the confidential inside man.  Henry Waterman, Sr., a man of
fifty-five years of age, was the general head of the organization,
inside and out--traveling about the nearby territory to see
customers when that was necessary, coming into final counsel in
cases where his brother could not adjust matters, suggesting and
advising new ventures which his associates and hirelings carried
out.  He was, to look at, a phlegmatic type of man--short, stout,
wrinkled about the eyes, rather protuberant as to stomach,
red-necked, red-faced, the least bit popeyed, but shrewd, kindly,
good-natured, and witty.  He had, because of his naturally
common-sense ideas and rather pleasing disposition built up a
sound and successful business here.  He was getting strong in
years and would gladly have welcomed the hearty cooperation of his
son, if the latter had been entirely suited to the business.

He was not, however.  Not as democratic, as quick-witted, or as
pleased with the work in hand as was his father, the business
actually offended him.  And if the trade had been left to his
care, it would have rapidly disappeared.  His father foresaw this,
was grieved, and was hoping some young man would eventually appear
who would be interested in the business, handle it in the same
spirit in which it had been handled, and who would not crowd his
son out.

Then came young Cowperwood, spoken of to him by Seneca Davis.  He
looked him over critically.  Yes, this boy might do, he thought.
There was something easy and sufficient about him.  He did not
appear to be in the least flustered or disturbed.  He knew how to
keep books, he said, though he knew nothing of the details of the
grain and commission business.  It was interesting to him.  He
would like to try it.

"I like that fellow," Henry Waterman confided to his brother the
moment Frank had gone with instructions to report the following
morning.  "There's something to him.  He's the cleanest, briskest,
most alive thing that's walked in here in many a day."

"Yes," said George, a much leaner and slightly taller man, with
dark, blurry, reflective eyes and a thin, largely vanished growth
of brownish-black hair which contrasted strangely with the egg-shaped
whiteness of his bald head.  "Yes, he's a nice young man.  It's a
wonder his father don't take him in his bank."

"Well, he may not be able to," said his brother.  "He's only the
cashier there."

"That's right."

"Well, we'll give him a trial.  I bet anything he makes good.  He's
a likely-looking youth."

Henry got up and walked out into the main entrance looking into
Second Street.  The cool cobble pavements, shaded from the eastern
sun by the wall of buildings on the east--of which his was a part--
the noisy trucks and drays, the busy crowds hurrying to and fro,
pleased him.  He looked at the buildings over the way--all three
and four stories, and largely of gray stone and crowded with life--
and thanked his stars that he had originally located in so prosperous
a neighborhood.  If he had only brought more property at the time he
bought this!

"I wish that Cowperwood boy would turn out to be the kind of man
I want," he observed to himself, meditatively.  "He could save me a
lot of running these days."

Curiously, after only three or four minutes of conversation with the
boy, he sensed this marked quality of efficiency.  Something told
him he would do well.





Chapter IV




The appearance of Frank Cowperwood at this time was, to say the
least, prepossessing and satisfactory.  Nature had destined him
to be about five feet ten inches tall.  His head was large, shapely,
notably commercial in aspect, thickly covered with crisp, dark-brown
hair and fixed on a pair of square shoulders and a stocky body.
Already his eyes had the look that subtle years of thought bring.
They were inscrutable.  You could tell nothing by his eyes.  He
walked with a light, confident, springy step.  Life had given him
no severe shocks nor rude awakenings.  He had not been compelled
to suffer illness or pain or deprivation of any kind.  He saw
people richer than himself, but he hoped to be rich.  His family
was respected, his father well placed.  He owed no man anything.
Once he had let a small note of his become overdue at the bank,
but his father raised such a row that he never forgot it.  "I
would rather crawl on my hands and knees than let my paper go to
protest," the old gentleman observed; and this fixed in his mind
what scarcely needed to be so sharply emphasized--the significance
of credit.  No paper of his ever went to protest or became overdue
after that through any negligence of his.

He turned out to be the most efficient clerk that the house of
Waterman & Co. had ever known.  They put him on the books at
first as assistant bookkeeper, vice Mr. Thomas Trixler, dismissed,
and in two weeks George said: "Why don't we make Cowperwood head
bookkeeper? He knows more in a minute than that fellow Sampson
will ever know."

"All right, make the transfer, George, but don't fuss so.  "He
won't be a bookkeeper long, though.  I want to see if he can't
handle some of these transfers for me after a bit."

The books of Messrs. Waterman & Co., though fairly complicated,
were child's play to Frank.  He went through them with an ease
and rapidity which surprised his erstwhile superior, Mr. Sampson.

"Why, that fellow," Sampson told another clerk on the first day
he had seen Cowperwood work, "he's too brisk.  He's going to make
a bad break.  I know that kind.  Wait a little bit until we get
one of those rush credit and transfer days."  But the bad break Mr.
Sampson anticipated did not materialize.  In less than a week
Cowperwood knew the financial condition of the Messrs. Waterman as
well as they did--better--to a dollar.  He knew how their accounts
were distributed; from what section they drew the most business;
who sent poor produce and good--the varying prices for a year told
that.  To satisfy himself he ran back over certain accounts in the
ledger, verifying his suspicions.  Bookkeeping did not interest
him except as a record, a demonstration of a firm's life.  He knew
he would not do this long.  Something else would happen; but he
saw instantly what the grain and commission business was--every
detail of it.  He saw where, for want of greater activity in
offering the goods consigned--quicker communication with shippers
and buyers, a better working agreement with surrounding commission
men--this house, or, rather, its customers, for it had nothing,
endured severe losses.  A man would ship a tow-boat or a car-load
of fruit or vegetables against a supposedly rising or stable
market; but if ten other men did the same thing at the same time,
or other commission men were flooded with fruit or vegetables,
and there was no way of disposing of them within a reasonable
time, the price had to fall.  Every day was bringing its special
consignments.  It instantly occurred to him that he would be of
much more use to the house as an outside man disposing of heavy
shipments, but he hesitated to say anything so soon.  More than
likely, things would adjust themselves shortly.

The Watermans, Henry and George, were greatly pleased with the
way he handled their accounts.  There was a sense of security in
his very presence.  He soon began to call Brother George's
attention to the condition of certain accounts, making suggestions
as to their possible liquidation or discontinuance, which pleased
that individual greatly.  He saw a way of lightening his own labors
through the intelligence of this youth; while at the same time
developing a sense of pleasant companionship with him.

Brother Henry was for trying him on the outside.  It was not always
possible to fill the orders with the stock on hand, and somebody
had to go into the street or the Exchange to buy and usually he
did this.  One morning, when way-bills indicated a probable glut
of flour and a shortage of grain--Frank saw it first--the elder
Waterman called him into his office and said:

"Frank, I wish you would see what you can do with this condition
that confronts us on the street.  By to-morrow we're going to be
overcrowded with flour.  We can't be paying storage charges, and
our orders won't eat it up.  We're short on grain.  Maybe you could
trade out the flour to some of those brokers and get me enough
grain to fill these orders."

"I'd like to try," said his employee.

He knew from his books where the various commission-houses were.
He knew what the local merchants' exchange, and the various
commission-merchants who dealt in these things, had to offer.
This was the thing he liked to do--adjust a trade difficulty of
this nature.  It was pleasant to be out in the air again, to be
going from door to door.  He objected to desk work and pen work
and poring over books.  As he said in later years, his brain was
his office.  He hurried to the principal commission-merchants,
learning what the state of the flour market was, and offering his
surplus at the very rate he would have expected to get for it if
there had been no prospective glut.  Did they want to buy for
immediate delivery (forty-eight hours being immediate) six hundred
barrels of prime flour?  He would offer it at nine dollars straight,
in the barrel.  They did not.  He offered it in fractions, and some
agreed to take one portion, and some another.  In about an hour he
was all secure on this save one lot of two hundred barrels, which
he decided to offer in one lump to a famous operator named
Genderman with whom his firm did no business.  The latter, a big
man with curly gray hair, a gnarled and yet pudgy face, and little
eyes that peeked out shrewdly through fat eyelids, looked at
Cowperwood curiously when he came in.

"What's your name, young man?" he asked, leaning back in his wooden
chair.

"Cowperwood."

"So you work for Waterman & Company?  You want to make a record, no
doubt.  That's why you came to me?"

Cowperwood merely smiled.

"Well, I'll take your flour.  I need it.  Bill it to me."

Cowperwood hurried out.  He went direct to a firm of brokers in
Walnut Street, with whom his firm dealt, and had them bid in the
grain he needed at prevailing rates.  Then he returned to the
office.

"Well," said Henry Waterman, when he reported, "you did that quick.
Sold old Genderman two hundred barrels direct, did you? That's
doing pretty well.  He isn't on our books, is he?"

"No, sir."

"I thought not.  Well, if you can do that sort of work on the
street you won't be on the books long."

Thereafter, in the course of time, Frank became a familiar figure
in the commission district and on 'change (the Produce Exchange),
striking balances for his employer, picking up odd lots of things
they needed, soliciting new customers, breaking gluts by disposing
of odd lots in unexpected quarters.  Indeed the Watermans were
astonished at his facility in this respect.  He had an uncanny
faculty for getting appreciative hearings, making friends, being
introduced into new realms.  New life began to flow through the
old channels of the Waterman company.  Their customers were better
satisfied.  George was for sending him out into the rural districts
to drum up trade, and this was eventually done.

Near Christmas-time Henry said to George: "We'll have to make
Cowperwood a liberal present.  He hasn't any salary.  How would
five hundred dollars do?"

"That's pretty much, seeing the way times are, but I guess he's
worth it.  He's certainly done everything we've expected, and more.
He's cut out for this business."

"What does he say about it? Do you ever hear him say whether he's
satisfied?"

"Oh, he likes it pretty much, I guess.  You see him as much as I
do."

"Well, we'll make it five hundred.  That fellow wouldn't make a
bad partner in this business some day.  He has the real knack for
it.  You see that he gets the five hundred dollars with a word
from both of us."

So the night before Christmas, as Cowperwood was looking over some
way-bills and certificates of consignment preparatory to leaving
all in order for the intervening holiday, George Waterman came to
his desk.

"Hard at it," he said, standing under the flaring gaslight and
looking at his brisk employee with great satisfaction.

It was early evening, and the snow was making a speckled pattern
through the windows in front.

"Just a few points before I wind up," smiled Cowperwood.

"My brother and I have been especially pleased with the way you
have handled the work here during the past six months.  We wanted
to make some acknowledgment, and we thought about five hundred
dollars would be right.  Beginning January first we'll give you a
regular salary of thirty dollars a week."

"I'm certainly much obliged to you," said Frank.  "I didn't expect
that much.  It's a good deal.  I've learned considerable here that
I'm glad to know."

"Oh, don't mention it.  We know you've earned it.  You can stay
with us as long as you like.  We're glad to have you with us."

Cowperwood smiled his hearty, genial smile.  He was feeling very
comfortable under this evidence of approval.  He looked bright
and cheery in his well-made clothes of English tweed.

On the way home that evening he speculated as to the nature of
this business.  He knew he wasn't going to stay there long, even
in spite of this gift and promise of salary.  They were grateful,
of course; but why shouldn't they be? He was efficient, he knew
that; under him things moved smoothly.  It never occurred to him
that he belonged in the realm of clerkdom.  Those people were the
kind of beings who ought to work for him, and who would.  There
was nothing savage in his attitude, no rage against fate, no dark
fear of failure.  These two men he worked for were already nothing
more than characters in his eyes--their business significated
itself.  He could see their weaknesses and their shortcomings as
a much older man might have viewed a boy's.

After dinner that evening, before leaving to call on his girl,
Marjorie Stafford, he told his father of the gift of five hundred
dollars and the promised salary.

"That's splendid," said the older man.  "You're doing better than
I thought.  I suppose you'll stay there."

"No, I won't.  I think I'll quit sometime next year."

"Why?"

"Well, it isn't exactly what I want to do.  It's all right, but
I'd rather try my hand at brokerage, I think.  That appeals to me."

"Don't you think you are doing them an injustice not to tell them?"

"Not at all.  They need me."  All the while surveying himself in
a mirror, straightening his tie and adjusting his coat.

"Have you told your mother?"

"No.  I'm going to do it now."

He went out into the dining-room, where his mother was, and slipping
his arms around her little body, said: "What do you think, Mammy?"

"Well, what?" she asked, looking affectionately into his eyes.

"I got five hundred dollars to-night, and I get thirty a week next
year.  What do you want for Christmas?"

"You don't say! Isn't that nice! Isn't that fine! They must like
you.  You're getting to be quite a man, aren't you?"

"What do you want for Christmas?"

"Nothing.  I don't want anything.  I have my children."

He smiled.  "All right.  Then nothing it is."

But she knew he would buy her something.

He went out, pausing at the door to grab playfully at his sister's
waist, and saying that he'd be back about midnight, hurried to
Marjorie's house, because he had promised to take her to a show.

"Anything you want for Christmas this year, Margy?" he asked, after
kissing her in the dimly-lighted hall.  "I got five hundred
to-night."

She was an innocent little thing, only fifteen, no guile, no
shrewdness.

"Oh, you needn't get me anything."

"Needn't I?" he asked, squeezing her waist and kissing her mouth
again.

It was fine to be getting on this way in the world and having such
a good time.





Chapter V




The following October, having passed his eighteenth year by nearly
six months, and feeling sure that he would never want anything to
do with the grain and commission business as conducted by the
Waterman Company, Cowperwood decided to sever his relations with
them and enter the employ of Tighe & Company, bankers and brokers.

Cowperwood's meeting with Tighe & Company had come about in the
ordinary pursuance of his duties as outside man for Waterman &
Company.  From the first Mr. Tighe took a keen interest in this
subtle young emissary.

"How's business with you people?" he would ask, genially; or,
"Find that you're getting many I.O.U.'s these days?"

Because of the unsettled condition of the country, the over-inflation
of securities, the slavery agitation, and so forth, there were
prospects of hard times.  And Tighe--he could not have told you
why--was convinced that this young man was worth talking to in
regard to all this.  He was not really old enough to know, and yet
he did know.

"Oh, things are going pretty well with us, thank you, Mr. Tighe,"
Cowperwood would answer.

"I tell you," he said to Cowperwood one morning, "this slavery
agitation, if it doesn't stop, is going to cause trouble."

A negro slave belonging to a visitor from Cuba had just been
abducted and set free, because the laws of Pennsylvania made freedom
the right of any negro brought into the state, even though in
transit only to another portion of the country, and there was
great excitement because of it.  Several persons had been arrested,
and the newspapers were discussing it roundly.

"I don't think the South is going to stand for this thing.  It's
making trouble in our business, and it must be doing the same
thing for others.  We'll have secession here, sure as fate, one of
these days."  He talked with the vaguest suggestion of a brogue.

"It's coming, I think," said Cowperwood, quietly.  "It can't be
healed, in my judgment.  The negro isn't worth all this excitement,
but they'll go on agitating for him--emotional people always do
this.  They haven't anything else to do.  It's hurting our Southern
trade."

"I thought so. That's what people tell me."

He turned to a new customer as young Cowperwood went out, but again
the boy struck him as being inexpressibly sound and deep-thinking
on financial matters.  "If that young fellow wanted a place, I'd
give it to him," he thought.

Finally, one day he said to him: "How would you like to try your
hand at being a floor man for me in 'change? I need a young man
here.  One of my clerks is leaving."

"I'd like it," replied Cowperwood, smiling and looking intensely
gratified.  "I had thought of speaking to you myself some time."

"Well, if you're ready and can make the change, the place is open.
Come any time you like."

"I'll have to give a reasonable notice at the other place,"
Cowperwood said, quietly.  "Would you mind waiting a week or two?"

"Not at all.  It isn't as important as that.  Come as soon as you
can straighten things out.  I don't want to inconvenience your
employers."

It was only two weeks later that Frank took his departure from
Waterman & Company, interested and yet in no way flustered by his
new prospects.  And great was the grief of Mr. George Waterman.
As for Mr. Henry Waterman, he was actually irritated by this
defection.

"Why, I thought," he exclaimed, vigorously, when informed by
Cowperwood of his decision, "that you liked the business.  Is it
a matter of salary?"

"No, not at all, Mr. Waterman.  It's just that I want to get into
the straight-out brokerage business."

"Well, that certainly is too bad.  I'm sorry.  I don't want to
urge you against your own best interests.  You know what you are
doing.  But George and I had about agreed to offer you an interest
in this thing after a bit.  Now you're picking up and leaving.
Why, damn it, man, there's good money in this business."

"I know it," smiled Cowperwood, "but I don't like it.  I have
other plans in view.  I'll never be a grain and commission man."
Mr. Henry Waterman could scarcely understand why obvious success
in this field did not interest him.  He feared the effect of his
departure on the business.

And once the change was made Cowperwood was convinced that this
new work was more suited to him in every way--as easy and more
profitable, of course.  In the first place, the firm of Tighe &
Co., unlike that of Waterman & Co., was located in a handsome
green-gray stone building at 66 South Third Street, in what was
then, and for a number of years afterward, the heart of the
financial district.  Great institutions of national and international
import and repute were near at hand--Drexel & Co., Edward Clark &
Co., the Third National Bank, the First National Bank, the Stock
Exchange, and similar institutions.  Almost a score of smaller
banks and brokerage firms were also in the vicinity.  Edward
Tighe, the head and brains of this concern, was a Boston Irishman,
the son of an immigrant who had flourished and done well in that
conservative city.  He had come to Philadelphia to interest himself
in the speculative life there.  "Sure, it's a right good place for
those of us who are awake," he told his friends, with a slight
Irish accent, and he considered himself very much awake.  He was a
medium-tall man, not very stout, slightly and prematurely gray,
and with a manner which was as lively and good-natured as it was
combative and self-reliant.  His upper lip was ornamented by a
short, gray mustache.

"May heaven preserve me," he said, not long after he came there,
"these Pennsylvanians never pay for anything they can issue bonds
for."  It was the period when Pennsylvania's credit, and for that
matter Philadelphia's, was very bad in spite of its great wealth.
"If there's ever a war there'll be battalions of Pennsylvanians
marching around offering notes for their meals.  If I could just
live long enough I could get rich buyin' up Pennsylvania notes and
bonds.  I think they'll pay some time; but, my God, they're mortal
slow! I'll be dead before the State government will ever catch up
on the interest they owe me now."

It was true.  The condition of the finances of the state and city
was most reprehensible.  Both State and city were rich enough; but
there were so many schemes for looting the treasury in both
instances that when any new work had to be undertaken bonds were
necessarily issued to raise the money.  These bonds, or warrants,
as they were called, pledged interest at six per cent.; but when
the interest fell due, instead of paying it, the city or State
treasurer, as the case might be, stamped the same with the date
of presentation, and the warrant then bore interest for not only
its original face value, but the amount then due in interest.  In
other words, it was being slowly compounded.  But this did not help
the man who wanted to raise money, for as security they could not
be hypothecated for more than seventy per cent. of their market
value, and they were not selling at par, but at ninety.  A man might
buy or accept them in foreclosure, but he had a long wait.  Also,
in the final payment of most of them favoritism ruled, for it was
only when the treasurer knew that certain warrants were in the hands
of "a friend" that he would advertise that such and such warrants--
those particular ones that he knew about--would be paid.

What was more, the money system of the United States was only then
beginning slowly to emerge from something approximating chaos to
something more nearly approaching order.  The United States Bank,
of which Nicholas Biddle was the progenitor, had gone completely
in 1841, and the United States Treasury with its subtreasury system
had come in 1846; but still there were many, many wildcat banks,
sufficient in number to make the average exchange-counter broker
a walking encyclopedia of solvent and insolvent institutions.
Still, things were slowly improving, for the telegraph had facilitated
stock-market quotations, not only between New York, Boston, and
Philadelphia, but between a local broker's office in Philadelphia
and his stock exchange.  In other words, the short private wire
had been introduced.  Communication was quicker and freer, and
daily grew better.

Railroads had been built to the South, East, North, and West.
There was as yet no stock-ticker and no telephone, and the
clearing-house had only recently been thought of in New York,
and had not yet been introduced in Philadelphia.  Instead of a
clearing-house service, messengers ran daily between banks and
brokerage firms, balancing accounts on pass-books, exchanging
bills, and, once a week, transferring the gold coin, which was
the only thing that could be accepted for balances due, since
there was no stable national currency.  "On 'change," when the
gong struck announcing the close of the day's business, a company
of young men, known as "settlement clerks," after a system borrowed
from London, gathered in the center of the room and compared or
gathered the various trades of the day in a ring, thus eliminating
all those sales and resales between certain firms which naturally
canceled each other.  They carried long account books, and called
out the transactions--"Delaware and Maryland sold to Beaumont and
Company," "Delware and Maryland sold to Tighe and Company," and so
on.  This simplified the bookkeeping of the various firms, and
made for quicker and more stirring commercial transactions.

Seats "on 'change" sold for two thousand dollars each.  The members
of the exchange had just passed rules limiting the trading to the
hours between ten and three (before this they had been any time
between morning and midnight), and had fixed the rates at which
brokers could do business, in the face of cut-throat schemes which
had previously held.  Severe penalties were fixed for those who
failed to obey.  In other words, things were shaping up for a
great 'change business, and Edward Tighe felt, with other brokers,
that there was a great future ahead.





Chapter VI




The Cowperwood family was by this time established in its new and
larger and more tastefully furnished house on North Front Street,
facing the river.  The house was four stories tall and stood
twenty-five feet on the street front, without a yard.

Here the family began to entertain in a small way, and there came
to see them, now and then, representatives of the various interests
that Henry Cowperwood had encountered in his upward climb to the
position of cashier.  It was not a very distinguished company, but
it included a number of people who were about as successful as
himself--heads of small businesses who traded at his bank, dealers
in dry-goods, leather, groceries (wholesale), and grain.  The
children had come to have intimacies of their own.  Now and then,
because of church connections, Mrs. Cowperwood ventured to have
an afternoon tea or reception, at which even Cowperwood attempted
the gallant in so far as to stand about in a genially foolish way
and greet those whom his wife had invited.  And so long as he could
maintain his gravity very solemnly and greet people without being
required to say much, it was not too painful for him.  Singing
was indulged in at times, a little dancing on occasion, and there
was considerably more "company to dinner," informally, than there
had been previously.

And here it was, during the first year of the new life in this
house, that Frank met a certain Mrs. Semple, who interested him
greatly.  Her husband had a pretentious shoe store on Chestnut
Street, near Third, and was planning to open a second one farther
out on the same street.

The occasion of the meeting was an evening call on the part of
the Semples, Mr. Semple being desirous of talking with Henry
Cowperwood concerning a new transportation feature which was then
entering the world--namely, street-cars.  A tentative line,
incorporated by the North Pennsylvania Railway Company, had been
put into operation on a mile and a half of tracks extending from
Willow Street along Front to Germantown Road, and thence by various
streets to what was then known as the Cohocksink Depot; and it was
thought that in time this mode of locomotion might drive out the
hundreds of omnibuses which now crowded and made impassable the
downtown streets.  Young Cowperwood had been greatly interested
from the start.  Railway transportation, as a whole, interested
him, anyway, but this particular phase was most fascinating.  It
was already creating widespread discussion, and he, with others,
had gone to see it.  A strange but interesting new type of car,
fourteen feet long, seven feet wide, and nearly the same height,
running on small iron car-wheels, was giving great satisfaction as
being quieter and easier-riding than omnibuses; and Alfred Semple
was privately considering investing in another proposed line which,
if it could secure a franchise from the legislature, was to run on
Fifth and Sixth streets.

Cowperwood, Senior, saw a great future for this thing; but he did
not see as yet how the capital was to be raised for it.  Frank
believed that Tighe & Co. should attempt to become the selling
agents of this new stock of the Fifth and Sixth Street Company in
the event it succeeded in getting a franchise.  He understood that
a company was already formed, that a large amount of stock was to
be issued against the prospective franchise, and that these shares
were to be sold at five dollars, as against an ultimate par value
of one hundred.  He wished he had sufficient money to take a large
block of them.

Meanwhile, Lillian Semple caught and held his interest.  Just what
it was about her that attracted him at this age it would be hard
to say, for she was really not suited to him emotionally,
intellectually, or otherwise.  He was not without experience with
women or girls, and still held a tentative relationship with Marjorie
Stafford; but Lillian Semple, in spite of the fact that she was
married and that he could have legitimate interest in her, seemed
not wiser and saner, but more worth while.  She was twenty-four as
opposed to Frank's nineteen, but still young enough in her thoughts
and looks to appear of his own age.  She was slightly taller than
he--though he was now his full height (five feet ten and one-half
inches)--and, despite her height, shapely, artistic in form and
feature, and with a certain unconscious placidity of soul, which
came more from lack of understanding than from force of character.
Her hair was the color of a dried English walnut, rich and plentiful,
and her complexion waxen--cream wax---with lips of faint pink, and
eyes that varied from gray to blue and from gray to brown, according
to the light in which you saw them.  Her hands were thin and
shapely, her nose straight, her face artistically narrow.  She was
not brilliant, not active, but rather peaceful and statuesque
without knowing it.  Cowperwood was carried away by her appearance.
Her beauty measured up to his present sense of the artistic.  She
was lovely, he thought--gracious, dignified.  If he could have his
choice of a wife, this was the kind of a girl he would like to have.

As yet, Cowperwood's judgment of women was temperamental rather
than intellectual.  Engrossed as he was by his desire for wealth,
prestige, dominance, he was confused, if not chastened by
considerations relating to position, presentability and the like.
None the less, the homely woman meant nothing to him.  And the
passionate woman meant much.  He heard family discussions of this
and that sacrificial soul among women, as well as among men--women
who toiled and slaved for their husbands or children, or both, who
gave way to relatives or friends in crises or crucial moments,
because it was right and kind to do so--but somehow these stories
did not appeal to him.  He preferred to think of people--even
women--as honestly, frankly self-interested.  He could not have
told you why.  People seemed foolish, or at the best very unfortunate
not to know what to do in all circumstances and how to protect
themselves.  There was great talk concerning morality, much praise
of virtue and decency, and much lifting of hands in righteous
horror at people who broke or were even rumored to have broken
the Seventh Commandment.  He did not take this talk seriously.
Already he had broken it secretly many times.  Other young men did.
Yet again, he was a little sick of the women of the streets and the
bagnio.  There were too many coarse, evil features in connection
with such contacts.  For a little while, the false tinsel-glitter
of the house of ill repute appealed to him, for there was a certain
force to its luxury--rich, as a rule, with red-plush furniture,
showy red hangings, some coarse but showily-framed pictures, and,
above all, the strong-bodied or sensuously lymphatic women who
dwelt there, to (as his mother phrased it) prey on men.  The strength
of their bodies, the lust of their souls, the fact that they could,
with a show of affection or good-nature, receive man after man,
astonished and later disgusted him.  After all, they were not smart.
There was no vivacity of thought there.  All that they could do,
in the main, he fancied, was this one thing.  He pictured to himself
the dreariness of the mornings after, the stale dregs of things
when only sleep and thought of gain could aid in the least; and
more than once, even at his age, he shook his head.  He wanted
contact which was more intimate, subtle, individual, personal.

So came Lillian Semple, who was nothing more to him than the shadow
of an ideal.  Yet she cleared up certain of his ideas in regard to
women.  She was not physically as vigorous or brutal as those other
women whom he had encountered in the lupanars, thus far--raw,
unashamed contraveners of accepted theories and notions--and for
that very reason he liked her.  And his thoughts continued to dwell
on her, notwithstanding the hectic days which now passed like
flashes of light in his new business venture.  For this stock
exchange world in which he now found himself, primitive as it
would seem to-day, was most fascinating to Cowperwood.  The room
that he went to in Third Street, at Dock, where the brokers or
their agents and clerks gathered one hundred and fifty strong,
was nothing to speak of artistically--a square chamber sixty by
sixty, reaching from the second floor to the roof of a four-story
building; but it was striking to him.  The windows were high and
narrow; a large-faced clock faced the west entrance of the room
where you came in from the stairs; a collection of telegraph
instruments, with their accompanying desks and chairs, occupied
the northeast corner.  On the floor, in the early days of the
exchange, were rows of chairs where the brokers sat while various
lots of stocks were offered to them.  Later in the history of the
exchange the chairs were removed and at different points posts or
floor-signs indicating where certain stocks were traded in were
introduced.  Around these the men who were interested gathered to
do their trading.  From a hall on the third floor a door gave
entrance to a visitor's gallery, small and poorly furnished; and
on the west wall a large blackboard carried current quotations in
stocks as telegraphed from New York and Boston.  A wicket-like
fence in the center of the room surrounded the desk and chair of
the official recorder; and a very small gallery opening from the
third floor on the west gave place for the secretary of the board,
when he had any special announcement to make.  There was a room
off the southwest corner, where reports and annual compendiums of
chairs were removed and at different signs indicating where certain
stocks of various kinds were kept and were available for the use of
members.

Young Cowperwood would not have been admitted at all, as either a
broker or broker's agent or assistant, except that Tighe, feeling
that he needed him and believing that he would be very useful,
bought him a seat on 'change--charging the two thousand dollars it
cost as a debt and then ostensibly taking him into partnership.
It was against the rules of the exchange to sham a partnership in
this way in order to put a man on the floor, but brokers did it.
These men who were known to be minor partners and floor assistants
were derisively called "eighth chasers" and "two-dollar brokers,"
because they were always seeking small orders and were willing to
buy or sell for anybody on their commission, accounting, of course,
to their firms for their work.  Cowperwood, regardless of his
intrinsic merits, was originally counted one of their number, and
he was put under the direction of Mr. Arthur Rivers, the regular
floor man of Tighe & Company.

Rivers was an exceedingly forceful man of thirty-five, well-dressed,
well-formed, with a hard, smooth, evenly chiseled face, which was
ornamented by a short, black mustache and fine, black, clearly
penciled eyebrows.  His hair came to an odd point at the middle of
his forehead, where he divided it, and his chin was faintly and
attractively cleft.  He had a soft voice, a quiet, conservative
manner, and both in and out of this brokerage and trading world
was controlled by good form.  Cowperwood wondered at first why
Rivers should work for Tighe--he appeared almost as able--but
afterward learned that he was in the company.  Tighe was the
organizer and general hand-shaker, Rivers the floor and outside
man.

It was useless, as Frank soon found, to try to figure out exactly
why stocks rose and fell.  Some general reasons there were, of
course, as he was told by Tighe, but they could not always be
depended on.

"Sure, anything can make or break a market"--Tighe explained in
his delicate brogue--"from the failure of a bank to the rumor that
your second cousin's grandmother has a cold.  It's a most unusual
world, Cowperwood.  No man can explain it.  I've seen breaks in
stocks that you could never explain at all--no one could.  It
wouldn't be possible to find out why they broke.  I've seen rises
the same way.  My God, the rumors of the stock exchange! They beat
the devil.  If they're going down in ordinary times some one is
unloading, or they're rigging the market.  If they're going up--
God knows times must be good or somebody must be buying--that's
sure.  Beyond that--well, ask Rivers to show you the ropes.  Don't
you ever lose for me, though.  That's the cardinal sin in this
office."  He grinned maliciously, even if kindly, at that.

Cowperwood understood--none better.  This subtle world appealed
to him.  It answered to his temperament.

There were rumors, rumors, rumors--of great railway and street-car
undertakings, land developments, government revision of the tariff,
war between France and Turkey, famine in Russia or Ireland, and
so on.  The first Atlantic cable had not been laid as yet, and
news of any kind from abroad was slow and meager.  Still there
were great financial figures in the held, men who, like Cyrus
Field, or William H. Vanderbilt, or F. X. Drexel, were doing
marvelous things, and their activities and the rumors concerning
them counted for much.

Frank soon picked up all of the technicalities of the situation.
A "bull," he learned, was one who bought in anticipation of a higher
price to come; and if he was "loaded up" with a "line" of stocks
he was said to be "long."  He sold to "realize" his profit, or if
his margins were exhausted he was "wiped out."  A "bear" was one
who sold stocks which most frequently he did not have, in
anticipation of a lower price, at which he could buy and satisfy
his previous sales.  He was "short" when he had sold what he did
not own, and he "covered" when he bought to satisfy his sales and
to realize his profits or to protect himself against further loss
in case prices advanced instead of declining.  He was in a "corner"
when he found that he could not buy in order to make good the
stock he had borrowed for delivery and the return of which had
been demanded.  He was then obliged to settle practically at a
price fixed by those to whom he and other "shorts" had sold.

He smiled at first at the air of great secrecy and wisdom on the
part of the younger men.  They were so heartily and foolishly
suspicious.  The older men, as a rule, were inscrutable.  They
pretended indifference, uncertainty.  They were like certain fish
after a certain kind of bait, however.  Snap! and the opportunity
was gone.  Somebody else had picked up what you wanted.  All had
their little note-books.  All had their peculiar squint of eye or
position or motion which meant "Done! I take you!" Sometimes they
seemed scarcely to confirm their sales or purchases--they knew
each other so well--but they did.  If the market was for any reason
active, the brokers and their agents were apt to be more numerous
than if it were dull and the trading indifferent.  A gong sounded
the call to trading at ten o'clock, and if there was a noticeable
rise or decline in a stock or a group of stocks, you were apt to
witness quite a spirited scene.  Fifty to a hundred men would
shout, gesticulate, shove here and there in an apparently aimless
marmer; endeavoring to take advantage of the stock offered or called
for.

"Five-eighths for five hundred P. and W.," some one would call--
Rivers or Cowperwood, or any other broker.

Five hundred at three-fourths," would come the reply from some
one else, who either had an order to sell the stock at that price
or who was willing to sell it short, hoping to pick up enough of
the stock at a lower figure later to fill his order and make a
little something besides.  If the supply of stock at that figure
was large Rivers would probably continue to bid five-eighths.  If,
on the other hand, he noticed an increasing demand, he would
probably pay three-fourths for it.  If the professional traders
believed Rivers had a large buying order, they would probably try
to buy the stock before he could at three-fourths, believing they
could sell it out to him at a slightly higher price.  The
professional traders were, of course, keen students of psychology;
and their success depended on their ability to guess whether or
not a broker representing a big manipulator, like Tighe, had an
order large enough to affect the market sufficiently to give them
an opportunity to "get in and out," as they termed it, at a profit
before he had completed the execution of his order.  They were
like hawks watching for an opportunity to snatch their prey from
under the very claws of their opponents.

Four, five, ten, fifteen, twenty, thirty, forty, fifty, and
sometimes the whole company would attempt to take advantage of the
given rise of a given stock by either selling or offering to buy,
in which case the activity and the noise would become deafening.
Given groups might be trading in different things; but the large
majority of them would abandon what they were doing in order to
take advantage of a speciality.  The eagerness of certain young
brokers or clerks to discover all that was going on, and to take
advantage of any given rise or fall, made for quick physical action,
darting to and fro, the excited elevation of explanatory fingers.
Distorted faces were shoved over shoulders or under arms.  The
most ridiculous grimaces were purposely or unconsciously indulged
in.  At times there were situations in which some individual was
fairly smothered with arms, faces, shoulders, crowded toward him
when he manifested any intention of either buying or selling at a
profitable rate.  At first it seemed quite a wonderful thing to
young Cowperwood--the very physical face of it--for he liked human
presence and activity; but a little later the sense of the thing
as a picture or a dramatic situation, of which he was a part faded,
and he came down to a clearer sense of the intricacies of the
problem before him.  Buying and selling stocks, as he soon learned,
was an art, a subtlety, almost a psychic emotion.  Suspicion,
intuition, feeling--these were the things to be "long" on.

Yet in time he also asked himself, who was it who made the real
money--the stock-brokers? Not at all.  Some of them were making
money, but they were, as he quickly saw, like a lot of gulls or
stormy petrels, hanging on the lee of the wind, hungry and anxious
to snap up any unwary fish.  Back of them were other men, men with
shrewd ideas, subtle resources.  Men of immense means whose
enterprise and holdings these stocks represented, the men who
schemed out and built the railroads, opened the mines, organized
trading enterprises, and built up immense manufactories.  They might
use brokers or other agents to buy and sell on 'change; but this
buying and selling must be, and always was, incidental to the
actual fact--the mine, the railroad, the wheat crop, the flour
mill, and so on.  Anything less than straight-out sales to realize
quickly on assets, or buying to hold as an investment, was gambling
pure and simple, and these men were gamblers.  He was nothing more
than a gambler's agent.  It was not troubling him any just at this
moment, but it was not at all a mystery now, what he was.  As in
the case of Waterman & Company, he sized up these men shrewdly,
judging some to be weak, some foolish, some clever, some slow, but
in the main all small-minded or deficient because they were agents,
tools, or gamblers.  A man, a real man, must never be an agent, a
tool, or a gambler--acting for himself or for others--he must employ
such.  A real man--a financier--was never a tool.  He used tools.
He created.  He led.

Clearly, very clearly, at nineteen, twenty, and twenty-one years
of age, he saw all this, but he was not quite ready yet to do
anything about it.  He was certain, however, that his day would
come.





Chapter VII




In the meantime, his interest in Mrs. Semple had been secretly
and strangely growing.  When he received an invitation to call at
the Semple home, he accepted with a great deal of pleasure.  Their
house was located not so very far from his own, on North Front
Street, in the neighborhood of what is now known as No. 956.  It
had, in summer, quite a wealth of green leaves and vines.  The
little side porch which ornamented its south wall commanded a
charming view of the river, and all the windows and doors were
topped with lunettes of small-paned glass.  The interior of the
house was not as pleasing as he would have had it.  Artistic
impressiveness, as to the furniture at least, was wanting, although
it was new and good.  The pictures were--well, simply pictures.
There were no books to speak of--the Bible, a few current novels,
some of the more significant histories, and a collection of
antiquated odds and ends in the shape of books inherited from
relatives.  The china was good--of a delicate pattern.  The carpets
and wall-paper were too high in key.  So it went.  Still, the
personality of Lillian Semple was worth something, for she was
really pleasing to look upon, making a picture wherever she stood
or sat.

There were no children--a dispensation of sex conditions which had
nothing to do with her, for she longed to have them.  She was
without any notable experience in social life, except such as had
come to the Wiggin family, of which she was a member--relatives and
a few neighborhood friends visiting.  Lillian Wiggin, that was her
maiden name--had two brothers and one sister, all living in
Philadelphia and all married at this time.  They thought she had
done very well in her marriage.

It could not be said that she had wildly loved Mr. Semple at any
time.  Although she had cheerfully married him, he was not the kind
of man who could arouse a notable passion in any woman.  He was
practical, methodic, orderly.  His shoe store was a good one--
well-stocked with styles reflecting the current tastes and a model
of cleanliness and what one might term pleasing brightness.  He
loved to talk, when he talked at all, of shoe manufacturing, the
development of lasts and styles.  The ready-made shoe--machine-made
to a certain extent--was just coming into its own slowly, and
outside of these, supplies of which he kept, he employed bench-making
shoemakers, satisfying his customers with personal measurements
and making the shoes to order.

Mrs. Semple read a little--not much.  She had a habit of sitting
and apparently brooding reflectively at times, but it was not based
on any deep thought.  She had that curious beauty of body, though,
that made her somewhat like a figure on an antique vase, or out of
a Greek chorus.  It was in this light, unquestionably, that
Cowperwood saw her, for from the beginning he could not keep his
eyes off her.  In a way, she was aware of this but she did not
attach any significance to it.  Thoroughly conventional, satisfied
now that her life was bound permanently with that of her husband,
she had settled down to a staid and quiet existence.

At first, when Frank called, she did not have much to say.  She was
gracious, but the burden of conversation fell on her husband.
Cowperwood watched the varying expression of her face from time
to time, and if she had been at all psychic she must have felt
something.  Fortunately she was not.  Semple talked to him
pleasantly, because in the first place Frank was becoming
financially significant, was suave and ingratiating, and in the
next place he was anxious to get richer and somehow Frank represented
progress to him in that line.  One spring evening they sat on the
porch and talked--nothing very important--slavery, street-cars,
the panic--it was on then, that of 1857--the development of the
West.  Mr. Semple wanted to know all about the stock exchange.  In
return Frank asked about the shoe business, though he really did
not care.  All the while, inoffensively, he watched Mrs. Semple.
Her manner, he thought, was soothing, attractive, delightful.  She
served tea and cake for them.  They went inside after a time to
avoid the mosquitoes.  She played the piano.  At ten o'clock he
left.

Thereafter, for a year or so, Cowperwood bought his shoes of Mr.
Semple.  Occasionally also he stopped in the Chestnut Street store
to exchange the time of the day.  Semple asked his opinion as to
the advisability of buying some shares in the Fifth and Sixth
Street line, which, having secured a franchise, was creating
great excitement.  Cowperwood gave him his best judgment.  It was
sure to be profitable.  He himself had purchased one hundred shares
at five dollars a share, and urged Semple to do so.  But he was
not interested in him personally.  He liked Mrs. Semple, though
he did not see her very often.

About a year later, Mr. Semple died.  It was an untimely death,
one of those fortuitous and in a way insignificant episodes which
are, nevertheless, dramatic in a dull way to those most concerned.
He was seized with a cold in the chest late in the fall--one of
those seizures ordinarily attributed to wet feet or to going out
on a damp day without an overcoat--and had insisted on going to
business when Mrs. Semple urged him to stay at home and recuperate.
He was in his way a very determined person, not obstreperously so,
but quietly and under the surface.  Business was a great urge.  He
saw himself soon to be worth about fifty thousand dollars.  Then
this cold--nine more days of pneumonia--and he was dead.  The shoe
store was closed for a few days; the house was full of sympathetic
friends and church people.  There was a funeral, with burial
service in the Callowhill Presbyterian Church, to which they
belonged, and then he was buried.  Mrs. Semple cried bitterly.
The shock of death affected her greatly and left her for a time in
a depressed state.  A brother of hers, David Wiggin, undertook for
the time being to run the shoe business for her.  There was no
will, but in the final adjustment, which included the sale of the
shoe business, there being no desire on anybody's part to contest
her right to all the property, she received over eighteen thousand
dollars.  She continued to reside in the Front Street house, and
was considered a charming and interesting widow.

Throughout this procedure young Cowperwood, only twenty years of
age, was quietly manifest.  He called during the illness.  He
attended the funeral.  He helped her brother, David Wiggin, dispose
of the shoe business.  He called once or twice after the funeral,
then stayed away for a considerable time.  In five months he
reappeared, and thereafter he was a caller at stated intervals--
periods of a week or ten days.

Again, it would be hard to say what he saw in Semple.  Her prettiness,
wax-like in its quality, fascinated him; her indifference aroused
perhaps his combative soul.  He could not have explained why, but
he wanted her in an urgent, passionate way.  He could not think of
her reasonably, and he did not talk of her much to any one.  His
family knew that he went to see her, but there had grown up in the
Cowperwood family a deep respect for the mental force of Frank.
He was genial, cheerful, gay at most times, without being talkative,
and he was decidedly successful.  Everybody knew he was making
money now.  His salary was fifty dollars a week, and he was certain
soon to get more.  Some lots of his in West Philadelphia, bought
three years before, had increased notably in value.  His street-car
holdings, augmented by still additional lots of fifty and one
hundred and one hundred and fifty shares in new lines incorporated,
were slowly rising, in spite of hard times, from the initiative
five dollars in each case to ten, fifteen, and twenty-five dollars
a share--all destined to go to par.  He was liked in the financial
district and he was sure that he had a successful future.  Because
of his analysis of the brokerage situation he had come to the
conclusion that he did not want to be a stock gambler.  Instead,
he was considering the matter of engaging in bill-brokering, a
business which he had observed to be very profitable and which
involved no risk as long as one had capital.  Through his work and
his father's connections he had met many people--merchants, bankers,
traders.  He could get their business, or a part of it, he knew.
People in Drexel & Co. and Clark & Co. were friendly to him.  Jay
Cooke, a rising banking personality, was a personal friend of his.

Meanwhile he called on Mrs. Semple, and the more he called the
better he liked her.  There was no exchange of brilliant ideas
between them; but he had a way of being comforting and social when
he wished.  He advised her about her business affairs in so
intelligent a way that even her relatives approved of it.  She
came to like him, because he was so considerate, quiet, reassuring,
and so ready to explain over and over until everything was quite
plain to her.  She could see that he was looking on her affairs
quite as if they were his own, trying to make them safe and secure.

"You're so very kind, Frank," she said to him, one night.  "I'm
awfully grateful.  I don't know what I would have done if it hadn't
been for you."

She looked at his handsome face, which was turned to hers, with
child-like simplicity.

"Not at all.  Not at all.  I want to do it.  I wouldn't have been
happy if I couldn't."

His eyes had a peculiar, subtle ray in them--not a gleam.  She
felt warm toward him, sympathetic, quite satisfied that she could
lean on him.

"Well, I am very grateful just the same.  You've been so good.
Come out Sunday again, if you want to, or any evening.  I'll be
home."

It was while he was calling on her in this way that his Uncle
Seneca died in Cuba and left him fifteen thousand dollars.  This
money made him worth nearly twenty-five thousand dollars in his
own right, and he knew exactly what to do with it.  A panic had
come since Mr. Semple had died, which had illustrated to him very
clearly what an uncertain thing the brokerage business was.  There
was really a severe business depression.  Money was so scarce that
it could fairly be said not to exist at all.  Capital, frightened
by uncertain trade and money conditions, everywhere, retired to
its hiding-places in banks, vaults, tea-kettles, and stockings.
The country seemed to be going to the dogs.  War with the South
or secession was vaguely looming up in the distance.  The temper
of the whole nation was nervous.  People dumped their holdings on
the market in order to get money.  Tighe discharged three of his
clerks.  He cut down his expenses in every possible way, and used
up all his private savings to protect his private holdings.  He
mortgaged his house, his land holdings--everything; and in many
instances young Cowperwood was his intermediary, carrying blocks
of shares to different banks to get what he could on them.

"See if your father's bank won't loan me fifteen thousand on these,"
he said to Frank, one day, producing a bundle of Philadelphia &
Wilmington shares.  Frank had heard his father speak of them in
times past as excellent.

"They ought to be good," the elder Cowperwood said, dubiously,
when shown the package of securities.  "At any other time they
would be.  But money is so tight.  We find it awfully hard these
days to meet our own obligations.  I'll talk to Mr. Kugel."  Mr.
Kugel was the president.

There was a long conversation--a long wait.  His father came back
to say it was doubtful whether they could make the loan.  Eight
per cent., then being secured for money, was a small rate of
interest, considering its need.  For ten per cent. Mr. Kugel might
make a call-loan.  Frank went back to his employer, whose commercial
choler rose at the report.

"For Heaven's sake, is there no money at all in the town?" he
demanded, contentiously.  "Why, the interest they want is ruinous!
I can't stand that.  Well, take 'em back and bring me the money.
Good God, this'll never do at all, at all!"

Frank went back.  "He'll pay ten per cent.," he said, quietly.

Tighe was credited with a deposit of fifteen thousand dollars,
with privilege to draw against it at once.  He made out a check
for the total fifteen thousand at once to the Girard National
Bank to cover a shrinkage there.  So it went.

During all these days young Cowperwood was following these financial
complications with interest.  He was not disturbed by the cause of
slavery, or the talk of secession, or the general progress or
decline of the country, except in so far as it affected his immediate
interests.  He longed to become a stable financier; but, now that
he saw the inside of the brokerage business, he was not so sure
that he wanted to stay in it.  Gambling in stocks, according to
conditions produced by this panic, seemed very hazardous.  A number
of brokers failed.  He saw them rush in to Tighe with anguished
faces and ask that certain trades be canceled.  Their very homes
were in danger, they said.  They would be wiped out, their wives
and children put out on the street.

This panic, incidentally, only made Frank more certain as to what
he really wanted to do--now that he had this free money, he would
go into business for himself.  Even Tighe's offer of a minor
partnership failed to tempt him.

"I think you have a nice business," he explained, in refusing,
"but I want to get in the note-brokerage business for myself.  I
don't trust this stock game.  I'd rather have a little business
of my own than all the floor work in this world."

"But you're pretty young, Frank," argued his employer.  "You have
lots of time to work for yourself."  In the end he parted friends
with both Tighe and Rivers.  "That's a smart young fellow,"
observed Tighe, ruefully.

"He'll make his mark," rejoined Rivers.  "He's the shrewdest boy
of his age I ever saw."





Chapter VIII




Cowperwood's world at this time was of roseate hue.  He was in love
and had money of his own to start his new business venture.  He
could take his street-car stocks, which were steadily increasing
in value, and raise seventy per cent. of their market value.  He
could put a mortgage on his lots and get money there, if necessary.
He had established financial relations with the Girard National
Bank--President Davison there having taken a fancy to him--and he
proposed to borrow from that institution some day.  All he wanted
was suitable investments--things in which he could realize surely,
quickly.  He saw fine prospective profits in the street-car lines,
which were rapidly developing into local ramifications.

He purchased a horse and buggy about this time--the most
attractive-looking animal and vehicle he could find--the combination
cost him five hundred dollars--and invited Mrs. Semple to drive
with him.  She refused at first, but later consented.  He had told
her of his success, his prospects, his windfall of fifteen thousand
dollars, his intention of going into the note-brokerage business.
She knew his father was likely to succeed to the position of
vice-president in the Third National Bank, and she liked the
Cowperwoods.  Now she began to realize that there was something
more than mere friendship here.  This erstwhile boy was a man, and
he was calling on her.  It was almost ridiculous in the face of
things--her seniority, her widowhood, her placid, retiring
disposition--but the sheer, quiet, determined force of this young
man made it plain that he was not to be balked by her sense of
convention.

Cowperwood did not delude himself with any noble theories of conduct
in regard to her.  She was beautiful, with a mental and physical
lure for him that was irresistible, and that was all he desired to
know.  No other woman was holding him like that.  It never occurred
to him that he could not or should not like other women at the same
time.  There was a great deal of palaver about the sanctity of the
home.  It rolled off his mental sphere like water off the feathers
of a duck.  He was not eager for her money, though he was well aware
of it.  He felt that he could use it to her advantage.  He wanted
her physically.  He felt a keen, primitive interest in the children
they would have.  He wanted to find out if he could make her love
him vigorously and could rout out the memory of her former life.
Strange ambition.  Strange perversion, one might almost say.

In spite of her fears and her uncertainty, Lillian Semple accepted
his attentions and interest because, equally in spite of herself,
she was drawn to him.  One night, when she was going to bed, she
stopped in front of her dressing table and looked at her face and
her bare neck and arms.  They were very pretty.  A subtle something
came over her as she surveyed her long, peculiarly shaded hair.
She thought of young Cowperwood, and then was chilled and shamed
by the vision of the late Mr. Semple and the force and quality of
public opinion.

"Why do you come to see me so often?" she asked him when he called
the following evening.

"Oh, don't you know?" he replied, looking at her in an interpretive
way.

"No."

"Sure you don't?"

"Well, I know you liked Mr. Semple, and I always thought you liked
me as his wife.  He's gone, though, now."

"And you're here," he replied.

"And I'm here?"

"Yes.  I like you.  I like to be with you.  Don't you like me that
way?"

"Why, I've never thought of it.  You're so much younger.  I'm five
years older than you are."

"In years," he said, "certainly.  That's nothing.  I'm fifteen
years older than you are in other ways.  I know more about life
in some ways than you can ever hope to learn--don't you think so?"
he added, softly, persuasively.

"Well, that's true.  But I know a lot of things you don't know."
She laughed softly, showing her pretty teeth.

It was evening.  They were on the side porch.  The river was before
them.

"Yes, but that's only because you're a woman.  A man can't hope to
get a woman's point of view exactly.  But I'm talking about practical
affairs of this world.  You're not as old that way as I am."

"Well, what of it?"

"Nothing.  You asked why I came to see you.  That's why.  Partly."

He relapsed into silence and stared at the water.

She looked at him.  His handsome body, slowly broadening, was nearly
full grown.  His face, because of its full, clear, big, inscrutable
eyes, had an expression which was almost babyish.  She could not
have guessed the depths it veiled.  His cheeks were pink, his hands
not large, but sinewy and strong.  Her pale, uncertain, lymphatic
body extracted a form of dynamic energy from him even at this range.

"I don't think you ought to come to see me so often.  People won't
think well of it."  She ventured to take a distant, matronly air--
the air she had originally held toward him.

"People," he said, "don't worry about people.  People think what
you want them to think.  I wish you wouldn't take that distant air
toward me."

"Why?"

"Because I like you."

"But you mustn't like me.  It's wrong.  I can't ever marry you.
You're too young.  I'm too old."

"Don't say that!" he said, imperiously.  "There's nothing to it.
I want you to marry me.  You know I do.  Now, when will it be?"

"Why, how silly! I never heard of such a thing!" she exclaimed.
"It will never be, Frank.  It can't be!"

"Why can't it?" he asked.

"Because--well, because I'm older.  People would think it strange.
I'm not long enough free."

"Oh, long enough nothing!" he exclaimed, irritably.  "That's the one
thing I have against you--you are so worried about what people think.
They don't make your life.  They certainly don't make mine.  Think of
yourself first.  You have your own life to make.  Are you going to
let what other people think stand in the way of what you want to do?"

"But I don't want to," she smiled.

He arose and came over to her, looking into her eyes.

"Well?" she asked, nervously, quizzically.

He merely looked at her.

"Well?" she queried, more flustered.

He stooped down to take her arms, but she got up.

"Now you must not come near me," she pleaded, determinedly.  "I'll
go in the house, and I'll not let you come any more.  It's terrible!
You're silly! You mustn't interest yourself in me."

She did show a good deal of determination, and he desisted.  But
for the time being only.  He called again and again.  Then one
night, when they had gone inside because of the mosquitoes, and
when she had insisted that he must stop coming to see her, that
his attentions were noticeable to others, and that she would be
disgraced, he caught her, under desperate protest, in his arms.

"Now, see here!" she exclaimed.  "I told you! It's silly! You
mustn't kiss me! How dare you! Oh! oh! oh!--"

She broke away and ran up the near-by stairway to her room.
Cowperwood followed her swiftly.  As she pushed the door to he
forced it open and recaptured her.  He lifted her bodily from her
feet and held her crosswise, lying in his arms.

"Oh, how could you!" she exclaimed.  "I will never speak to you
any more.  I will never let you come here any more if you don't
put me down this minute.  Put me down!"

"I'll put you down, sweet," he said.  "I'll take you down," at
the same time pulling her face to him and kissing her.  He was
very much aroused, excited.

While she was twisting and protesting, he carried her down the
stairs again into the living-room, and seated himself in the great
armchair, still holding her tight in his arms.

"Oh!" she sighed, falling limp on his shoulder when he refused to
let her go.  Then, because of the set determination of his face,
some intense pull in him, she smiled.  "How would I ever explain
if I did marry you?" she asked, weakly.  "Your father! Your mother!"

"You don't need to explain.  I'll do that.  And you needn't worry
about my family.  They won't care."

"But mine," she recoiled.

"Don't worry about yours.  I'm not marrying your family.  I'm
marrying you.  We have independent means."

She relapsed into additional protests; but he kissed her the more.
There was a deadly persuasion to his caresses.  Mr. Semple had
never displayed any such fire.  He aroused a force of feeling in
her which had not previously been there.  She was afraid of it and
ashamed.

"Will you marry me in a month?" he asked, cheerfully, when she paused.

"You know I won't!" she exclaimed, nervously.  "The idea! Why do
you ask?"

"What difference does it make? We're going to get married eventually."
He was thinking how attractive he could make her look in other
surroundings.  Neither she nor his family knew how to live.

"Well, not in a month.  Wait a little while.  I will marry you after
a while--after you see whether you want me."

He caught her tight. "I'll show you," he said.

"Please stop.  You hurt me."

"How about it? Two months?"

"Certainly not."

"Three?"

"Well, maybe."

"No maybe in that case.  We marry."

"But you're only a boy."

"Don't worry about me.  You'll find out how much of a boy I am."

He seemed of a sudden to open up a new world to her, and she
realized that she had never really lived before.  This man
represented something bigger and stronger than ever her husband
had dreamed of.  In his young way he was terrible, irresistible.

"Well, in three months then," she whispered, while he rocked her
cozily in his arms.





Chapter IX




Cowperwood started in the note brokerage business with a small
office at No. 64 South Third Street, where he very soon had the
pleasure of discovering that his former excellent business
connections remembered him.  He would go to one house, where he
suspected ready money might be desirable, and offer to negotiate
their notes or any paper they might issue bearing six per cent.
interest for a commission and then he would sell the paper for a
small commission to some one who would welcome a secure investment.
Sometimes his father, sometimes other people, helped him with
suggestions as to when and how.  Between the two ends he might
make four and five per cent. on the total transaction.  In the
first year he cleared six thousand dollars over and above all
expenses.  That wasn't much, but he was augmenting it in another
way which he believed would bring great profit in the future.

Before the first street-car line, which was a shambling affair,
had been laid on Front Street, the streets of Philadelphia had
been crowded with hundreds of springless omnibuses rattling over
rough, hard, cobblestones.  Now, thanks to the idea of John
Stephenson, in New York, the double rail track idea had come, and
besides the line on Fifth and Sixth Streets (the cars running out
one street and back on another) which had paid splendidly from the
start, there were many other lines proposed or under way.  The
city was as eager to see street-cars replace omnibuses as it was
to see railroads replace canals.  There was opposition, of course.
There always is in such cases.  The cry of probable monopoly was
raised.  Disgruntled and defeated omnibus owners and drivers groaned
aloud.

Cowperwood had implicit faith in the future of the street railway.
In support of this belief he risked all he could spare on new
issues of stock shares in new companies.  He wanted to be on the
inside wherever possible, always, though this was a little difficult
in the matter of the street-railways, he having been so young when
they started and not having yet arranged his financial connections
to make them count for much.  The Fifth and Sixth Street line,
which had been but recently started, was paying six hundred dollars
a day.  A project for a West Philadelphia line (Walnut and Chestnut)
was on foot, as were lines to occupy Second and Third Streets,
Race and Vine, Spruce and Pine, Green and Coates, Tenth and
Eleventh, and so forth.  They were engineered and backed by some
powerful capitalists who had influence with the State legislature
and could, in spite of great public protest, obtain franchises.
Charges of corruption were in the air.  It was argued that the
streets were valuable, and that the companies should pay a road tax
of a thousand dollars a mile.  Somehow, however, these splendid
grants were gotten through, and the public, hearing of the Fifth
and Sixth Street line profits, was eager to invest.  Cowperwood
was one of these, and when the Second and Third Street line was
engineered, he invested in that and in the Walnut and Chestnut
Street line also.  He began to have vague dreams of controlling a
line himself some day, but as yet he did not see exactly how it
was to be done, since his business was far from being a bonanza.

In the midst of this early work he married Mrs. Semple.  There was
no vast to-do about it, as he did not want any and his bride-to-be
was nervous, fearsome of public opinion.  His family did not
entirely approve.  She was too old, his mother and father thought,
and then Frank, with his prospects, could have done much better.
His sister Anna fancied that Mrs. Semple was designing, which was,
of course, not true.  His brothers, Joseph and Edward, were
interested, but not certain as to what they actually thought,
since Mrs. Semple was good-looking and had some money.

It was a warm October day when he and Lillian went to the altar,
in the First Presbyterian Church of Callowhill Street.  His bride,
Frank was satisfied, looked exquisite in a trailing gown of cream
lace--a creation that had cost months of labor.  His parents, Mrs.
Seneca Davis, the Wiggin family, brothers and sisters, and some
friends were present.  He was a little opposed to this idea, but
Lillian wanted it.  He stood up straight and correct in black
broadcloth for the wedding ceremony--because she wished it, but
later changed to a smart business suit for traveling.  He had
arranged his affairs for a two weeks' trip to New York and Boston.
They took an afternoon train for New York, which required five
hours to reach.  When they were finally alone in the Astor House,
New York, after hours of make-believe and public pretense of
indifference, he gathered her in his arms.

"Oh, it's delicious," he exclaimed, "to have you all to myself."

She met his eagerness with that smiling, tantalizing passivity
which he had so much admired but which this time was tinged strongly
with a communicated desire.  He thought he should never have enough
of her, her beautiful face, her lovely arms, her smooth, lymphatic
body.  They were like two children, billing and cooing, driving,
dining, seeing the sights.  He was curious to visit the financial
sections of both cities.  New York and Boston appealed to him as
commercially solid.  He wondered, as he observed the former, whether
he should ever leave Philadelphia.  He was going to be very happy
there now, he thought, with Lillian and possibly a brood of young
Cowperwoods.  He was going to work hard and make money.  With his
means and hers now at his command, he might become, very readily,
notably wealthy.





Chapter X




The home atmosphere which they established when they returned
from their honeymoon was a great improvement in taste over that
which had characterized the earlier life of Mrs. Cowperwood as
Mrs. Semple.  They had decided to occupy her house, on North Front
Street, for a while at least.  Cowperwood, aggressive in his
current artistic mood, had objected at once after they were engaged
to the spirit of the furniture and decorations, or lack of them,
and had suggested that he be allowed to have it brought more in
keeping with his idea of what was appropriate.  During the years
in which he had been growing into manhood he had come instinctively
into sound notions of what was artistic and refined.  He had seen
so many homes that were more distinguished and harmonious than his
own.  One could not walk or drive about Philadelphia without seeing
and being impressed with the general tendency toward a more
cultivated and selective social life.  Many excellent and expensive
houses were being erected.  The front lawn, with some attempt at
floral gardening, was achieving local popularity.  In the homes of
the Tighes, the Leighs, Arthur Rivers, and others, he had noticed
art objects of some distinction--bronzes, marbles, hangings,
pictures, clocks, rugs.

It seemed to him now that his comparatively commonplace house could
be made into something charming and for comparatively little money.
The dining-room for instance which, through two plain windows set
in a hat side wall back of the veranda, looked south over a stretch
of grass and several trees and bushes to a dividing fence where
the Semple property ended and a neighbor's began, could be made
so much more attractive.  That fence--sharp-pointed, gray palings--
could be torn away and a hedge put in its place.  The wall which
divided the dining-room from the parlor could be knocked through
and a hanging of some pleasing character put in its place.  A
bay-window could be built to replace the two present oblong
windows--a bay which would come down to the floor and open out on
the lawn via swiveled, diamond-shaped, lead-paned frames.  All this
shabby, nondescript furniture, collected from heaven knows where--
partly inherited from the Semples and the Wiggins and partly
bought--could be thrown out or sold and something better and more
harmonious introduced.  He knew a young man by the name of Ellsworth,
an architect newly graduated from a local school, with whom he had
struck up an interesting friendship--one of those inexplicable
inclinations of temperament.  Wilton Ellsworth was an artist in
spirit, quiet, meditative, refined.  From discussing the quality
of a certain building on Chestnut Street which was then being
erected, and which Ellsworth pronounced atrocious, they had fallen
to discussing art in general, or the lack of it, in America.  And
it occurred to him that Ellsworth was the man to carry out his
decorative views to a nicety.  When he suggested the young man to
Lillian, she placidly agreed with him and also with his own ideas
of how the house could be revised.

So while they were gone on their honeymoon Ellsworth began the
revision on an estimated cost of three thousand dollars, including
the furniture.  It was not completed for nearly three weeks after
their return; but when finished made a comparatively new house.
The dining-room bay hung low over the grass, as Frank wished, and
the windows were diamond-paned and leaded, swiveled on brass rods.
The parlor and dining-room were separated by sliding doors; but
the intention was to hang in this opening a silk hanging depicting
a wedding scene in Normandy.  Old English oak was used in the
dining-room, an American imitation of Chippendale and Sheraton for
the sitting-room and the bedrooms.  There were a few simple
water-colors hung here and there, some bronzes of Hosmer and Powers,
a marble venus by Potter, a now forgotten sculptor, and other
objects of art--nothing of any distinction.  Pleasing, appropriately
colored rugs covered the floor.  Mrs. Cowperwood was shocked by
the nudity of the Venus which conveyed an atmosphere of European
freedom not common to America; but she said nothing. It was all
harmonious and soothing, and she did not feel herself capable to
judge.  Frank knew about these things so much better than she did.
Then with a maid and a man of all work installed, a program of
entertaining was begun on a small scale.

Those who recall the early years of their married life can best
realize the subtle changes which this new condition brought to
Frank, for, like all who accept the hymeneal yoke, he was influenced
to a certain extent by the things with which he surrounded himself.
Primarily, from certain traits of his character, one would have
imagined him called to be a citizen of eminent respectability and
worth.  He appeared to be an ideal home man.  He delighted to return
to his wife in the evenings, leaving the crowded downtown section
where traffic clamored and men hurried.  Here he could feel that he
was well-stationed and physically happy in life.  The thought of
the dinner-table with candles upon it (his idea); the thought of
Lillian in a trailing gown of pale-blue or green silk--he liked her
in those colors; the thought of a large fireplace flaming with
solid lengths of cord-wood, and Lillian snuggling in his arms,
gripped his immature imagination.  As has been said before, he
cared nothing for books, but life, pictures, trees, physical
contact--these, in spite of his shrewd and already gripping
financial calculations, held him.  To live richly, joyously,
fully--his whole nature craved that.

And Mrs. Cowperwood, in spite of the difference in their years,
appeared to be a fit mate for him at this time.  She was once
awakened, and for the time being, clinging, responsive, dreamy.
His mood and hers was for a baby, and in a little while that
happy expectation was whispered to him by her.  She had half
fancied that her previous barrenness was due to herself, and was
rather surprised and delighted at the proof that it was not so.
It opened new possibilities--a seemingly glorious future of which
she was not afraid.  He liked it, the idea of self-duplication.
It was almost acquisitive, this thought.  For days and weeks and
months and years, at least the first four or five, he took a keen
satisfaction in coming home evenings, strolling about the yard,
driving with his wife, having friends in to dinner, talking over
with her in an explanatory way the things he intended to do.  She
did not understand his financial abstrusities, and he did not
trouble to make them clear.

But love, her pretty body, her lips, her quiet manner--the lure
of all these combined, and his two children, when they came--two
in four years--held him.  He would dandle Frank, Jr., who was the
first to arrive, on his knee, looking at his chubby feet, his
kindling eyes, his almost formless yet bud-like mouth, and wonder
at the process by which children came into the world.  There was
so much to think of in this connection--the spermatozoic beginning,
the strange period of gestation in women, the danger of disease
and delivery.  He had gone through a real period of strain when
Frank, Jr., was born, for Mrs. Cowperwood was frightened.  He
feared for the beauty of her body--troubled over the danger of
losing her; and he actually endured his first worry when he stood
outside the door the day the child came.  Not much--he was too
self-sufficient, too resourceful; and yet he worried, conjuring
up thoughts of death and the end of their present state.  Then
word came, after certain piercing, harrowing cries, that all was
well, and he was permitted to look at the new arrival.  The
experience broadened his conception of things, made him more solid
in his judgment of life.  That old conviction of tragedy underlying
the surface of things, like wood under its veneer, was emphasized.
Little Frank, and later Lillian, blue-eyed and golden-haired,
touched his imagination for a while.  There was a good deal to
this home idea, after all.  That was the way life was organized,
and properly so--its cornerstone was the home.

It would be impossible to indicate fully how subtle were the
material changes which these years involved--changes so gradual
that they were, like the lap of soft waters, unnoticeable.
Considerable--a great deal, considering how little he had to
begin with--wealth was added in the next five years.  He came, in
his financial world, to know fairly intimately, as commercial
relationships go, some of the subtlest characters of the steadily
enlarging financial world.  In his days at Tighe's and on the
exchange, many curious figures had been pointed out to him--State
and city officials of one grade and another who were "making
something out of politics," and some national figures who came
from Washington to Philadelphia at times to see Drexel & Co.,
Clark & Co., and even Tighe & Co.  These men, as he learned, had
tips or advance news of legislative or economic changes which were
sure to affect certain stocks or trade opportunities.  A young
clerk had once pulled his sleeve at Tighe's.

"See that man going in to see Tighe?"

"Yes."

"That's Murtagh, the city treasurer.  Say, he don't do anything
but play a fine game.  All that money to invest, and he don't have
to account for anything except the principal.  The interest goes
to him."

Cowperwood understood.  All these city and State officials
speculated.  They had a habit of depositing city and State funds
with certain bankers and brokers as authorized agents or designated
State depositories.  The banks paid no interest--save to the
officials personally.  They loaned it to certain brokers on the
officials' secret order, and the latter invested it in "sure winners."
The bankers got the free use of the money a part of the time, the
brokers another part: the officials made money, and the brokers
received a fat commission.  There was a political ring in
Philadelphia in which the mayor, certain members of the council,
the treasurer, the chief of police, the commissioner of public
works, and others shared.  It was a case generally of "You scratch
my back and I'll scratch yours."  Cowperwood thought it rather
shabby work at first, but many men were rapidly getting rich and no
one seemed to care.  The newspapers were always talking about
civic patriotism and pride but never a word about these things.
And the men who did them were powerful and respected.

There were many houses, a constantly widening circle, that found
him a very trustworthy agent in disposing of note issues or note
payment.  He seemed to know so quickly where to go to get the
money.  From the first he made it a principle to keep twenty
thousand dollars in cash on hand in order to be able to take up a
proposition instantly and without discussion.  So, often he was
able to say, "Why, certainly, I can do that," when otherwise, on
the face of things, he would not have been able to do so.  He was
asked if he would not handle certain stock transactions on 'change.
He had no seat, and he intended not to take any at first; but now
he changed his mind, and bought one, not only in Philadelphia, but
in New York also.  A certain Joseph Zimmerman, a dry-goods man for
whom he had handled various note issues, suggested that he
undertake operating in street-railway shares for him, and this was
the beginning of his return to the floor.

In the meanwhile his family life was changing--growing, one might
have said, finer and more secure.  Mrs. Cowperwood had, for
instance, been compelled from time to time to make a subtle
readjustment of her personal relationship with people, as he had
with his.  When Mr. Semple was alive she had been socially connected
with tradesmen principally--retailers and small wholesalers--a
very few.  Some of the women of her own church, the First
Presbyterian, were friendly with her.  There had been church teas
and sociables which she and Mr. Semple attended, and dull visits
to his relatives and hers.  The Cowperwoods, the Watermans, and a
few families of that caliber, had been the notable exceptions.
Now all this was changed.  Young Cowperwood did not care very much
for her relatives, and the Semples had been alienated by her second,
and to them outrageous, marriage.  His own family was closely
interested by ties of affection and mutual prosperity, but, better
than this, he was drawing to himself some really significant
personalities.  He brought home with him, socially--not to talk
business, for he disliked that idea--bankers, investors, customers
and prospective customers.  Out on the Schuylkill, the Wissahickon,
and elsewhere, were popular dining places where one could drive on
Sunday.  He and Mrs. Cowperwood frequently drove out to Mrs. Seneca
Davis's, to Judge Kitchen's, to the home of Andrew Sharpless, a
lawyer whom he knew, to the home of Harper Steger, his own lawyer,
and others.  Cowperwood had the gift of geniality.  None of these
men or women suspected the depth of his nature--he was thinking,
thinking, thinking, but enjoyed life as he went.

One of his earliest and most genuine leanings was toward paintings.
He admired nature, but somehow, without knowing why, he fancied
one could best grasp it through the personality of some interpreter,
just as we gain our ideas of law and politics through individuals.
Mrs. Cowperwood cared not a whit one way or another, but she
accompanied him to exhibitions, thinking all the while that Frank
was a little peculiar.  He tried, because he loved her, to interest
her in these things intelligently, but while she pretended slightly,
she could not really see or care, and it was very plain that she
could not.

The children took up a great deal of her time.  However, Cowperwood
was not troubled about this.  It struck him as delightful and
exceedingly worth while that she should be so devoted.  At the same
time, her lethargic manner, vague smile and her sometimes seeming
indifference, which sprang largely from a sense of absolute
security, attracted him also.  She was so different from him! She
took her second marriage quite as she had taken her first--a solemn
fact which contained no possibility of mental alteration.  As for
himself, however, he was bustling about in a world which, financially
at least, seemed all alteration--there were so many sudden and
almost unheard-of changes.  He began to look at her at times, with
a speculative eye--not very critically, for he liked her--but with
an attempt to weigh her personality.  He had known her five years
and more now.  What did he know about her? The vigor of youth--those
first years--had made up for so many things, but now that he had
her safely...

There came in this period the slow approach, and finally the
declaration, of war between the North and the South, attended
with so much excitement that almost all current minds were
notably colored by it.  It was terrific.  Then came meetings,
public and stirring, and riots; the incident of John Brown's body;
the arrival of Lincoln, the great commoner, on his way from
Springfield, Illinois, to Washington via Philadelphia, to take
the oath of office; the battle of Bull Run; the battle of Vicksburg;
the battle of Gettysburg, and so on.  Cowperwood was only
twenty-five at the time, a cool, determined youth, who thought the
slave agitation might be well founded in human rights--no doubt was
--but exceedingly dangerous to trade.  He hoped the North would win;
but it might go hard with him personally and other financiers.  He
did not care to fight.  That seemed silly for the individual man
to do.  Others might--there were many poor, thin-minded, half-baked
creatures who would put themselves up to be shot; but they were
only fit to be commanded or shot down.  As for him, his life was
sacred to himself and his family and his personal interests.  He
recalled seeing, one day, in one of the quiet side streets, as
the working-men were coming home from their work, a small enlisting
squad of soldiers in blue marching enthusiastically along, the
Union flag flying, the drummers drumming, the fifes blowing, the
idea being, of course, to so impress the hitherto indifferent or
wavering citizen, to exalt him to such a pitch, that he would lose
his sense of proportion, of self-interest, and, forgetting all--
wife, parents, home, and children--and seeing only the great need
of the country, fall in behind and enlist.  He saw one workingman
swinging his pail, and evidently not contemplating any such
denouement to his day's work, pause, listen as the squad approached,
hesitate as it drew close, and as it passed, with a peculiar look
of uncertainty or wonder in his eyes, fall in behind and march
solemnly away to the enlisting quarters.  What was it that had
caught this man, Frank asked himself.  How was he overcome so
easily? He had not intended to go.  His face was streaked with
the grease and dirt of his work--he looked like a foundry man or
machinist, say twenty-five years of age.  Frank watched the little
squad disappear at the end of the street round the corner under
the trees.

This current war-spirit was strange.  The people seemed to him
to want to hear nothing but the sound of the drum and fife, to
see nothing but troops, of which there were thousands now passing
through on their way to the front, carrying cold steel in the
shape of guns at their shoulders, to hear of war and the rumors
of war.  It was a thrilling sentiment, no doubt, great but
unprofitable.  It meant self-sacrifice, and he could not see that.
If he went he might be shot, and what would his noble emotion
amount to then? He would rather make money, regulate current
political, social and financial affairs.  The poor fool who fell
in behind the enlisting squad--no, not fool, he would not call
him that--the poor overwrought working-man--well, Heaven pity him!
Heaven pity all of them! They really did not know what they were
doing.

One day he saw Lincoln--a tall, shambling man, long, bony, gawky,
but tremendously impressive.  It was a raw, slushy morning of a
late February day, and the great war President was just through
with his solemn pronunciamento in regard to the bonds that might
have been strained but must not be broken.  As he issued from the
doorway of Independence Hall, that famous birthplace of liberty,
his face was set in a sad, meditative calm.  Cowperwood looked
at him fixedly as he issued from the doorway surrounded by chiefs
of staff, local dignitaries, detectives, and the curious,
sympathetic faces of the public.  As he studied the strangely
rough-hewn countenance a sense of the great worth and dignity of
the man came over him.

"A real man, that," he thought; "a wonderful temperament."  His
every gesture came upon him with great force.  He watched him enter
his carriage, thinking "So that is the railsplitter, the country
lawyer.  Well, fate has picked a great man for this crisis."

For days the face of Lincoln haunted him, and very often during
the war his mind reverted to that singular figure.  It seemed to
him unquestionable that fortuitously he had been permitted to
look upon one of the world's really great men.  War and statesmanship
were not for him; but he knew how important those things were--at
times.





Chapter XI




It was while the war was on, and after it was perfectly plain
that it was not to be of a few days' duration, that Cowperwood's
first great financial opportunity came to him.  There was a
strong demand for money at the time on the part of the nation,
the State, and the city.  In July, 1861, Congress had authorized
a loan of fifty million dollars, to be secured by twenty-year
bonds with interest not to exceed seven per cent., and the State
authorized a loan of three millions on much the same security,
the first being handled by financiers of Boston, New York, and
Philadelphia, the second by Philadelphia financiers alone.
Cowperwood had no hand in this.  He was not big enough.  He read
in the papers of gatherings of men whom he knew personally or by
reputation, "to consider the best way to aid the nation or the
State"; but he was not included.  And yet his soul yearned to be
of them.  He noticed how often a rich man's word sufficed--no
money, no certificates, no collateral, no anything--just his word.
If Drexel & Co., or Jay Cooke & Co., or Gould & Fiske were rumored
to be behind anything, how secure it was! Jay Cooke, a young man
in Philadelphia, had made a great strike taking this State loan
in company with Drexel & Co., and selling it at par.  The general
opinion was that it ought to be and could only be sold at ninety.
Cooke did not believe this.  He believed that State pride and
State patriotism would warrant offering the loan to small banks
and private citizens, and that they would subscribe it fully and
more.  Events justified Cooke magnificently, and his public
reputation was assured.  Cowperwood wished he could make some
such strike; but he was too practical to worry over anything save
the facts and conditions that were before him.

His chance came about six months later, when it was found that the
State would have to have much more money.  Its quota of troops
would have to be equipped and paid.  There were measures of defense
to be taken, the treasury to be replenished.  A call for a loan
of twenty-three million dollars was finally authorized by the
legislature and issued.  There was great talk in the street as to
who was to handle it--Drexel & Co. and Jay Cooke & Co., of course.

Cowperwood pondered over this.  If he could handle a fraction of
this great loan now--he could not possibly handle the whole of
it, for he had not the necessary connections--he could add
considerably to his reputation as a broker while making a tidy
sum.  How much could he handle? That was the question.  Who would
take portions of it? His father's bank? Probably.  Waterman & Co.?
A little.  Judge Kitchen? A small fraction.  The Mills-David
Company? Yes.  He thought of different individuals and concerns
who, for one reason and another--personal friendship, good-nature,
gratitude for past favors, and so on--would take a percentage of
the seven-percent. bonds through him.  He totaled up his
possibilities, and discovered that in all likelihood, with a
little preliminary missionary work, he could dispose of one million
dollars if personal influence, through local political figures,
could bring this much of the loan his way.

One man in particular had grown strong in his estimation as having
some subtle political connection not visible on the surface, and
this was Edward Malia Butler.  Butler was a contractor, undertaking
the construction of sewers, water-mains, foundations for buildings,
street-paving, and the like.  In the early days, long before
Cowperwood had known him, he had been a garbage-contractor on his
own account.  The city at that time had no extended street-cleaning
service, particularly in its outlying sections and some of the
older, poorer regions.  Edward Butler, then a poor young Irishman,
had begun by collecting and hauling away the garbage free of
charge, and feeding it to his pigs and cattle.  Later he discovered
that some people were willing to pay a small charge for this
service.  Then a local political character, a councilman friend of
his--they were both Catholics--saw a new point in the whole thing.
Butler could be made official garbage-collector.  The council could
vote an annual appropriation for this service.  Butler could employ
more wagons than he did now--dozens of them, scores.  Not only
that, but no other garbage-collector would be allowed.  There were
others, but the official contract awarded him would also,
officially, be the end of the life of any and every disturbing
rival.  A certain amount of the profitable proceeds would have to be
set aside to assuage the feelings of those who were not contractors.
Funds would have to be loaned at election time to certain individuals
and organizations--but no matter.  The amount would be small.  So
Butler and Patrick Gavin Comiskey, the councilman (the latter
silently) entered into business relations.  Butler gave up driving
a wagon himself.  He hired a young man, a smart Irish boy of his
neighborhood, Jimmy Sheehan, to be his assistant, superintendent,
stableman, bookkeeper, and what not.  Since he soon began to make
between four and five thousand a year, where before he made two
thousand, he moved into a brick house in an outlying section of
the south side, and sent his children to school.  Mrs. Butler gave
up making soap and feeding pigs.  And since then times had been
exceedingly good with Edward Butler.

He could neither read nor write at first; but now he knew how, of
course.  He had learned from association with Mr. Comiskey that
there were other forms of contracting--sewers, water-mains,
gas-mains, street-paving, and the like.  Who better than Edward
Butler to do it? He knew the councilmen, many of them.  Het met
them in the back rooms of saloons, on Sundays and Saturdays at
political picnics, at election councils and conferences, for as a
beneficiary of the city's largess he was expected to contribute
not only money, but advice.  Curiously he had developed a strange
political wisdom.  He knew a successful man or a coming man when
he saw one.  So many of his bookkeepers, superintendents,
time-keepers had graduated into councilmen and state legislators.
His nominees--suggested to political conferences--were so often
known to make good.  First he came to have influence in his
councilman's ward, then in his legislative district, then in the
city councils of his party--Whig, of course--and then he was
supposed to have an organization.

Mysterious forces worked for him in council.  He was awarded
significant contracts, and he always bid.  The garbage business
was now a thing of the past.  His eldest boy, Owen, was a member
of the State legislature and a partner in his business affairs.
His second son, Callum, was a clerk in the city water department
and an assistant to his father also.  Aileen, his eldest daughter,
fifteen years of age, was still in St. Agatha's, a convent school
in Germantown.  Norah, his second daughter and youngest child,
thirteen years old, was in attendance at a local private school
conducted by a Catholic sisterhood.  The Butler family had moved
away from South Philadelphia into Girard Avenue, near the twelve
hundreds, where a new and rather interesting social life was
beginning.  They were not of it, but Edward Butler, contractor,
now fifty-five years of age, worth, say, five hundred thousand
dollars, had many political and financial friends.  No longer a
"rough neck," but a solid, reddish-faced man, slightly tanned,
with broad shoulders and a solid chest, gray eyes, gray hair, a
typically Irish face made wise and calm and undecipherable by
much experience.  His big hands and feet indicated a day when he
had not worn the best English cloth suits and tanned leather, but
his presence was not in any way offensive--rather the other way
about.  Though still possessed of a brogue, he was soft-spoken,
winning, and persuasive.

He had been one of the first to become interested in the development
of the street-car system and had come to the conclusion, as had
Cowperwood and many others, that it was going to be a great thing.
The money returns on the stocks or shares he had been induced to
buy had been ample evidence of that, He had dealt through one
broker and another, having failed to get in on the original
corporate organizations.  He wanted to pick up such stock as he
could in one organization and another, for he believed they all
had a future, and most of all he wanted to get control of a line
or two.  In connection with this idea he was looking for some
reliable young man, honest and capable, who would work under his
direction and do what he said.  Then he learned of Cowperwood,
and one day sent for him and asked him to call at his house.

Cowperwood responded quickly, for he knew of Butler, his rise, his
connections, his force.  He called at the house as directed, one
cold, crisp February morning.  He remembered the appearance of the
street afterward--broad, brick-paved sidewalks, macadamized
roadway, powdered over with a light snow and set with young,
leafless, scrubby trees and lamp-posts.  Butler's house was not
new--he had bought and repaired it--but it was not an unsatisfactory
specimen of the architecture of the time.  It was fifty feet wide,
four stories tall, of graystone and with four wide, white stone
steps leading up to the door.  The window arches, framed in white,
had U-shaped keystones.  There were curtains of lace and a glimpse
of red plush through the windows, which gleamed warm against the
cold and snow outside.  A trim Irish maid came to the door and he
gave her his card and was invited into the house.

"Is Mr. Butler home?"

"I'm not sure, sir.  I'll find out. He may have gone out."

In a little while he was asked to come upstairs, where he found
Butler in a somewhat commercial-looking room.  It had a desk, an
office chair, some leather furnishings, and a bookcase, but no
completeness or symmetry as either an office or a living room.
There were several pictures on the wall--an impossible oil painting,
for one thing, dark and gloomy; a canal and barge scene in pink
and nile green for another; some daguerreotypes of relatives and
friends which were not half bad.  Cowperwood noticed one of two
girls, one with reddish-gold hair, another with what appeared to be
silky brown.  The beautiful silver effect of the daguerreotype
had been tinted.  They were pretty girls, healthy, smiling, Celtic,
their heads close together, their eyes looking straight out at you.
He admired them casually, and fancied they must be Butler's daughters.

"Mr. Cowperwood?" inquired Butler, uttering the name fully with a
peculiar accent on the vowels.  (He was a slow-moving man, solemn
and deliberate.)  Cowperwood noticed that his body was hale and
strong like seasoned hickory, tanned by wind and rain.  The flesh
of his cheeks was pulled taut and there was nothing soft or flabby
about him.

"I'm that man."

"I have a little matter of stocks to talk over with you" ("matter"
almost sounded like "mather"), "and I thought you'd better come
here rather than that I should come down to your office.  We can
be more private-like, and, besides, I'm not as young as I used to
be."

He allowed a semi-twinkle to rest in his eye as he looked his
visitor over.

Cowperwood smiled.

"Well, I hope I can be of service to you," he said, genially.

"I happen to be interested just at present in pickin' up certain
street-railway stocks on 'change.  I'll tell you about them
later.  Won't you have somethin' to drink? It's a cold morning."

"No, thanks; I never drink."

"Never? That's a hard word when it comes to whisky.  Well, no
matter.  It's a good rule.  My boys don't touch anything, and I'm
glad of it.  As I say, I'm interested in pickin' up a few stocks
on 'change; but, to tell you the truth, I'm more interested in
findin' some clever young felly like yourself through whom I can
work.  One thing leads to another, you know, in this world."  And
he looked at his visitor non-committally, and yet with a genial
show of interest.

"Quite so," replied Cowperwood, with a friendly gleam in return.

"Well," Butler meditated, half to himself, half to Cowperwood,
"there are a number of things that a bright young man could do
for me in the street if he were so minded.  I have two bright
boys of my own, but I don't want them to become stock-gamblers,
and I don't know that they would or could if I wanted them to.
But this isn't a matter of stock-gambling.  I'm pretty busy as
it is, and, as I said awhile ago, I'm getting along.  I'm not
as light on my toes as I once was.  But if I had the right sort
of a young man--I've been looking into your record, by the way,
never fear--he might handle a number of little things--investments
and loans--which might bring us each a little somethin'.  Sometimes
the young men around town ask advice of me in one way and another--
they have a little somethin' to invest, and so--"

He paused and looked tantalizingly out of the window, knowing full
well Cowperwood was greatly interested, and that this talk of
political influence and connections could only whet his appetite.
Butler wanted him to see clearly that fidelity was the point in
this case--fidelity, tact, subtlety, and concealment.

"Well, if you have been looking into my record," observed Cowperwood,
with his own elusive smile, leaving the thought suspended.

Butler felt the force of the temperament and the argument.  He
liked the young man's poise and balance.  A number of people had
spoken of Cowperwood to him.  (It was now Cowperwood & Co.  The
company was fiction purely.)  He asked him something about the
street; how the market was running; what he knew about
street-railways.  Finally he outlined his plan of buying all he
could of the stock of two given lines--the Ninth and Tenth and
the Fifteenth and Sixteenth--without attracting any attention,
if possible.  It was to be done slowly, part on 'change, part
from individual holders.  He did not tell him that there was a
certain amount of legislative pressure he hoped to bring to bear
to get him franchises for extensions in the regions beyond where
the lines now ended, in order that when the time came for them to
extend their facilities they would have to see him or his sons,
who might be large minority stockholders in these very concerns.
It was a far-sighted plan, and meant that the lines would eventually
drop into his or his sons' basket.

"I'll be delighted to work with you, Mr. Butler, in any way that
you may suggest," observed Cowperwood.  "I can't say that I have
so much of a business as yet--merely prospects.  But my connections
are good.  I am now a member of the New York and Philadelphia
exchanges.  Those who have dealt with me seem to like the results
I get."

"I know a little something about your work already," reiterated
Butler, wisely.

"Very well, then; whenever you have a commission you can call at
my office, or write, or I will call here.  I will give you my secret
operating code, so that anything you say will be strictly confidential."

"Well, we'll not say anything more now.  In a few days I'll have
somethin' for you.  When I do, you can draw on my bank for what you
need, up to a certain amount."  He got up and looked out into the
street, and Cowperwood also arose.

"It's a fine day now, isn't it?"

"It surely is."

"Well, we'll get to know each other better, I'm sure."

He held out his hand.

"I hope so."

Cowperwood went out, Butler accompanying him to the door.  As he
did so a young girl bounded in from the street, red-cheeked,
blue-eyed, wearing a scarlet cape with the peaked hood thrown over
her red-gold hair.

"Oh, daddy, I almost knocked you down."

She gave her father, and incidentally Cowperwood, a gleaming,
radiant, inclusive smile.  Her teeth were bright and small, and
her lips bud-red.

"You're home early.  I thought you were going to stay all day?"

"I was, but I changed my mind."

She passed on in, swinging her arms.

"Yes, well--" Butler continued, when she had gone.  "Then well
leave it for a day or two.  Good day."

"Good day."

Cowperwood, warm with this enhancing of his financial prospects,
went down the steps; but incidentally he spared a passing thought
for the gay spirit of youth that had manifested itself in this
red-cheeked maiden.  What a bright, healthy, bounding girl! Her
voice had the subtle, vigorous ring of fifteen or sixteen.  She
was all vitality.  What a fine catch for some young fellow some
day, and her father would make him rich, no doubt, or help to.





Chapter XII




It was to Edward Malia Butler that Cowperwood turned now, some
nineteen months later when he was thinking of the influence that
might bring him an award of a portion of the State issue of bonds.
Butler could probably be interested to take some of them himself,
or could help him place some.  He had come to like Cowperwood very
much and was now being carried on the latter's books as a
prospective purchaser of large blocks of stocks.  And Cowperwood
liked this great solid Irishman.  He liked his history.  He had
met Mrs. Butler, a rather fat and phlegmatic Irish woman with a
world of hard sense who cared nothing at all for show and who still
liked to go into the kitchen and superintend the cooking.  He had
met Owen and Callum Butler, the boys, and Aileen and Norah, the
girls.  Aileen was the one who had bounded up the steps the first
day he had called at the Butler house several seasons before.

There was a cozy grate-fire burning in Butler's improvised
private office when Cowperwood called.  Spring was coming on, but
the evenings were cool.  The older man invited Cowperwood to make
himself comfortable in one of the large leather chairs before the
fire and then proceeded to listen to his recital of what he hoped
to accomplish.

"Well, now, that isn't so easy," he commented at the end.  "You
ought to know more about that than I do.  I'm not a financier, as
you well know."  And he grinned apologetically.

"It's a matter of influence," went on Cowperwood.  "And favoritism.
That I know.  Drexel & Company and Cooke & Company have connections
at Harrisburg.  They have men of their own looking after their
interests.  The attorney-general and the State treasurer are hand
in glove with them.  Even if I put in a bid, and can demonstrate
that I can handle the loan, it won't help me to get it.  Other
people have done that.  I have to have friends--influence.  You
know how it is."

"Them things," Butler said, "is easy enough if you know the right
parties to approach.  Now there's Jimmy Oliver--he ought to know
something about that."  Jimmy Oliver was the whilom district
attorney serving at this time, and incidentally free adviser to Mr.
Butler in many ways.  He was also, accidentally, a warm personal
friend of the State treasurer.

"How much of the loan do you want?"

"Five million."

"Five million!" Butler sat up.  "Man, what are you talking about?
That's a good deal of money.  Where are you going to sell all that?"

"I want to bid for five million," assuaged Cowperwood, softly.  "I
only want one million but I want the prestige of putting in a bona
fide bid for five million.  It will do me good on the street."

Butler sank back somewhat relieved.

"Five million! Prestige! You want one million.  Well, now, that's
different.  That's not such a bad idea.  We ought to be able to
get that."

He rubbed his chin some more and stared into the fire.

And Cowperwood felt confident when he left the house that evening
that Butler would not fail him but would set the wheels working.
Therefore, he was not surprised, and knew exactly what it meant,
when a few days later he was introduced to City Treasurer Julian
Bode, who promised to introduce him to State Treasurer Van Nostrand
and to see that his claims to consideration were put before the
people.  "Of course, you know," he said to Cowperwood, in the
presence of Butler, for it was at the latter's home that the
conference took place, "this banking crowd is very powerful.  You
know who they are.  They don't want any interference in this bond
issue business.  I was talking to Terrence Relihan, who represents
them up there"--meaning Harrisburg, the State capital--"and he
says they won't stand for it at all.  You may have trouble right
here in Philadelphia after you get it--they're pretty powerful,
you know.  Are you sure just where you can place it?"

"Yes, I'm sure," replied Cowperwood.

"Well, the best thing in my judgment is not to say anything at
all.  Just put in your bid.  Van Nostrand, with the governor's
approval, will make the award.  We can fix the governor, I think.
After you get it they may talk to you personally, but that's your
business."

Cowperwood smiled his inscrutable smile.  There were so many ins
and outs to this financial life.  It was an endless network of
underground holes, along which all sorts of influences were moving.
A little wit, a little nimbleness, a little luck-time and
opportunity--these sometimes availed.  Here he was, through his
ambition to get on, and nothing else, coming into contact with the
State treasurer and the governor.  They were going to consider his
case personally, because he demanded that it be considered--nothing
more.  Others more influential than himself had quite as much right
to a share, but they didn't take it.  Nerve, ideas, aggressiveness,
how these counted when one had luck!

He went away thinking how surprised Drexel & Co. and Cooke & Co.
would be to see him appearing in the field as a competitor.  In
his home, in a little room on the second floor next his bedroom,
which he had fixed up as an office with a desk, a safe, and a
leather chair, he consulted his resources.  There were so many
things to think of.  He went over again the list of people whom
he had seen and whom he could count on to subscribe, and in so
far as that was concerned--the award of one million dollars--he
was safe.  He figured to make two per cent. on the total
transaction, or twenty thousand dollars.  If he did he was going
to buy a house out on Girard Avenue beyond the Butlers', or, better
yet, buy a piece of ground and erect one; mortgaging house and
property so to do.  His father was prospering nicely.  He might
want to build a house next to him, and they could live side by
side.  His own business, aside from this deal, would yield him ten
thousand dollars this year.  His street-car investments, aggregating
fifty thousand, were paying six per cent.  His wife's property,
represented by this house, some government bonds, and some real
estate in West Philadelphia amounted to forty thousand more.
Between them they were rich; but he expected to be much richer.
All he needed now was to keep cool.  If he succeeded in this
bond-issue matter, he could do it again and on a larger scale.
There would be more issues.  He turned out the light after a while
and went into his wife's boudoir, where she was sleeping.  The
nurse and the children were in a room beyond.

"Well, Lillian," he observed, when she awoke and turned over toward
him, "I think I have that bond matter that I was telling you about
arranged at last.  I think I'll get a million of it, anyhow.
That'll mean twenty thousand.  If I do we'll build out on Girard
Avenue.  That's going to be the street.  The college is making that
neighborhood."

"That'll be fine, won't it, Frank!" she observed, and rubbed his
arm as he sat on the side of the bed.

Her remark was vaguely speculative.

"We'll have to show the Butlers some attention from now on.  He's
been very nice to me and he's going to be useful--I can see that.
He asked me to bring you over some time.  We must go.  Be nice to
his wife.  He can do a lot for me if he wants to.  He has two
daughters, too.  We'll have to have them over here."

"I'll have them to dinner sometime," she agreed cheerfully and
helpfully, "and I'll stop and take Mrs. Butler driving if she'll
go, or she can take me."

She had already learned that the Butlers were rather showy--the
younger generation--that they were sensitive as to their lineage,
and that money in their estimation was supposed to make up for
any deficiency in any other respect.  "Butler himself is a very
presentable man," Cowperwood had once remarked to her, "but Mrs.
Butler--well, she's all right, but she's a little commonplace.
She's a fine woman, though, I think, good-natured and good-hearted."
He cautioned her not to overlook Aileen and Norah, because the
Butlers, mother and father, were very proud of them.

Mrs. Cowperwood at this time was thirty-two years old; Cowperwood
twenty-seven.  The birth and care of two children had made some
difference in her looks.  She was no longer as softly pleasing,
more angular.  Her face was hollow-cheeked, like so many of
Rossetti's and Burne-Jones's women.  Her health was really not
as good as it had been--the care of two children and a late
undiagnosed tendency toward gastritis having reduced her.  In
short she was a little run down nervously and suffered from fits
of depression.  Cowperwood had noticed this.  He tried to be
gentle and considerate, but he was too much of a utilitarian and
practical-minded observer not to realize that he was likely to
have a sickly wife on his hands later.  Sympathy and affection
were great things, but desire and charm must endure or one was
compelled to be sadly conscious of their loss.  So often now he
saw young girls who were quite in his mood, and who were exceedingly
robust and joyous.  It was fine, advisable, practical, to adhere
to the virtues as laid down in the current social lexicon, but if
you had a sickly wife--  And anyhow, was a man entitled to only
one wife? Must he never look at another woman? Supposing he found
some one? He pondered those things between hours of labor, and
concluded that it did not make so much difference.  If a man could,
and not be exposed, it was all right.  He had to be careful,
though.  Tonight, as he sat on the side of his wife's bed, he was
thinking somewhat of this, for he had seen Aileen Butler again,
playing and singing at her piano as he passed the parlor door.
She was like a bright bird radiating health and enthusiasm--a
reminder of youth in general.

"It's a strange world," he thought; but his thoughts were his own,
and he didn't propose to tell any one about them.

The bond issue, when it came, was a curious compromise; for,
although it netted him his twenty thousand dollars and more and
served to introduce him to the financial notice of Philadelphia
and the State of Pennsylvania, it did not permit him to manipulate
the subscriptions as he had planned.  The State treasurer was seen
by him at the office of a local lawyer of great repute, where he
worked when in the city.  He was gracious to Cowperwood, because
he had to be.  He explained to him just how things were regulated
at Harrisburg.  The big financiers were looked to for campaign
funds.  They were represented by henchmen in the State assembly
and senate.  The governor and the treasurer were foot-free; but
there were other influences--prestige, friendship, social power,
political ambitions, etc.  The big men might constitute a close
corporation, which in itself was unfair; but, after all, they were
the legitimate sponsors for big money loans of this kind.  The State
had to keep on good terms with them, especially in times like these.
Seeing that Mr. Cowperwood was so well able to dispose of the
million he expected to get, it would be perfectly all right to award
it to him; but Van Nostrand had a counter-proposition to make.
Would Cowperwood, if the financial crowd now handling the matter so
desired, turn over his award to them for a consideration--a sum
equal to what he expected to make--in the event the award was made
to him? Certain financiers desired this.  It was dangerous to oppose
them.  They were perfectly willing he should put in a bid for five
million and get the prestige of that; to have him awarded one
million and get the prestige of that was well enough also, but
they desired to handle the twenty-three million dollars in an
unbroken lot.  It looked better.  He need not be advertised as
having withdrawn.  They would be content to have him achieve the
glory of having done what he started out to do.  Just the same the
example was bad.  Others might wish to imitate him.  If it were known
in the street privately that he had been coerced, for a consideration,
into giving up, others would be deterred from imitating him in the
future.  Besides, if he refused, they could cause him trouble.  His
loans might be called.  Various banks might not be so friendly in
the future.  His constituents might be warned against him in one
way or another.

Cowperwood saw the point.  He acquiesced.  It was something to have
brought so many high and mighties to their knees.  So they knew of
him! They were quite well aware of him! Well and good.  He would
take the award and twenty thousand or thereabouts and withdraw.
The State treasurer was delighted.  It solved a ticklish proposition
for him.

"I'm glad to have seen you," he said.  "I'm glad we've met.  I'll
drop in and talk with you some time when I'm down this way.  We'll
have lunch together."

The State treasurer, for some odd reason, felt that Mr. Cowperwood
was a man who could make him some money.  His eye was so keen;
his expression was so alert, and yet so subtle.  He told the
governor and some other of his associates about him.

So the award was finally made; Cowperwood, after some private
negotiations in which he met the officers of Drexel & Co., was
paid his twenty thousand dollars and turned his share of the
award over to them.  New faces showed up in his office now from
time to time--among them that of Van Nostrand and one Terrence
Relihan, a representative of some other political forces at
Harrisburg.  He was introduced to the governor one day at lunch.
His name was mentioned in the papers, and his prestige grew rapidly.

Immediately he began working on plans with young Ellsworth for his
new house.  He was going to build something exceptional this time,
he told Lillian.  They were going to have to do some entertaining--
entertaining on a larger scale than ever.  North Front Street was
becoming too tame.  He put the house up for sale, consulted with
his father and found that he also was willing to move.  The son's
prosperity had redounded to the credit of the father.  The
directors of the bank were becoming much more friendly to the old
man.  Next year President Kugel was going to retire.  Because of
his son's noted coup, as well as his long service, he was going to
be made president.  Frank was a large borrower from his father's
bank.  By the same token he was a large depositor.  His connection
with Edward Butler was significant.  He sent his father's bank
certain accounts which it otherwise could not have secured.  The
city treasurer became interested in it, and the State treasurer.
Cowperwood, Sr., stood to earn twenty thousand a year as president,
and he owed much of it to his son.  The two families were now on
the best of terms.  Anna, now twenty-one, and Edward and Joseph
frequently spent the night at Frank's house.  Lillian called almost
daily at his mother's.  There was much interchange of family gossip,
and it was thought well to build side by side.  So Cowperwood, Sr.,
bought fifty feet of ground next to his son's thirty-five, and
together they commenced the erection of two charming, commodious
homes, which were to be connected by a covered passageway, or
pergola, which could be inclosed with glass in winter.

The most popular local stone, a green granite was chosen; but
Mr. Ellsworth promised to present it in such a way that it would
be especially pleasing.  Cowperwood, Sr., decided that he could
afford to spent seventy-five thousand dollars--he was now worth
two hundred and fifty thousand; and Frank decided that he could
risk fifty, seeing that he could raise money on a mortgage.  He
planned at the same time to remove his office farther south on
Third Street and occupy a building of his own.  He knew where an
option was to be had on a twenty-five-foot building, which, though
old, could be given a new brownstone front and made very significant.
He saw in his mind's eye a handsome building, fitted with an immense
plate-glass window; inside his hardwood fixtures visible; and over
the door, or to one side of it, set in bronze letters, Cowperwood
& Co.  Vaguely but surely he began to see looming before him, like
a fleecy tinted cloud on the horizon, his future fortune.  He was
to be rich, very, very rich.





Chapter XIII




During all the time that Cowperwood had been building himself up
thus steadily the great war of the rebellion had been fought
almost to its close.  It was now October, 1864.  The capture of
Mobile and the Battle of the Wilderness were fresh memories.
Grant was now before Petersburg, and the great general of the
South, Lee, was making that last brilliant and hopeless display
of his ability as a strategist and a soldier.  There had been
times--as, for instance, during the long, dreary period in which
the country was waiting for Vicksburg to fall, for the Army of
the Potomac to prove victorious, when Pennsylvania was invaded
by Lee--when stocks fell and commercial conditions were very bad
generally.  In times like these Cowperwood's own manipulative
ability was taxed to the utmost, and he had to watch every hour
to see that his fortune was not destroyed by some unexpected and
destructive piece of news.

His personal attitude toward the war, however, and aside from
his patriotic feeling that the Union ought to be maintained, was
that it was destructive and wasteful.  He was by no means so
wanting in patriotic emotion and sentiment but that he could
feel that the Union, as it had now come to be, spreading its great
length from the Atlantic to the Pacific and from the snows of
Canada to the Gulf, was worth while.  Since his birth in 1837 he
had seen the nation reach that physical growth--barring Alaska--
which it now possesses.  Not so much earlier than his youth Florida
had been added to the Union by purchase from Spain; Mexico, after
the unjust war of 1848, had ceded Texas and the territory to the
West.  The boundary disputes between England and the United States
in the far Northwest had been finally adjusted.  To a man with
great social and financial imagination, these facts could not help
but be significant; and if they did nothing more, they gave him
a sense of the boundless commercial possibilities which existed
potentially in so vast a realm.  His was not the order of speculative
financial enthusiasm which, in the type known as the "promoter,"
sees endless possibilities for gain in every unexplored rivulet
and prairie reach; but the very vastness of the country suggested
possibilities which he hoped might remain undisturbed.  A territory
covering the length of a whole zone and between two seas, seemed
to him to possess potentialities which it could not retain if the
States of the South were lost.

At the same time, the freedom of the negro was not a significant
point with him.  He had observed that race from his boyhood with
considerable interest, and had been struck with virtues and
defects which seemed inherent and which plainly, to him, conditioned
their experiences.

He was not at all sure, for instance, that the negroes could be
made into anything much more significant than they were.  At any
rate, it was a long uphill struggle for them, of which many future
generations would not witness the conclusion.  He had no particular
quarrel with the theory that they should be free; he saw no
particular reason why the South should not protest vigorously
against the destruction of their property and their system.  It
was too bad that the negroes as slaves should be abused in some
instances.  He felt sure that that ought to be adjusted in some
way; but beyond that he could not see that there was any great
ethical basis for the contentions of their sponsors.  The vast
majority of men and women, as he could see, were not essentially
above slavery, even when they had all the guarantees of a
constitution formulated to prevent it.  There was mental slavery,
the slavery of the weak mind and the weak body.  He followed the
contentions of such men as Sumner, Garrison, Phillips, and Beecher,
with considerable interest; but at no time could he see that the
problem was a vital one for him.  He did not care to be a soldier
or an officer of soldiers; he had no gift for polemics; his mind
was not of the disputatious order--not even in the realm of finance.
He was concerned only to see what was of vast advantage to him,
and to devote all his attention to that.  This fratricidal war in
the nation could not help him.  It really delayed, he thought,
the true commercial and financial adjustment of the country, and
he hoped that it would soon end.  He was not of those who complained
bitterly of the excessive war taxes, though he knew them to be
trying to many.  Some of the stories of death and disaster moved
him greatly; but, alas, they were among the unaccountable fortunes
of life, and could not be remedied by him.  So he had gone his way
day by day, watching the coming in and the departing of troops,
seeing the bands of dirty, disheveled, gaunt, sickly men returning
from the fields and hospitals; and all he could do was to feel
sorry.  This war was not for him.  He had taken no part in it,
and he felt sure that he could only rejoice in its conclusion--not
as a patriot, but as a financier.  It was wasteful, pathetic,
unfortunate.

The months proceeded apace.  A local election intervened and there
was a new city treasurer, a new assessor of taxes, and a new mayor;
but Edward Malia Butler continued to have apparently the same
influence as before.  The Butlers and the Cowperwoods had become
quite friendly.  Mrs. Butler rather liked Lillian, though they
were of different religious beliefs; and they went driving or
shopping together, the younger woman a little critical and ashamed
of the elder because of her poor grammar, her Irish accent, her
plebeian tastes--as though the Wiggins had not been as plebeian
as any.  On the other hand the old lady, as she was compelled to
admit, was good-natured and good-hearted.  She loved to give,
since she had plenty, and sent presents here and there to Lillian,
the children, and others.  "Now youse must come over and take
dinner with us"--the Butlers had arrived at the evening-dinner
period--or "Youse must come drive with me to-morrow."

"Aileen, God bless her, is such a foine girl," or "Norah, the
darlin', is sick the day."

But Aileen, her airs, her aggressive disposition, her love of
attention, her vanity, irritated and at times disgusted Mrs.
Cowperwood.  She was eighteen now, with a figure which was subtly
provocative.  Her manner was boyish, hoydenish at times, and
although convent-trained, she was inclined to balk at restraint
in any form.  But there was a softness lurking in her blue eyes
that was most sympathetic and human.

St. Timothy's and the convent school in Germantown had been the
choice of her parents for her education--what they called a good
Catholic education.  She had learned a great deal about the theory
and forms of the Catholic ritual, but she could not understand
them.  The church, with its tall, dimly radiant windows, its high,
white altar, its figure of St. Joseph on one side and the Virgin
Mary on the other, clothed in golden-starred robes of blue, wearing
haloes and carrying scepters, had impressed her greatly.  The
church as a whole--any Catholic church--was beautiful to look at--
soothing.  The altar, during high mass, lit with a half-hundred
or more candles, and dignified and made impressive by the rich,
lacy vestments of the priests and the acolytes, the impressive
needlework and gorgeous colorings of the amice, chasuble, cope,
stole, and maniple, took her fancy and held her eye.  Let us say
there was always lurking in her a sense of grandeur coupled with
a love of color and a love of love.  From the first she was
somewhat sex-conscious.  She had no desire for accuracy, no desire
for precise information.  Innate sensuousness rarely has.  It
basks in sunshine, bathes in color, dwells in a sense of the
impressive and the gorgeous, and rests there.  Accuracy is not
necessary except in the case of aggressive, acquisitive natures,
when it manifests itself in a desire to seize.  True controlling
sensuousness cannot be manifested in the most active dispositions,
nor again in the most accurate.

There is need of defining these statements in so far as they apply
to Aileen.  It would scarcely be fair to describe her nature as
being definitely sensual at this time.  It was too rudimentary.
Any harvest is of long growth.  The confessional, dim on Friday
and Saturday evenings, when the church was lighted by but a few
lamps, and the priest's warnings, penances, and ecclesiastical
forgiveness whispered through the narrow lattice, moved her as
something subtly pleasing.  She was not afraid of her sins.  Hell,
so definitely set forth, did not frighten her.  Really, it had
not laid hold on her conscience.  The old women and old men
hobbling into church, bowed in prayer, murmuring over their beads,
were objects of curious interest like the wood-carvings in the
peculiar array of wood-reliefs emphasizing the Stations of the
Cross.  She herself had liked to confess, particularly when she
was fourteen and fifteen, and to listen to the priest's voice as
he admonished her with, "Now, my dear child."  A particularly old
priest, a French father, who came to hear their confessions at
school, interested her as being kind and sweet.  His forgiveness
and blessing seemed sincere--better than her prayers, which she
went through perfunctorily.  And then there was a young priest
at St. Timothy's, Father David, hale and rosy, with a curl of
black hair over his forehead, and an almost jaunty way of wearing
his priestly hat, who came down the aisle Sundays sprinkling holy
water with a definite, distinguished sweep of the hand, who took
her fancy.  He heard confessions and now and then she liked to
whisper her strange thoughts to him while she actually speculated
on what he might privately be thinking.  She could not, if she
tried, associate him with any divine authority.  He was too young,
too human.  There was something a little malicious, teasing, in
the way she delighted to tell him about herself, and then walk
demurely, repentantly out.  At St. Agatha's she had been rather a
difficult person to deal with.  She was, as the good sisters of
the school had readily perceived, too full of life, too active,
to be easily controlled.  "That Miss Butler," once observed Sister
Constantia, the Mother Superior, to Sister Sempronia, Aileen's
immediate mentor, "is a very spirited girl, you may have a great
deal of trouble with her unless you use a good deal of tact.  You
may have to coax her with little gifts.  You will get on better."
So Sister Sempronia had sought to find what Aileen was most
interested in, and bribe her therewith.  Being intensely conscious
of her father's competence, and vain of her personal superiority,
it was not so easy to do.  She had wanted to go home occasionally,
though; she had wanted to be allowed to wear the sister's rosary
of large beads with its pendent cross of ebony and its silver
Christ, and this was held up as a great privilege.  For keeping
quiet in class, walking softly, and speaking softly--as much as
it was in her to do--for not stealing into other girl's rooms
after lights were out, and for abandoning crushes on this and
that sympathetic sister, these awards and others, such as walking
out in the grounds on Saturday afternoons, being allowed to have
all the flowers she wanted, some extra dresses, jewels, etc.,
were offered.  She liked music and the idea of painting, though
she had no talent in that direction; and books, novels, interested
her, but she could not get them.  The rest--grammar, spelling,
sewing, church and general history--she loathed.  Deportment--well,
there was something in that.  She had liked the rather exaggerated
curtsies they taught her, and she had often reflected on how she
would use them when she reached home.

When she came out into life the little social distinctions which
have been indicated began to impress themselves on her, and she
wished sincerely that her father would build a better home--a
mansion--such as those she saw elsewhere, and launch her properly
in society.  Failing in that, she could think of nothing save
clothes, jewels, riding-horses, carriages, and the appropriate
changes of costume which were allowed her for these.  Her family
could not entertain in any distinguished way where they were, and
so already, at eighteen, she was beginning to feel the sting of a
blighted ambition.  She was eager for life.  How was she to get it?

Her room was a study in the foibles of an eager and ambitious mind.
It was full of clothes, beautiful things for all occasions--
jewelry--which she had small opportunity to wear--shoes, stockings,
lingerie, laces.  In a crude way she had made a study of perfumes
and cosmetics, though she needed the latter not at all, and these
were present in abundance.  She was not very orderly, and she loved
lavishness of display; and her curtains, hangings, table ornaments,
and pictures inclined to gorgeousness, which did not go well with
the rest of the house.

Aileen always reminded Cowperwood of a high-stepping horse without
a check-rein.  He met her at various times, shopping with her
mother, out driving with her father, and he was always interested
and amused at the affected, bored tone she assumed before him--the
"Oh, dear! Oh, dear! Life is so tiresome, don't you know," when,
as a matter of fact, every moment of it was of thrilling interest
to her.  Cowperwood took her mental measurement exactly.  A girl
with a high sense of life in her, romantic, full of the thought
of love and its possibilities.  As he looked at her he had the
sense of seeing the best that nature can do when she attempts to
produce physical perfection.  The thought came to him that some
lucky young dog would marry her pretty soon and carry her away;
but whoever secured her would have to hold her by affection and
subtle flattery and attention if he held her at all.

"The little snip"--she was not at all--"she thinks the sun rises
and sets in her father's pocket," Lillian observed one day to her
husband.  "To hear her talk, you'd think they were descended from
Irish kings.  Her pretended interest in art and music amuses me."

"Oh, don't be too hard on her," coaxed Cowperwood diplomatically.
He already liked Aileen very much.  "She plays very well, and she
has a good voice."

"Yes, I know; but she has no real refinement.  How could she have?
Look at her father and mother."

"I don't see anything so very much the matter with her," insisted
Cowperwood.  "She's bright and good-looking.  Of course, she's
only a girl, and a little vain, but she'll come out of that.  She
isn't without sense and force, at that."

Aileen, as he knew, was most friendly to him.  She liked him.  She
made a point of playing the piano and singing for him in his home,
and she sang only when he was there.  There was something about
his steady, even gait, his stocky body and handsome head, which
attracted her.  In spite of her vanity and egotism, she felt a
little overawed before him at times--keyed up.  She seemed to
grow gayer and more brilliant in his presence.

The most futile thing in this world is any attempt, perhaps, at
exact definition of character.  All individuals are a bundle of
contradictions--none more so than the most capable.

In the case of Aileen Butler it would be quite impossible to give
an exact definition.  Intelligence, of a raw, crude order she had
certainly--also a native force, tamed somewhat by the doctrines
and conventions of current society, still showed clear at times
in an elemental and not entirely unattractive way.  At this time
she was only eighteen years of age--decidedly attractive from the
point of view of a man of Frank Cowperwood's temperament.  She
supplied something he had not previously known or consciously
craved.  Vitality and vivacity.  No other woman or girl whom he
had ever known had possessed so much innate force as she.  Her
red-gold hair--not so red as decidedly golden with a suggestion
of red in it--looped itself in heavy folds about her forehead
and sagged at the base of her neck.  She had a beautiful nose,
not sensitive, but straight-cut with small nostril openings, and
eyes that were big and yet noticeably sensuous.  They were, to
him, a pleasing shade of blue-gray-blue, and her toilet, due to
her temperament, of course, suggested almost undue luxury, the
bangles, anklets, ear-rings, and breast-plates of the odalisque,
and yet, of course, they were not there.  She confessed to him
years afterward that she would have loved to have stained her
nails and painted the palms of her hands with madder-red.  Healthy
and vigorous, she was chronically interested in men--what they
would think of her--and how she compared with other women.

The fact that she could ride in a carriage, live in a fine home
on Girard Avenue, visit such homes as those of the Cowperwoods
and others, was of great weight; and yet, even at this age, she
realized that life was more than these things.  Many did not have
them and lived.

But these facts of wealth and advantage gripped her; and when she
sat at the piano and played or rode in her carriage or walked or
stood before her mirror, she was conscious of her figure, her
charms, what they meant to men, how women envied her.  Sometimes
she looked at poor, hollow-chested or homely-faced girls and felt
sorry for them; at other times she flared into inexplicable
opposition to some handsome girl or woman who dared to brazen her
socially or physically.  There were such girls of the better
families who, in Chestnut Street, in the expensive shops, or on
the drive, on horseback or in carriages, tossed their heads and
indicated as well as human motions can that they were better-bred
and knew it.  When this happened each stared defiantly at the
other.  She wanted ever so much to get up in the world, and yet
namby-pamby men of better social station than herself did not
attract her at all.  She wanted a man.  Now and then there was
one "something like," but not entirely, who appealed to her, but
most of them were politicians or legislators, acquaintances of her
father, and socially nothing at all--and so they wearied and
disappointed her.  Her father did not know the truly elite.  But
Mr. Cowperwood--he seemed so refined, so forceful, and so reserved.
She often looked at Mrs. Cowperwood and thought how fortunate she
was.





Chapter XIV




The development of Cowperwood as Cowperwood & Co. following his
arresting bond venture, finally brought him into relationship with
one man who was to play an important part in his life, morally,
financially, and in other ways.  This was George W. Stener, the
new city treasurer-elect, who, to begin with, was a puppet in the
hands of other men, but who, also in spite of this fact, became a
personage of considerable importance, for the simple reason that
he was weak.  Stener had been engaged in the real estate and
insurance business in a small way before he was made city treasurer.
He was one of those men, of whom there are so many thousands in
every large community, with no breadth of vision, no real subtlety,
no craft, no great skill in anything.  You would never hear a new
idea emanating from Stener.  He never had one in his life.  On the
other hand, he was not a bad fellow.  He had a stodgy, dusty,
commonplace look to him which was more a matter of mind than of
body.  His eye was of vague gray-blue; his hair a dusty light-brown
and thin.  His mouth--there was nothing impressive there.  He was
quite tall, nearly six feet, with moderately broad shoulders, but
his figure was anything but shapely.  He seemed to stoop a little,
his stomach was the least bit protuberant, and he talked commonplaces
--the small change of newspaper and street and business gossip.
People liked him in his own neighborhood.  He was thought to be
honest and kindly; and he was, as far as he knew.  His wife and
four children were as average and insignificant as the wives and
children of such men usually are.

Just the same, and in spite of, or perhaps, politically speaking,
because of all this, George W. Stener was brought into temporary
public notice by certain political methods which had existed in
Philadelphia practically unmodified for the previous half hundred
years.  First, because he was of the same political faith as the
dominant local political party, he had become known to the local
councilman and ward-leader of his ward as a faithful soul--one
useful in the matter of drumming up votes.  And next--although
absolutely without value as a speaker, for he had no ideas--you
could send him from door to door, asking the grocer and the
blacksmith and the butcher how he felt about things and he would
make friends, and in the long run predict fairly accurately the
probable vote.  Furthermore, you could dole him out a few platitudes
and he would repeat them.  The Republican party, which was the
new-born party then, but dominant in Philadelphia, needed your
vote; it was necessary to keep the rascally Democrats out--he could
scarcely have said why.  They had been for slavery.  They were for
free trade.  It never once occurred to him that these things had
nothing to do with the local executive and financial administration
of Philadelphia.  Supposing they didn't? What of it?

In Philadelphia at this time a certain United States Senator, one
Mark Simpson, together with Edward Malia Butler and Henry A.
Mollenhauer, a rich coal dealer and investor, were supposed to,
and did, control jointly the political destiny of the city.  They
had representatives, benchmen, spies, tools--a great company.  Among
them was this same Stener--a minute cog in the silent machinery of
their affairs.

In scarcely any other city save this, where the inhabitants were
of a deadly average in so far as being commonplace was concerned,
could such a man as Stener have been elected city treasurer.  The
rank and file did not, except in rare instances, make up their
political program.  An inside ring had this matter in charge.
Certain positions were allotted to such and such men or to such
and such factions of the party for such and such services rendered
--but who does not know politics?

In due course of time, therefore, George W. Stener had become
persona grata to Edward Strobik, a quondam councilman who afterward
became ward leader and still later president of council, and who,
in private life was a stone-dealer and owner of a brickyard.
Strobik was a benchman of Henry A. Mollenhauer, the hardest and
coldest of all three of the political leaders.  The latter had
things to get from council, and Strobik was his tool.  He had Stener
elected; and because he was faithful in voting as he was told the
latter was later made an assistant superintendent of the highways
department.

Here he came under the eyes of Edward Malia Butler, and was slightly
useful to him.  Then the central political committee, with Butler
in charge, decided that some nice, docile man who would at the
same time be absolutely faithful was needed for city treasurer, and
Stener was put on the ticket.  He knew little of finance, but was
an excellent bookkeeper; and, anyhow, was not corporation counsel
Regan, another political tool of this great triumvirate, there to
advise him at all times? He was.  It was a very simple matter.
Being put on the ticket was equivalent to being elected, and so,
after a few weeks of exceedingly trying platform experiences, in
which he had stammered through platitudinous declarations that the
city needed to be honestly administered, he was inducted into
office; and there you were.

Now it wouldn't have made so much difference what George W.
Stener's executive and financial qualifications for the position
were, but at this time the city of Philadelphia was still hobbling
along under perhaps as evil a financial system, or lack of it, as
any city ever endured--the assessor and the treasurer being
allowed to collect and hold moneys belonging to the city, outside
of the city's private vaults, and that without any demand on the
part of anybody that the same be invested by them at interest for
the city's benefit.  Rather, all they were expected to do,
apparently, was to restore the principal and that which was with
them when they entered or left office.  It was not understood or
publicly demanded that the moneys so collected, or drawn from any
source, be maintained intact in the vaults of the city treasury.
They could be loaned out, deposited in banks or used to further
private interests of any one, so long as the principal was returned,
and no one was the wiser.  Of course, this theory of finance was
not publicly sanctioned, but it was known politically and
journalistically, and in high finance.  How were you to stop it?

Cowperwood, in approaching Edward Malia Butler, had been
unconsciously let in on this atmosphere of erratic and unsatisfactory
speculation without really knowing it.  When he had left the
office of Tighe & Co., seven years before, it was with the idea
that henceforth and forever he would have nothing to do with the
stock-brokerage proposition; but now behold him back in it again,
with more vim than he had ever displayed, for now he was working
for himself, the firm of Cowperwood & Co., and he was eager to
satisfy the world of new and powerful individuals who by degrees
were drifting to him.  All had a little money.  All had tips, and
they wanted him to carry certain lines of stock on margin for them,
because he was known to other political men, and because he was
safe.  And this was true.  He was not, or at least up to this time
had not been, a speculator or a gambler on his own account.  In
fact he often soothed himself with the thought that in all these
years he had never gambled for himself, but had always acted
strictly for others instead.  But now here was George W. Stener
with a proposition which was not quite the same thing as
stock-gambling, and yet it was.

During a long period of years preceding the Civil War, and through
it, let it here be explained and remembered, the city of Philadelphia
had been in the habit, as a corporation, when there were no available
funds in the treasury, of issuing what were known as city warrants,
which were nothing more than notes or I.O.U.'s bearing six per cent.
interest, and payable sometimes in thirty days, sometimes in three,
sometimes in six months--all depending on the amount and how soon
the city treasurer thought there would be sufficient money in the
treasury to take them up and cancel them.  Small tradesmen and
large contractors were frequently paid in this way; the small
tradesman who sold supplies to the city institutions, for instance,
being compelled to discount his notes at the bank, if he needed
ready money, usually for ninety cents on the dollar, while the
large contractor could afford to hold his and wait.  It can readily
be seen that this might well work to the disadvantage of the small
dealer and merchant, and yet prove quite a fine thing for a large
contractor or note-broker, for the city was sure to pay the warrants
at some time, and six per cent. interest was a fat rate, considering
the absolute security.  A banker or broker who gathered up these
things from small tradesmen at ninety cents on the dollar made a
fine thing of it all around if he could wait.

Originally, in all probability, there was no intention on the part
of the city treasurer to do any one an injustice, and it is likely
that there really were no funds to pay with at the time.  However
that may have been, there was later no excuse for issuing the
warrants, seeing that the city might easily have been managed much
more economically.  But these warrants, as can readily be imagined,
had come to be a fine source of profit for note-brokers, bankers,
political financiers, and inside political manipulators generally
and so they remained a part of the city's fiscal policy.

There was just one drawback to all this.  In order to get the full
advantage of this condition the large banker holding them must be
an "inside banker," one close to the political forces of the city,
for if he was not and needed money and he carried his warrants to
the city treasurer, he would find that he could not get cash for
them.  But if he transferred them to some banker or note-broker
who was close to the political force of the city, it was quite
another matter.  The treasury would find means to pay.  Or, if so
desired by the note-broker or banker--the right one--notes which
were intended to be met in three months, and should have been
settled at that time, were extended to run on years and years,
drawing interest at six per cent. even when the city had ample
funds to meet them.  Yet this meant, of course, an illegal
interest drain on the city, but that was all right also.  "No
funds" could cover that.  The general public did not know.  It
could not find out.  The newspapers were not at all vigilant,
being pro-political.  There were no persistent, enthusiastic
reformers who obtained any political credence.  During the war,
warrants outstanding in this manner arose in amount to much over
two million dollars, all drawing six per cent. interest, but
then, of course, it began to get a little scandalous.  Besides,
at least some of the investors began to want their money back.

In order, therefore, to clear up this outstanding indebtedness
and make everything shipshape again, it was decided that the city
must issue a loan, say for two million dollars--no need to be
exact about the amount.  And this loan must take the shape of
interest-bearing certificates of a par value of one hundred dollars,
redeemable in six, twelve, or eighteen months, as the case may be.
These certificates of loan were then ostensibly to be sold in the
open market, a sinking-fund set aside for their redemption, and the
money so obtained used to take up the long-outstanding warrants
which were now such a subject of public comment.

It is obvious that this was merely a case of robbing Peter to pay
Paul.  There was no real clearing up of the outstanding debt.  It
was the intention of the schemers to make it possible for the
financial politicians on the inside to reap the same old harvest
by allowing the certificates to be sold to the right parties for
ninety or less, setting up the claim that there was no market for
them, the credit of the city being bad.  To a certain extent this
was true.  The war was just over.  Money was high.  Investors
could get more than six per cent. elsewhere unless the loan was
sold at ninety.  But there were a few watchful politicians not in
the administration, and some newspapers and non-political financiers
who, because of the high strain of patriotism existing at the time,
insisted that the loan should be sold at par.  Therefore a clause
to that effect had to be inserted in the enabling ordinance.

This, as one might readily see, destroyed the politicians' little
scheme to get this loan at ninety.  Nevertheless since they
desired that the money tied up in the old warrants and now not
redeemable because of lack of funds should be paid them, the only
way this could be done would be to have some broker who knew the
subtleties of the stock market handle this new city loan on 'change
in such a way that it would be made to seem worth one hundred and
to be sold to outsiders at that figure.  Afterward, if, as it was
certain to do, it fell below that, the politicians could buy as
much of it as they pleased, and eventually have the city redeem it
at par.

George W. Stener, entering as city treasurer at this time, and
bringing no special financial intelligence to the proposition,
was really troubled.  Henry A. Mollenhauer, one of the men who
had gathered up a large amount of the old city warrants, and who
now wanted his money, in order to invest it in bonanza offers in
the West, called on Stener, and also on the mayor.  He with
Simpson and Butler made up the Big Three.

"I think something ought to be done about these warrants that
are outstanding," he explained.  "I am carrying a large amount
of them, and there are others.  We have helped the city a long
time by saying nothing; but now I think that something ought to
be done.  Mr. Butler and Mr. Simpson feel the same way.  Couldn't
these new loan certificates be listed on the stock exchange and
the money raised that way? Some clever broker could bring them
to par."

Stener was greatly flattered by the visit from Mollenhauer.
Rarely did he trouble to put in a personal appearance, and then
only for the weight and effect his presence would have.  He called
on the mayor and the president of council, much as he called on
Stener, with a lofty, distant, inscrutable air.  They were as
office-boys to him.

In order to understand exactly the motive for Mollenhauer's
interest in Stener, and the significance of this visit and Stener's
subsequent action in regard to it, it will be necessary to scan
the political horizon for some little distance back.  Although
George W. Stener was in a way a political henchman and appointee
of Mollenhauer's, the latter was only vaguely acquainted with him.
He had seen him before; knew of him; had agreed that his name
should be put on the local slate largely because he had been
assured by those who were closest to him and who did his bidding
that Stener was "all right," that he would do as he was told, that
he would cause no one any trouble, etc.  In fact, during several
previous administrations, Mollenhauer had maintained a subsurface
connection with the treasury, but never so close a one as could
easily be traced.  He was too conspicuous a man politically and
financially for that.  But he was not above a plan, in which Simpson
if not Butler shared, of using political and commercial stool-pigeons
to bleed the city treasury as much as possible without creating a
scandal.  In fact, for some years previous to this, various agents
had already been employed--Edward Strobik, president of council,
Asa Conklin, the then incumbent of the mayor's chair, Thomas
Wycroft, alderman, Jacob Harmon, alderman, and others--to organize
dummy companies under various names, whose business it was to deal
in those things which the city needed--lumber, stone, steel, iron,
cement--a long list--and of course, always at a fat profit to
those ultimately behind the dummy companies, so organized.  It saved
the city the trouble of looking far and wide for honest and
reasonable dealers.

Since the action of at least three of these dummies will have
something to do with the development of Cowperwood's story, they
may be briefly described.  Edward Strobik, the chief of them, and
the one most useful to Mollenhauer, in a minor way, was a very
spry person of about thirty-five at this time--lean and somewhat
forceful, with black hair, black eyes, and an inordinately large
black mustache.  He was dapper, inclined to noticeable clothing--
a pair of striped trousers, a white vest, a black cutaway coat
and a high silk hat.  His markedly ornamental shoes were always
polished to perfection, and his immaculate appearance gave him the
nickname of "The Dude" among some.  Nevertheless he was quite able
on a small scale, and was well liked by many.

His two closest associates, Messrs. Thomas Wycroft and Jacob Harmon,
were rather less attractive and less brilliant.  Jacob Harmon was
a thick wit socially, but no fool financially.  He was big and
rather doleful to look upon, with sandy brown hair and brown
eyes, but fairly intelligent, and absolutely willing to approve
anything which was not too broad in its crookedness and which
would afford him sufficient protection to keep him out of the
clutches of the law.  He was really not so cunning as dull and
anxious to get along.

Thomas Wycroft, the last of this useful but minor triumvirate,
was a tall, lean man, candle-waxy, hollow-eyed, gaunt of face,
pathetic to look at physically, but shrewd.  He was an iron-molder
by trade and had gotten into politics much as Stener had--because
he was useful; and he had managed to make some money--via this
triumvirate of which Strobik was the ringleader, and which was
engaged in various peculiar businesses which will now be indicated.

The companies which these several henchmen had organized under
previous administrations, and for Mollenhauer, dealt in meat,
building material, lamp-posts, highway supplies, anything you
will, which the city departments or its institutions needed.  A
city contract once awarded was irrevocable, but certain councilmen
had to be fixed in advance and it took money to do that.  The
company so organized need not actually slaughter any cattle or
mold lamp-posts.  All it had to do was to organize to do that,
obtain a charter, secure a contract for supplying such material
to the city from the city council (which Strobik, Harmon, and
Wycroft would attend to), and then sublet this to some actual
beef-slaughterer or iron-founder, who would supply the material
and allow them to pocket their profit which in turn was divided
or paid for to Mollenhauer and Simpson in the form of political
donations to clubs or organizations.  It was so easy and in a way
so legitimate.  The particular beef-slaughterer or iron-founder
thus favored could not hope of his own ability thus to obtain a
contract.  Stener, or whoever was in charge of the city treasury
at the time, for his services in loaning money at a low rate of
interest to be used as surety for the proper performance of
contract, and to aid in some instances the beef-killer or
iron-founder to carry out his end, was to be allowed not only the
one or two per cent. which he might pocket (other treasurers had),
but a fair proportion of the profits.  A complacent, confidential
chief clerk who was all right would be recommended to him.  It did
not concern Stener that Strobik, Harmon, and Wycroft, acting for
Mollenhauer, were incidentally planning to use a little of the
money loaned for purposes quite outside those indicated.  It was
his business to loan it.

However, to be going on.  Some time before he was even nominated,
Stener had learned from Strobik, who, by the way, was one of his
sureties as treasurer (which suretyship was against the law, as
were those of Councilmen Wycroft and Harmon, the law of
Pennsylvania stipulating that one political servant might not
become surety for another), that those who had brought about this
nomination and election would by no means ask him to do anything
which was not perfectly legal, but that he must be complacent and
not stand in the way of big municipal perquisites nor bite the
hands that fed him.  It was also made perfectly plain to him, that
once he was well in office a little money for himself was to be
made.  As has been indicated, he had always been a poor man.  He
had seen all those who had dabbled in politics to any extent about
him heretofore do very well financially indeed, while he pegged
along as an insurance and real-estate agent.  He had worked hard
as a small political henchman.  Other politicians were building
themselves nice homes in newer portions of the city.  They were
going off to New York or Harrisburg or Washington on jaunting
parties.  They were seen in happy converse at road-houses or
country hotels in season with their wives or their women favorites,
and he was not, as yet, of this happy throng.  Naturally now that
he was promised something, he was interested and compliant.  What
might he not get?

When it came to this visit from Mollenhauer, with its suggestion
in regard to bringing city loan to par, although it bore no obvious
relation to Mollenhauer's subsurface connection with Stener, through
Strobik and the others, Stener did definitely recognize his own
political subservience--his master's stentorian voice--and
immediately thereafter hurried to Strobik for information.

"Just what would you do about this?" he asked of Strobik, who
knew of Mollenhauer's visit before Stener told him, and was waiting
for Stener to speak to him.  "Mr. Mollenhauer talks about having
this new loan listed on 'change and brought to par so that it
will sell for one hundred."

Neither Strobik, Harmon, nor Wycroft knew how the certificates of
city loan, which were worth only ninety on the open market, were
to be made to sell for one hundred on 'change, but Mollenhauer's
secretary, one Abner Sengstack, had suggested to Strobik that,
since Butler was dealing with young Cowperwood and Mollenhauer did
not care particularly for his private broker in this instance, it
might be as well to try Cowperwood.


So it was that Cowperwood was called to Stener's office.  And once
there, and not as yet recognizing either the hand of Mollenhauer
or Simpson in this, merely looked at the peculiarly shambling,
heavy-cheeked, middle-class man before him without either interest
or sympathy, realizing at once that he had a financial baby to deal
with.  If he could act as adviser to this man--be his sole counsel
for four years!

"How do you do, Mr. Stener?" he said in his soft, ingratiating voice,
as the latter held out his hand.  "I am glad to meet you.  I have
heard of you before, of course."

Stener was long in explaining to Cowperwood just what his difficulty
was.  He went at it in a clumsy fashion, stumbling through the
difficulties of the situation he was suffered to meet.

"The main thing, as I see it, is to make these certificates sell
at par.  I can issue them in any sized lots you like, and as often
as you like.  I want to get enough now to clear away two hundred
thousand dollars' worth of the outstanding warrants, and as much
more as I can get later."

Cowperwood felt like a physician feeling a patient's pulse--a
patient who is really not sick at all but the reassurance of
whom means a fat fee.  The abstrusities of the stock exchange
were as his A B C's to him.  He knew if he could have this loan
put in his hands--all of it, if he could have the fact kept dark
that he was acting for the city, and that if Stener would allow
him to buy as a "bull" for the sinking-fund while selling
judiciously for a rise, he could do wonders even with a big issue.
He had to have all of it, though, in order that he might have
agents under him.  Looming up in his mind was a scheme whereby
he could make a lot of the unwary speculators about 'change go
short of this stock or loan under the impression, of course, that
it was scattered freely in various persons' hands, and that they
could buy as much of it as they wanted.  Then they would wake to
find that they could not get it; that he had it all.  Only he would
not risk his secret that far.  Not he, oh, no.  But he would drive
the city loan to par and then sell.  And what a fat thing for
himself among others in so doing.  Wisely enough he sensed that
there was politics in all this--shrewder and bigger men above and
behind Stener.  But what of that? And how slyly and shrewdly they
were sending Stener to him.  It might be that his name was becoming
very potent in their political world here.  And what might that
not mean!

"I tell you what I'd like to do, Mr. Stener," he said, after he had
listened to his explanation and asked how much of the city loan he
would like to sell during the coming year.  "I'll be glad to
undertake it.  But I'd like to have a day or two in which to think
it over."

"Why, certainly, certainly, Mr. Cowperwood," replied Stener,
genially.  "That's all right.  Take your time.  If you know how
it can be done, just show me when you're ready.  By the way, what
do you charge?"

"Well, the stock exchange has a regular scale of charges which
we brokers are compelled to observe.  It's one-fourth of one per
cent. on the par value of bonds and loans.  Of course, I may hav
to add a lot of fictitious selling--I'll explain that to you later--
but I won't charge you anything for that so long as it is a secret
between us.  I'll give you the best service I can, Mr. Stener.
You can depend on that.  Let me have a day or two to think it over,
though."

He shook hands with Stener, and they parted.  Cowperwood was
satisfied that he was on the verge of a significant combination,
and Stener that he had found someone on whom he could lean.





Chapter XV




The plan Cowperwood developed after a few days' meditation will
be plain enough to any one who knows anything of commercial and
financial manipulation, but a dark secret to those who do not.  In
the first place, the city treasurer was to use his (Cowperwood's)
office as a bank of deposit.  He was to turn over to him, actually,
or set over to his credit on the city's books, subject to his order,
certain amounts of city loans--two hundred thousand dollars at
first, since that was the amount it was desired to raise quickly--
and he would then go into the market and see what could be done to
have it brought to par.  The city treasurer was to ask leave of
the stock exchange at once to have it listed as a security.
Cowperwood would then use his influence to have this application
acted upon quickly.  Stener was then to dispose of all city loan
certificates through him, and him only.  He was to allow him to
buy for the sinking-fund, supposedly, such amounts as he might
have to buy in order to keep the price up to par.  To do this,
once a considerable number of the loan certificates had been
unloaded on the public, it might be necessary to buy back a great
deal.  However, these would be sold again.  The law concerning
selling only at par would have to be abrogated to this extent--
i.e., that the wash sales and preliminary sales would have to be
considered no sales until par was reached.

There was a subtle advantage here, as Cowperwood pointed out to
Stener.  In the first place, since the certificates were going
ultimately to reach par anyway, there was no objection to Stener
or any one else buying low at the opening price and holding for
a rise.  Cowperwood would be glad to carry him on his books for
any amount, and he would settle at the end of each month.  He
would not be asked to buy the certificates outright.  He could be
carried on the books for a certain reasonable margin, say ten
points.  The money was as good as made for Stener now.  In the
next place, in buying for the sinking-fund it would be possible
to buy these certificates very cheap, for, having the new and
reserve issue entirely in his hands, Cowperwood could throw such
amounts as he wished into the market at such times as he wished
to buy, and consequently depress the market.  Then he could buy,
and, later, up would go the price.  Having the issues totally in
his hands to boost or depress the market as he wished, there was
no reason why the city should not ultimately get par for all its
issues, and at the same time considerable money be made out of
the manufactured fluctuations.  He, Cowperwood, would be glad to
make most of his profit that way.  The city should allow him his
normal percentage on all his actual sales of certificates for the
city at par (he would have to have that in order to keep straight
with the stock exchange); but beyond that, and for all the other
necessary manipulative sales, of which there would be many, he
would depend on his knowledge of the stock market to reimburse him.
And if Stener wanted to speculate with him--well.

Dark as this transaction may seem to the uninitiated, it will
appear quite clear to those who know.  Manipulative tricks have
always been worked in connection with stocks of which one man or
one set of men has had complete control.  It was no different from
what subsequently was done with Erie, Standard Oil, Copper, Sugar,
Wheat, and what not.  Cowperwood was one of the first and one of
the youngest to see how it could be done.  When he first talked to
Stener he was twenty-eight years of age.  When he last did business
with him he was thirty-four.

The houses and the bank-front of Cowperwood & Co. had been proceeding
apace.  The latter was early Florentine in its decorations with
windows which grew narrower as they approached the roof, and a door
of wrought iron set between delicately carved posts, and a straight
lintel of brownstone.  It was low in height and distinguished in
appearance.  In the center panel had been hammered a hand, delicately
wrought, thin and artistic, holding aloft a flaming brand.  Ellsworth
informed him that this had formerly been a money-changer's sign
used in old Venice, the significance of which had long been
forgotten.

The interior was finished in highly-polished hardwood, stained in
imitation of the gray lichens which infest trees.  Large sheets of
clear, beveled glass were used, some oval, some oblong, some square,
and some circular, following a given theory of eye movement.  The
fixtures for the gas-jets were modeled after the early Roman
flame-brackets, and the office safe was made an ornament, raised
on a marble platform at the back of the office and lacquered a
silver-gray, with Cowperwood & Co. lettered on it in gold.  One
had a sense of reserve and taste pervading the place, and yet it
was also inestimably prosperous, solid and assuring.  Cowperwood,
when he viewed it at its completion, complimented Ellsworth
cheerily.  "I like this.  It is really beautiful.  It will be a
pleasure to work here.  If those houses are going to be anything
like this, they will be perfect."

"Wait till you see them.  I think you will be pleased, Mr.
Cowperwood.  I am taking especial pains with yours because it is
smaller.  It is really easier to treat your father's.  But yours--"
He went off into a description of the entrance-hall, reception-room
and parlor, which he was arranging and decorating in such a way
as to give an effect of size and dignity not really conformable
to the actual space.

And when the houses were finished, they were effective and
arresting--quite different from the conventional residences of the
street.  They were separated by a space of twenty feet, laid out
as greensward.  The architect had borrowed somewhat from the Tudor
school, yet not so elaborated as later became the style in many of
the residences in Philadelphia and elsewhere.  The most striking
features were rather deep-recessed doorways under wide, low,
slightly floriated arches, and three projecting windows of rich
form, one on the second floor of Frank's house, two on the facade
of his father's.  There were six gables showing on the front of the
two houses, two on Frank's and four on his father's.  In the front
of each house on the ground floor was a recessed window unconnected
with the recessed doorways, formed by setting the inner external
wall back from the outer face of the building.  This window looked
out through an arched opening to the street, and was protected by
a dwarf parapet or balustrade.  It was possible to set potted vines
and flowers there, which was later done, giving a pleasant sense
of greenery from the street, and to place a few chairs there,
which were reached via heavily barred French casements.

On the ground floor of each house was placed a conservatory of
flowers, facing each other, and in the yard, which was jointly used,
a pool of white marble eight feet in diameter, with a marble Cupid
upon which jets of water played.  The yard which was enclosed by
a high but pierced wall of green-gray brick, especially burnt for
the purpose the same color as the granite of the house, and surmounted
by a white marble coping which was sown to grass and had a lovely,
smooth, velvety appearance.  The two houses, as originally planned,
were connected by a low, green-columned pergola which could be
enclosed in glass in winter.

The rooms, which were now slowly being decorated and furnished in
period styles were very significant in that they enlarged and
strengthened Frank Cowperwood's idea of the world of art in general.
It was an enlightening and agreeable experience--one which made for
artistic and intellectual growth--to hear Ellsworth explain at length
the styles and types of architecture and furniture, the nature of
woods and ornaments employed, the qualities and peculiarities of
hangings, draperies, furniture panels, and door coverings.  Ellsworth
was a student of decoration as well as of architecture, and interested
in the artistic taste of the American people, which he fancied would
some day have a splendid outcome.  He was wearied to death of the
prevalent Romanesque composite combinations of country and suburban
villa.  The time was ripe for something new.  He scarcely knew what
it would be; but this that he had designed for Cowperwood and his
father was at least different, as he said, while at the same time
being reserved, simple, and pleasing.  It was in marked contrast to
the rest of the architecture of the street.  Cowperwood's dining-room,
reception-room, conservatory, and butler's pantry he had put on
the first floor, together with the general entry-hall, staircase,
and coat-room under the stairs.  For the second floor he had reserved
the library, general living-room, parlor, and a small office for
Cowperwood, together with a boudoir for Lillian, connected with a
dressing-room and bath.

On the third floor, neatly divided and accommodated with baths and
dressing-rooms, were the nursery, the servants' quarters, and
several guest-chambers.

Ellsworth showed Cowperwood books of designs containing furniture,
hangings, etageres, cabinets, pedestals, and some exquisite piano
forms.  He discussed woods with him--rosewood, mahogany, walnut,
English oak, bird's-eye maple, and the manufactured effects such
as ormolu, marquetry, and Boule, or buhl.  He explained the latter--
how difficult it was to produce, how unsuitable it was in some
respects for this climate, the brass and tortoise-shell inlay
coming to swell with the heat or damp, and so bulging or breaking.
He told of the difficulties and disadvantages of certain finishes,
but finally recommended ormolu furniture for the reception room,
medallion tapestry for the parlor, French renaissance for the
dining-room and library, and bird's-eye maple (dyed blue in one
instance, and left its natural color in another) and a rather
lightly constructed and daintily carved walnut for the other rooms.
The hangings, wall-paper, and floor coverings were to harmonize--
not match--and the piano and music-cabinet for the parlor, as well
as the etagere, cabinets, and pedestals for the reception-rooms,
were to be of buhl or marquetry, if Frank cared to stand the
expense.

Ellsworth advised a triangular piano--the square shapes were so
inexpressibly wearisome to the initiated.  Cowperwood listened
fascinated.  He foresaw a home which would be chaste, soothing,
and delightful to look upon.  If he hung pictures, gilt frames
were to be the setting, large and deep; and if he wished a
picture-gallery, the library could be converted into that, and
the general living-room, which lay between the library and the
parlor on the second-floor, could be turned into a combination
library and living-room.  This was eventually done; but not until
his taste for pictures had considerably advanced.

It was now that he began to take a keen interest in objects of
art, pictures, bronzes, little carvings and figurines, for his
cabinets, pedestals, tables, and etageres.  Philadelphia did not
offer much that was distinguished in this realm--certainly not
in the open market.  There were many private houses which were
enriched by travel; but his connection with the best families was
as yet small.  There were then two famous American sculptors,
Powers and Hosmer, of whose work he had examples; but Ellsworth
told him that they were not the last word in sculpture and that
he should look into the merits of the ancients.  He finally secured
a head of David, by Thorwaldsen, which delighted him, and some
landscapes by Hunt, Sully, and Hart, which seemed somewhat in the
spirit of his new world.

The effect of a house of this character on its owner is unmistakable.
We think we are individual, separate, above houses and material
objects generally; but there is a subtle connection which makes
them reflect us quite as much as we reflect them.  They lend dignity,
subtlety, force, each to the other, and what beauty, or lack of
it, there is, is shot back and forth from one to the other as a
shuttle in a loom, weaving, weaving.  Cut the thread, separate a
man from that which is rightfully his own, characteristic of him,
and you have a peculiar figure, half success, half failure, much
as a spider without its web, which will never be its whole self
again until all its dignities and emoluments are restored.

The sight of his new house going up made Cowperwood feel of more
weight in the world, and the possession of his suddenly achieved
connection with the city treasurer was as though a wide door had
been thrown open to the Elysian fields of opportunity.  He rode
about the city those days behind a team of spirited bays, whose
glossy hides and metaled harness bespoke the watchful care of
hostler and coachman.  Ellsworth was building an attractive stable
in the little side street back of the houses, for the joint use
of both families.  He told Mrs. Cowperwood that he intended to buy
her a victoria--as the low, open, four-wheeled coach was then known--
as soon as they were well settled in their new home, and that they
were to go out more.  There was some talk about the value of
entertaining--that he would have to reach out socially for certain
individuals who were not now known to him.  Together with Anna,
his sister, and his two brothers, Joseph and Edward, they could
use the two houses jointly.  There was no reason why Anna should
not make a splendid match.  Joe and Ed might marry well, since they
were not destined to set the world on fire in commerce.  At least
it would not hurt them to try.

"Don't you think you will like that?" he asked his wife, referring
to his plans for entertaining.

She smiled wanly. "I suppose so," she said.





Chapter XVI




It was not long after the arrangement between Treasurer Stener
and Cowperwood had been made that the machinery for the carrying
out of that political-financial relationship was put in motion.
The sum of two hundred and ten thousand dollars in six per cent.
interest-bearing certificates, payable in ten years, was set over
to the credit of Cowperwood & Co. on the books of the city, subject
to his order.  Then, with proper listing, he began to offer it in
small amounts at more than ninety, at the same time creating the
impression that it was going to be a prosperous investment.  The
certificates gradually rose and were unloaded in rising amounts
until one hundred was reached, when all the two hundred thousand
dollars' worth--two thousand certificates in all--was fed out in
small lots.  Stener was satisfied.  Two hundred shares had been
carried for him and sold at one hundred, which netted him two
thousand dollars.  It was illegitimate gain, unethical; but his
conscience was not very much troubled by that.  He had none, truly.
He saw visions of a halcyon future.

It is difficult to make perfectly clear what a subtle and significant
power this suddenly placed in the hands of Cowperwood.  Consider
that he was only twenty-eight--nearing twenty-nine.  Imagine yourself
by nature versed in the arts of finance, capable of playing with
sums of money in the forms of stocks, certificates, bonds, and cash,
as the ordinary man plays with checkers or chess.  Or, better yet,
imagine yourself one of those subtle masters of the mysteries of
the higher forms of chess--the type of mind so well illustrated by
the famous and historic chess-players, who could sit with their
backs to a group of rivals playing fourteen men at once, calling
out all the moves in turn, remembering all the positions of all
the men on all the boards, and winning.  This, of course, would be
an overstatement of the subtlety of Cowperwood at this time, and
yet it would not be wholly out of bounds.  He knew instinctively
what could be done with a given sum of money--how as cash it could
be deposited in one place, and yet as credit and the basis of moving
checks, used in not one but many other places at the same time.
When properly watched and followed this manipulation gave him the
constructive and purchasing power of ten and a dozen times as much
as his original sum might have represented.  He knew instinctively
the principles of "pyramiding" and "kiting."  He could see exactly
not only how he could raise and lower the value of these certificates
of loan, day after day and year after year--if he were so fortunate
as to retain his hold on the city treasurer--but also how this would
give him a credit with the banks hitherto beyond his wildest dreams.
His father's bank was one of the first to profit by this and to
extend him loans.  The various local politicians and bosses--
Mollenhauer, Butler, Simpson, and others--seeing the success of his
efforts in this direction, speculated in city loan.  He became known
to Mollenhauer and Simpson, by reputation, if not personally, as
the man who was carrying this city loan proposition to a successful
issue.  Stener was supposed to have done a clever thing in finding
him.  The stock exchange stipulated that all trades were to be
compared the same day and settled before the close of the next;
but this working arrangement with the new city treasurer gave
Cowperwood much more latitude, and now he had always until the first
of the month, or practically thirty days at times, in which to
render an accounting for all deals connected with the loan issue.

And, moreover, this was really not an accounting in the sense of
removing anything from his hands.  Since the issue was to be so
large, the sum at his disposal would always be large, and
so-called transfers and balancing at the end of the month would
be a mere matter of bookkeeping.  He could use these city loan
certificates deposited with him for manipulative purposes,
deposit them at any bank as collateral for a loan, quite as if
they were his own, thus raising seventy per cent. of their actual
value in cash, and he did not hesitate to do so.  He could take
this cash, which need not be accounted for until the end of the
month, and cover other stock transactions, on which he could
borrow again.  There was no limit to the resources of which he
now found himself possessed, except the resources of his own energy,
ingenuity, and the limits of time in which he had to work.  The
politicians did not realize what a bonanza he was making of it
all for himself, because they were as yet unaware of the subtlety
of his mind.  When Stener told him, after talking the matter over
with the mayor, Strobik, and others that he would formally, during
the course of the year, set over on the city's books all of the
two millions in city loan, Cowperwood was silent--but with delight.
Two millions! His to play with! He had been called in as a
financial adviser, and he had given his advice and it had been
taken! Well.  He was not a man who inherently was troubled with
conscientious scruples.  At the same time he still believed himself
financially honest.  He was no sharper or shrewder than any other
financier--certainly no sharper than any other would be if he
could.

It should be noted here that this proposition of Stener's in regard
to city money had no connection with the attitude of the principal
leaders in local politics in regard to street-railway control, which
was a new and intriguing phase of the city's financial life.  Many
of the leading financiers and financier-politicians were interested
in that.  For instance, Messrs. Mollenhauer, Butler, and Simpson
were interested in street-railways separately on their own account.
There was no understanding between them on this score.  If they had
thought at all on the matter they would have decided that they did
not want any outsider to interfere.  As a matter of fact the
street-railway business in Philadelphia was not sufficiently developed
at this time to suggest to any one the grand scheme of union which
came later.  Yet in connection with this new arrangement between
Stener and Cowperwood, it was Strobik who now came forward to
Stener with an idea of his own.  All were certain to make money
through Cowperwood--he and Stener, especially.  What was amiss,
therefore, with himself and Stener and with Cowperwood as their--
or rather Stener's secret representative, since Strobik did not
dare to appear in the matter--buying now sufficient street-railway
shares in some one line to control it, and then, if he, Strobik,
could, by efforts of his own, get the city council to set aside
certain streets for its extension, why, there you were--they would
own it.  Only, later, he proposed to shake Stener out if he could.
But this preliminary work had to be done by some one, and it might
as well be Stener.  At the same time, as he saw, this work had to
be done very carefully, because naturally his superiors were
watchful, and if they found him dabbling in affairs of this kind
to his own advantage, they might make it impossible for him to
continue politically in a position where he could help himself
just the same.  Any outside organization such as a street-railway
company already in existence had a right to appeal to the city
council for privileges which would naturally further its and the
city's growth, and, other things being equal, these could not be
refused.  It would not do for him to appear, however, both as a
shareholder and president of the council.  But with Cowperwood
acting privately for Stener it would be another thing.

The interesting thing about this proposition as finally presented
by Stener for Strobik to Cowperwood, was that it raised, without
appearing to do so, the whole question of Cowperwood's attitude
toward the city administration.  Although he was dealing privately
for Edward Butler as an agent, and with this same plan in mind,
and although he had never met either Mollenhauer or Simpson, he
nevertheless felt that in so far as the manipulation of the city
loan was concerned he was acting for them.  On the other hand, in
this matter of the private street-railway purchase which Stener
now brought to him, he realized from the very beginning, by Stener's
attitude, that there was something untoward in it, that Stener felt
he was doing something which he ought not to do.

"Cowperwood," he said to him the first morning he ever broached
this matter--it was in Stener's office, at the old city hall at
Sixth and Chestnut, and Stener, in view of his oncoming prosperity,
was feeling very good indeed--"isn't there some street-railway
property around town here that a man could buy in on and get control
of if he had sufficient money?"

Cowperwood knew that there were such properties.  His very alert
mind had long since sensed the general opportunities here.  The
omnibuses were slowly disappearing.  The best routes were already
preempted.  Still, there were other streets, and the city was
growing.  The incoming population would make great business in
the future.  One could afford to pay almost any price for the
short lines already built if one could wait and extend the lines
into larger and better areas later.  And already he had conceived
in his own mind the theory of the "endless chain," or "argeeable
formula," as it was later termed, of buying a certain property on
a long-time payment and issuing stocks or bonds sufficient not only
to pay your seller, but to reimburse you for your trouble, to say
nothing of giving you a margin wherewith to invest in other things--
allied properties, for instance, against which more bonds could be
issued, and so on, ad infinitum.  It became an old story later,
but it was new at that time, and he kept the thought closely to
himself.  None the less he was glad to have Stener speak of this,
since street-railways were his hobby, and he was convinced that
he would be a great master of them if he ever had an opportunity
to control them.

"Why, yes, George," he said, noncommittally, there are two or
three that offer a good chance if a man had money enough.  I notice
blocks of stock being offered on 'change now and then by one person
and another.  It would be good policy to pick these things up as
they're offered, and then to see later if some of the other
stockholders won't want to sell out.  Green and Coates, now, looks
like a good proposition to me.  If I had three or four hundred
thousand dollars that I thought I could put into that by degrees
I would follow it up.  It only takes about thirty per cent. of the
stock of any railroad to control it.  Most of the shares are
scattered around so far and wide that they never vote, and I think
two or three hundred thousand dollars would control that road."
He mentioned one other line that might be secured in the same way
in the course of time.

Stener meditated.  "That's a good deal of money," he said,
thoughtfully.  "I'll talk to you about that some more later."
And he was off to see Strobik none the less.

Cowperwood knew that Stener did not have any two or three hundred
thousand dollars to invest in anything.  There was only one way
that he could get it--and that was to borrow it out of the city
treasury and forego the interest.  But he would not do that on his
own initiative.  Some one else must be behind him and who else
other than Mollenhauer, or Simpson, or possibly even Butler, though
he doubted that, unless the triumvirate were secretly working
together.  But what of it? The larger politicians were always
using the treasury, and he was thinking now, only, of his own
attitude in regard to the use of this money.  No harm could come
to him, if Stener's ventures were successful; and there was no
reason why they should not be.  Even if they were not he would be
merely acting as an agent.  In addition, he saw how in the
manipulation of this money for Stener he could probably eventually
control certain lines for himself.

There was one line being laid out to within a few blocks of his
new home--the Seventeenth and Nineteenth Street line it was called--
which interested him greatly.  He rode on it occasionally when he
was delayed or did not wish to trouble about a vehicle.  It ran
through two thriving streets of red-brick houses, and was destined
to have a great future once the city grew large enough.  As yet it
was really not long enough.  If he could get that, for instance,
and combine it with Butler's lines, once they were secured--or
Mollenhauer's, or Simpson's, the legislature could be induced to
give them additional franchises.  He even dreamed of a combination
between Butler, Mollenhauer, Simpson, and himself.  Between them,
politically, they could get anything.  But Butler was not a
philanthropist.  He would have to be approached with a very sizable
bird in hand.  The combination must be obviously advisable.
Besides, he was dealing for Butler in street-railway stocks, and
if this particular line were such a good thing Butler might wonder
why it had not been brought to him in the first place.  It would
be better, Frank thought, to wait until he actually had it as his
own, in which case it would be a different matter.  Then he could
talk as a capitalist.  He began to dream of a city-wide
street-railway system controlled by a few men, or preferably himself
alone.





Chapter XVII




The days that had been passing brought Frank Cowperwood and Aileen
Butler somewhat closer together in spirit.  Because of the pressure
of his growing affairs he had not paid so much attention to her
as he might have, but he had seen her often this past year.  She
was now nineteen and had grown into some subtle thoughts of her
own.  For one thing, she was beginning to see the difference between
good taste and bad taste in houses and furnishings.

"Papa, why do we stay in this old barn?" she asked her father one
evening at dinner, when the usual family group was seated at the
table.

"What's the matter with this house, I'd like to know?" demanded
Butler, who was drawn up close to the table, his napkin tucked
comfortably under his chin, for he insisted on this when company
was not present.  "I don't see anything the matter with this house.
Your mother and I manage to live in it well enough."

"Oh, it's terrible, papa.  You know it," supplemented Norah, who
was seventeen and quite as bright as her sister, though a little
less experienced.  "Everybody says so.  Look at all the nice
houses that are being built everywhere about here."

"Everybody! Everybody! Who is 'everybody,' I'd like to know?"
demanded Butler, with the faintest touch of choler and much humor.
"I'm somebody, and I like it.  Those that don't like it don't
have to live in it.  Who are they? What's the matter with it,
I'd like to know?"

The question in just this form had been up a number of times
before, and had been handled in just this manner, or passed over
entirely with a healthy Irish grin.  To-night, however, it was
destined for a little more extended thought.

"You know it's bad, papa," corrected Aileen, firmly.  "Now what's
the use getting mad about it? It's old and cheap and dingy.  The
furniture is all worn out.  That old piano in there ought to be
given away.  I won't play on it any more.  The Cowperwoods--"

"Old is it!" exclaimed Butler, his accent sharpening somewhat with
his self-induced rage.  He almost pronounced it "owled."  "Dingy,
hi! Where do you get that? At your convent, I suppose.  And where
is it worn? Show me where it's worn."

He was coming to her reference to Cowperwood, but he hadn't reached
that when Mrs. Butler interfered.  She was a stout, broad-faced
woman, smiling-mouthed most of the time, with blurry, gray Irish
eyes, and a touch of red in her hair, now modified by grayness.
Her cheek, below the mouth, on the left side, was sharply accented
by a large wen.

"Children! children!" (Mr. Butler, for all his commercial and
political responsibility, was as much a child to her as any.)
"Youse mustn't quarrel now.  Come now.  Give your father the
tomatoes."

There was an Irish maid serving at table; but plates were passed
from one to the other just the same.  A heavily ornamented
chandelier, holding sixteen imitation candles in white porcelain,
hung low over the table and was brightly lighted, another offense
to Aileen.

"Mama, how often have I told you not to say 'youse'?" pleaded
Norah, very much disheartened by her mother's grammatical errors.
"You know you said you wouldn't."

"And who's to tell your mother what she should say?" called Butler,
more incensed than ever at this sudden and unwarranted rebellion
and assault.  "Your mother talked before ever you was born, I'd
have you know.  If it weren't for her workin' and slavin' you
wouldn't have any fine manners to be paradin' before her.  I'd
have you know that.  She's a better woman nor any you'll be
runnin' with this day, you little baggage, you!"

"Mama, do you hear what he's calling me?" complained Norah,
hugging close to her mother's arm and pretending fear and
dissatisfaction.

"Eddie! Eddie!" cautioned Mrs. Butler, pleading with her husband.
"You know he don't mean that, Norah, dear.  Don't you know he don't?"

She was stroking her baby's head.  The reference to her grammar
had not touched her at all.

Butler was sorry that he had called his youngest a baggage; but
these children--God bless his soul--were a great annoyance.  Why,
in the name of all the saints, wasn't this house good enough for
them?

"Why don't you people quit fussing at the table?" observed Callum,
a likely youth, with black hair laid smoothly over his forehead in
a long, distinguished layer reaching from his left to close to his
right ear, and his upper lip carrying a short, crisp mustache.  His
nose was short and retrousse, and his ears were rather prominent;
but he was bright and attractive.  He and Owen both realized that
the house was old and poorly arranged; but their father and mother
liked it, and business sense and family peace dictated silence on
this score.

"Well, I think it's mean to have to live in this old place when
people not one-fourth as good as we are are living in better ones.
The Cowperwoods--why, even the Cowperwoods--"

"Yes, the Cowperwoods! What about the Cowperwoods?" demanded Butler,
turning squarely to Aileen--she was sitting beside him---his big,
red face glowing.

"Why, even they have a better house than we have, and he's merely
an agent of yours."

"The Cowperwoods! The Cowperwoods! I'll not have any talk about the
Cowperwoods.  I'm not takin' my rules from the Cowperwoods.  Suppose
they have a fine house, what of it? My house is my house.  I want to
live here.  I've lived here too long to be pickin' up and movin'
away.  If you don't like it you know what else you can do.  Move
if you want to.  I'll not move."

It was Butler's habit when he became involved in these family
quarrels, which were as shallow as puddles, to wave his hands
rather antagonistically under his wife's or his children's noses.

"Oh, well, I will get out one of these days," Aileen replied.
"Thank heaven I won't have to live here forever."

There flashed across her mind the beautiful reception-room, library,
parlor, and boudoirs of the Cowperwoods, which were now being
arranged and about which Anna Cowperwood talked to her so much--
their dainty, lovely triangular grand piano in gold and painted
pink and blue.  Why couldn't they have things like that? Her father
was unquestionably a dozen times as wealthy.  But no, her father,
whom she loved dearly, was of the old school.  He was just what
people charged him with being, a rough Irish contractor.  He might
be rich.  She flared up at the injustice of things--why couldn't
he have been rich and refined, too? Then they could have--but, oh,
what was the use of complaining? They would never get anywhere
with her father and mother in charge.  She would just have to
wait.  Marriage was the answer--the right marriage.  But whom was
she to marry?

"You surely are not going to go on fighting about that now,"
pleaded Mrs. Butler, as strong and patient as fate itself.  She
knew where Aileen's trouble lay.

"But we might have a decent house," insisted Aileen.  "Or this
one done over," whispered Norah to her mother.

"Hush now! In good time," replied Mrs. Butler to Norah.  "Wait.
We'll fix it all up some day, sure.  You run to your lessons now.
You've had enough."

Norah arose and left.  Aileen subsided.  Her father was simply
stubborn and impossible.  And yet he was sweet, too.  She pouted
in order to compel him to apologize.

"Come now," he said, after they had left the table, and conscious
of the fact that his daughter was dissatisfied with him.  He must
do something to placate her.  "Play me somethin' on the piano,
somethin' nice."  He preferred showy, clattery things which
exhibited her skill and muscular ability and left him wondering
how she did it.  That was what education was for--to enable her
to play these very difficult things quickly and forcefully.  "And
you can have a new piano any time you like.  Go and see about it.
This looks pretty good to me, but if you don't want it, all right."
Aileen squeezed his arm.  What was the use of arguing with her
father? What good would a lone piano do, when the whole house
and the whole family atmosphere were at fault? But she played
Schumann, Schubert, Offenbach, Chopin, and the old gentleman
strolled to and fro and mused, smiling.  There was real feeling
and a thoughtful interpretation given to some of these things, for
Aileen was not without sentiment, though she was so strong,
vigorous, and withal so defiant; but it was all lost on him.  He
looked on her, his bright, healthy, enticingly beautiful daughter,
and wondered what was going to become of her.  Some rich man was
going to many her--some fine, rich young man with good business
instincts--and he, her father, would leave her a lot of money.

There was a reception and a dance to be given to celebrate the
opening of the two Cowperwood homes--the reception to be held in
Frank Cowperwood's residence, and the dance later at his father's.
The Henry Cowperwood domicile was much more pretentious, the
reception-room, parlor, music-room, and conservatory being in this
case all on the ground floor and much larger.  Ellsworth had
arranged it so that those rooms, on occasion, could be thrown into
one, leaving excellent space for promenade, auditorium, dancing--
anything, in fact, that a large company might require.  It had
been the intention all along of the two men to use these houses
jointly.  There was, to begin with, a combination use of the
various servants, the butler, gardener, laundress, and maids.
Frank Cowperwood employed a governess for his children.  The
butler was really not a butler in the best sense.  He was Henry
Cowperwood's private servitor.  But he could carve and preside,
and he could be used in either house as occasion warranted.  There
was also a hostler and a coachman for the joint stable.  When two
carriages were required at once, both drove.  It made a very
agreeable and satisfactory working arrangement.

The preparation of this reception had been quite a matter of
importance, for it was necessary for financial reasons to make it
as extensive as possible, and for social reasons as exclusive.
It was therefore decided that the afternoon reception at Frank's
house, with its natural overflow into Henry W.'s, was to be for
all--the Tighes, Steners, Butlers, Mollenhauers, as well as the
more select groups to which, for instance, belonged Arthur Rivers,
Mrs. Seneca Davis, Mr. and Mrs. Trenor Drake, and some of the
younger Drexels and Clarks, whom Frank had met.  It was not likely
that the latter would condescend, but cards had to be sent.  Later
in the evening a less democratic group if possible was to be
entertained, albeit it would have to be extended to include the
friends of Anna, Mrs. Cowperwood, Edward, and Joseph, and any list
which Frank might personally have in mind.  This was to be the
list.  The best that could be persuaded, commanded, or influenced
of the young and socially elect were to be invited here.

It was not possible, however, not to invite the Butlers, parents
and children, particularly the children, for both afternoon and
evening, since Cowperwood was personally attracted to Aileen and
despite the fact that the presence of the parents would be most
unsatisfactory.  Even Aileen as he knew was a little unsatisfactory
to Anna and Mrs. Frank Cowperwood; and these two, when they were
together supervising the list of invitations, often talked about
it.

"She's so hoidenish," observed Anna, to her sister-in-law, when
they came to the name of Aileen.  "She thinks she knows so much,
and she isn't a bit refined.  Her father! Well, if I had her father
I wouldn't talk so smart."

Mrs. Cowperwood, who was before her secretaire in her new boudoir,
lifted her eyebrows.

"You know, Anna, I sometimes wish that Frank's business did not
compel me to have anything to do with them.  Mrs. Butler is such
a bore.  She means well enough, but she doesn't know anything.
And Aileen is too rough.  She's too forward, I think.  She comes
over here and plays upon the piano, particularly when Frank's
here.  I wouldn't mind so much for myself, but I know it must
annoy him.  All her pieces are so noisy.  She never plays anything
really delicate and refined."

"I don't like the way she dresses," observed Anna, sympathetically.
"She gets herself up too conspicuously.  Now, the other day I saw
her out driving, and oh, dear! you should have seen her! She had
on a crimson Zouave jacket heavily braided with black about the
edges, and a turban with a huge crimson feather, and crimson
ribbons reaching nearly to her waist.  Imagine that kind of a hat
to drive in.  And her hands! You should have seen the way she held
her hands--oh--just so--self-consciously.  They were curved just
so"--and she showed how.  "She had on yellow gauntlets, and she
held the reins in one hand and the whip in the other.  She drives
just like mad when she drives, anyhow, and William, the footman,
was up behind her.  You should just have seen her.  Oh, dear! oh,
dear! she does think she is so much!" And Anna giggled, half in
reproach, half in amusement.

"I suppose we'll have to invite her; I don't see how we can get
out of it.  I know just how she'll do, though.  She'll walk about
and pose and hold her nose up."

"Really, I don't see how she can," commented Anna.  "Now, I like
Norah.  She's much nicer.  She doesn't think she's so much."

"I like Norah, too," added Mrs. Cowperwood.  "She's really very
sweet, and to me she's prettier."

"Oh, indeed, I think so, too."

It was curious, though, that it was Aileen who commanded nearly all
their attention and fixed their minds on her so-called
idiosyncrasies.  All they said was in its peculiar way true; but
in addition the girl was really beautiful and much above the average
intelligence and force.  She was running deep with ambition, and
she was all the more conspicuous, and in a way irritating to some,
because she reflected in her own consciousness her social defects,
against which she was inwardly fighting.  She resented the fact
that people could justly consider her parents ineligible, and for
that reason her also.  She was intrinsically as worth while as
any one.  Cowperwood, so able, and rapidly becoming so distinguished,
seemed to realize it.  The days that had been passing had brought
them somewhat closer together in spirit.  He was nice to her and
liked to talk to her.  Whenever he was at her home now, or she was
at his and he was present, he managed somehow to say a word.  He
would come over quite near and look at her in a warm friendly
fashion.

"Well, Aileen"--she could see his genial eyes--"how is it with you?
How are your father and mother? Been out driving? That's fine.  I
saw you to-day.  You looked beautiful."

"Oh, Mr. Cowperwood!"

"You did.  You looked stunning.  A black riding-habit becomes you.
I can tell your gold hair a long way off."

"Oh, now, you mustn't say that to me.  You'll make me vain.  My
mother and father tell me I'm too vain as it is."

"Never mind your mother and father.  I say you looked stunning,
and you did.  You always do."

"Oh!"

She gave a little gasp of delight.  The color mounted to her cheeks
and temples.  Mr. Cowperwood knew of course.  He was so informed
and intensely forceful.  And already he was so much admired by so
many, her own father and mother included, and by Mr. Mollenhauer
and Mr. Simpson, so she heard.  And his own home and office were
so beautiful.  Besides, his quiet intensity matched her restless
force.

Aileen and her sister were accordingly invited to the reception
but the Butlers mere and pere were given to understand, in as
tactful a manner as possible, that the dance afterward was
principally for young people.

The reception brought a throng of people.  There were many, very
many, introductions.  There were tactful descriptions of little
effects Mr. Ellsworth had achieved under rather trying circumstances;
walks under the pergola; viewings of both homes in detail.  Many
of the guests were old friends.  They gathered in the libraries
and dining-rooms and talked.  There was much jesting, some slappings
of shoulders, some good story-telling, and so the afternoon waned
into evening, and they went away.

Aileen had created an impression in a street costume of dark blue
silk with velvet pelisse to match, and trimmed with elaborate
pleatings and shirrings of the same materials.  A toque of blue
velvet, with high crown and one large dark-red imitation orchid,
had given her a jaunty, dashing air.  Beneath the toque her
red-gold hair was arranged in an enormous chignon, with one long
curl escaping over her collar.  She was not exactly as daring as
she seemed, but she loved to give that impression.

"You look wonderful," Cowperwood said as she passed him.

"I'll look different to-night," was her answer.

She had swung herself with a slight, swaggering stride into the
dining-room and disappeared.  Norah and her mother stayed to chat
with Mrs. Cowperwood.

"Well, it's lovely now, isn't it?" breathed Mrs. Butler.  "Sure
you'll be happy here.  Sure you will.  When Eddie fixed the house
we're in now, says I: 'Eddie, it's almost too fine for us altogether--
surely it is,' and he says, says 'e, 'Norah, nothin' this side o'
heavin or beyond is too good for ye'--and he kissed me.  Now what
d'ye think of that fer a big, hulkin' gossoon?"

"It's perfectly lovely, I think, Mrs. Butler," commented Mrs.
Cowperwood, a little bit nervous because of others.

"Mama does love to talk so.  Come on, mama.  Let's look at the
dining-room."  It was Norah talking.

"Well, may ye always be happy in it.  I wish ye that.  I've always
been happy in mine.  May ye always be happy."  And she waddled
good-naturedly along.

The Cowperwood family dined hastily alone between seven and eight.
At nine the evening guests began to arrive, and now the throng was
of a different complexion--girls in mauve and cream-white and
salmon-pink and silver-gray, laying aside lace shawls and loose
dolmans, and the men in smooth black helping them.  Outside in the
cold, the carriage doors were slamming, and new guests were arriving
constantly.  Mrs. Cowperwood stood with her husband and Anna in
the main entrance to the reception room, while Joseph and Edward
Cowperwood and Mr. and Mrs. Henry W. Cowperwood lingered in the
background.  Lillian looked charming in a train gown of old rose,
with a low, square neck showing a delicate chemisette of fine lace.
Her face and figure were still notable, though her face was not
as smoothly sweet as it had been years before when Cowperwood had
first met her.  Anna Cowperwood was not pretty, though she could
not be said to be homely.  She was small and dark, with a turned-up
nose, snapping black eyes, a pert, inquisitive, intelligent, and
alas, somewhat critical, air.  She had considerable tact in the
matter of dressing.  Black, in spite of her darkness, with shining
beads of sequins on it, helped her complexion greatly, as did a
red rose in her hair.  She had smooth, white well-rounded arms and
shoulders.  Bright eyes, a pert manner, clever remarks--these
assisted to create an illusion of charm, though, as she often said,
it was of little use.  "Men want the dolly things."

In the evening inpour of young men and women came Aileen and Norah,
the former throwing off a thin net veil of black lace and a dolman
of black silk, which her brother Owen took from her.  Norah was
with Callum, a straight, erect, smiling young Irishman, who looked
as though he might carve a notable career for himself.  She wore a
short, girlish dress that came to a little below her shoe-tops, a
pale-figured lavender and white silk, with a fluffy hoop-skirt of
dainty laced-edged ruffles, against which tiny bows of lavender
stood out in odd places.  There was a great sash of lavender about
her waist, and in her hair a rosette of the same color.  She looked
exceedingly winsome--eager and bright-eyed.

But behind her was her sister in ravishing black satin, scaled as
a fish with glistening crimsoned-silver sequins, her round, smooth
arms bare to the shoulders, her corsage cut as low in the front
and back as her daring, in relation to her sense of the proprieties,
permitted.  She was naturally of exquisite figure, erect,
full-breasted, with somewhat more than gently swelling hips, which,
nevertheless, melted into lovely, harmonious lines; and this
low-cut corsage, receding back and front into a deep V, above a
short, gracefully draped overskirt of black tulle and silver
tissue, set her off to perfection.  Her full, smooth, roundly
modeled neck was enhanced in its cream-pink whiteness by an
inch-wide necklet of black jet cut in many faceted black squares.
Her complexion, naturally high in tone because of the pink of
health, was enhanced by the tiniest speck of black court-plaster
laid upon her cheekbone; and her hair, heightened in its reddish-gold
by her dress, was fluffed loosely and adroitly about her eyes.
The main mass of this treasure was done in two loose braids caught
up in a black spangled net at the back of her neck; and her
eyebrows had been emphasized by a pencil into something almost as
significant as her hair.  She was, for the occasion, a little too
emphatic, perhaps, and yet more because of her burning vitality
than of her costume.  Art for her should have meant subduing her
physical and spiritual significance.  Life for her meant emphasizing
them.

"Lillian!" Anna nudged her sister-in-law.  She was grieved to think
that Aileen was wearing black and looked so much better than either
of them.

"I see," Lillian replied, in a subdued tone.

"So you're back again."  She was addressing Aileen.  "It's chilly
out, isn't it?"

"I don't mind.  Don't the rooms look lovely?"

She was gazing at the softly lighted chambers and the throng before
her.

Norah began to babble to Anna.  "You know, I just thought I never
would get this old thing on."  She was speaking of her dress.
"Aileen wouldn't help me--the mean thing!"

Aileen had swept on to Cowperwood and his mother, who was near
him.  She had removed from her arm the black satin ribbon which
held her train and kicked the skirts loose and free.  Her eyes
gleamed almost pleadingly for all her hauteur, like a spirited
collie's, and her even teeth showed beautifully.

Cowperwood understood her precisely, as he did any fine, spirited
animal.

"I can't tell you how nice you look," he whispered to her,
familiarly, as though there was an old understanding between them.
"You're like fire and song."

He did not know why he said this.  He was not especially poetic.
He had not formulated the phrase beforehand.  Since his first
glimpse of her in the hall, his feelings and ideas had been leaping
and plunging like spirited horses.  This girl made him set his
teeth and narrow his eyes.  Involuntarily he squared his jaw,
looking more defiant, forceful, efficient, as she drew near,

But Aileen and her sister were almost instantly surrounded by
young men seeking to be introduced and to write their names on
dance-cards, and for the time being she was lost to view.





Chapter XVIII




The seeds of change--subtle, metaphysical--are rooted deeply.
From the first mention of the dance by Mrs. Cowperwood and Anna,
Aileen had been conscious of a desire toward a more effective
presentation of herself than as yet, for all her father's money,
she had been able to achieve.  The company which she was to
encounter, as she well knew, was to be so much more impressive,
distinguished than anything she had heretofore known socially.
Then, too, Cowperwood appeared as something more definite in her
mind than he had been before, and to save herself she could not
get him out of her consciousness.

A vision of him had come to her but an hour before as she was
dressing.  In a way she had dressed for him.  She was never
forgetful of the times he had looked at her in an interested
way.  He had commented on her hands once.  To-day he had said
that she looked "stunning," and she had thought how easy it
would be to impress him to-night--to show him how truly beautiful
she was.

She had stood before her mirror between eight and nine--it was
nine-fifteen before she was really ready--and pondered over what
she should wear.  There were two tall pier-glasses in her wardrobe--
an unduly large piece of furniture--and one in her closet door.
She stood before the latter, looking at her bare arms and shoulders,
her shapely figure, thinking of the fact that her left shoulder
had a dimple, and that she had selected garnet garters decorated
with heart-shaped silver buckles.  The corset could not be made
quite tight enough at first, and she chided her maid, Kathleen
Kelly.  She studied how to arrange her hair, and there was much
ado about that before it was finally adjusted.  She penciled her
eyebrows and plucked at the hair about her forehead to make it
loose and shadowy.  She cut black court-plaster with her nail-shears
and tried different-sized pieces in different places.  Finally,
she found one size and one place that suited her.  She turned her
head from side to side, looking at the combined effect of her
hair, her penciled brows, her dimpled shoulder, and the black
beauty-spot.  If some one man could see her as she was now, some
time! Which man? That thought scurried back like a frightened rat
into its hole.  She was, for all her strength, afraid of the
thought of the one--the very deadly--the man.

And then she came to the matter of a train-gown.  Kathleen laid
out five, for Aileen had come into the joy and honor of these
things recently, and she had, with the permission of her mother
and father, indulged herself to the full.  She studied a golden-yellow
silk, with cream-lace shoulder-straps, and some gussets of garnet
beads in the train that shimmered delightfully, but set it aside.
She considered favorably a black-and-white striped silk of odd
gray effect, and, though she was sorely tempted to wear it, finally
let it go.  There was a maroon dress, with basque and overskirt
over white silk; a rich cream-colored satin; and then this black
sequined gown, which she finally chose.  She tried on the
cream-colored satin first, however, being in much doubt about
it; but her penciled eyes and beauty-spot did not seem to
harmonize with it.  Then she put on the black silk with its
glistening crimsoned-silver sequins, and, lo, it touched her.
She liked its coquettish drapery of tulle and silver about the
hips.  The "overskirt," which was at that time just coming into
fashion, though avoided by the more conservative, had been adopted
by Aileen with enthusiasm.  She thrilled a little at the rustle of
this black dress, and thrust her chin and nose forward to make it
set right.  Then after having Kathleen tighten her corsets a
little more, she gathered the train over her arm by its train-band
and looked again.  Something was wanting.  Oh, yes, her neck!
What to wear--red coral? It did not look right.  A string of
pearls? That would not do either.  There was a necklace made of
small cameos set in silver which her mother had purchased, and
another of diamonds which belonged to her mother, but they were
not right.  Finally, her jet necklet, which she did not value very
highly, came into her mind, and, oh, how lovely it looked! How
soft and smooth and glistening her chin looked above it.  She
caressed her neck affectionately, called for her black lace
mantilla, her long, black silk dolman lined with red, and she
was ready.

The ball-room, as she entered, was lovely enough.  The young men
and young women she saw there were interesting, and she was not
wanting for admirers.  The most aggressive of these youths--the
most forceful--recognized in this maiden a fillip to life, a sting
to existence.  She was as a honey-jar surrounded by too hungry
flies.

But it occurred to her, as her dance-list was filling up, that
there was not much left for Mr. Cowperwood, if he should care to
dance with her.

Cowperwood was meditating, as he received the last of the guests,
on the subtlety of this matter of the sex arrangement of life.
Two sexes.  He was not at all sure that there was any law governing
them.  By comparison now with Aileen Butler, his wife looked rather
dull, quite too old, and when he was ten years older she would
look very much older.

"Oh, yes, Ellsworth had made quite an attractive arrangement out
of these two houses--better than we ever thought he could do."
He was talking to Henry Hale Sanderson, a young banker.  "He had
the advantage of combining two into one, and I think he's done
more with my little one, considering the limitations of space,
than he has with this big one.  Father's has the advantage of size.
I tell the old gentleman he's simply built a lean-to for me."

His father and a number of his cronies were over in the dining-room
of his grand home, glad to get away from the crowd.  He would have
to stay, and, besides, he wanted to.  Had he better dance with
Aileen? His wife cared little for dancing, but he would have to
dance with her at least once.  There was Mrs. Seneca Davis smiling
at him, and Aileen.  By George, how wonderful! What a girl!

"I suppose your dance-list is full to overflowing.  Let me see."
He was standing before her and she was holding out the little
blue-bordered, gold-monogrammed booklet.  An orchestra was playing
in the music room.  The dance would begin shortly.  There were
delicately constructed, gold-tinted chairs about the walls and
behind palms.

He looked down into her eyes--those excited, life-loving, eager
eyes.

"You're quite full up.  Let me see.  Nine, ten, eleven.  Well,
that will be enough.  I don't suppose I shall want to dance very
much.  It's nice to be popular."

"I'm not sure about number three.  I think that's a mistake.  You
might have that if you wish."

She was falsifying.

"It doesn't matter so much about him, does it?"

His cheeks flushed a little as he said this.

"No."

Her own flamed.

"Well, I'll see where you are when it's called.  You're darling.
I'm afraid of you."  He shot a level, interpretive glance into
her eyes, then left.  Aileen's bosom heaved.  It was hard to
breathe sometimes in this warm air.

While he was dancing first with Mrs. Cowperwood and later with
Mrs. Seneca Davis, and still later with Mrs. Martyn Walker,
Cowperwood had occasion to look at Aileen often, and each time
that he did so there swept over him a sense of great vigor there,
of beautiful if raw, dynamic energy that to him was irresistible
and especially so to-night.  She was so young.  She was beautiful,
this girl, and in spite of his wife's repeated derogatory comments
he felt that she was nearer to his clear, aggressive, unblinking
attitude than any one whom he had yet seen in the form of woman.
She was unsophisticated, in a way, that was plain, and yet in
another way it would take so little to make her understand so much.
Largeness was the sense he had of her--not physically, though
she was nearly as tall as himself--but emotionally.  She seemed
so intensely alive.  She passed close to him a number of times,
her eyes wide and smiling, her lips parted, her teeth agleam, and
he felt a stirring of sympathy and companionship for her which he
had not previously experienced.  She was lovely, all of her--
delightful.

"I'm wondering if that dance is open now," he said to her as he
drew near toward the beginning of the third set.  She was seated
with her latest admirer in a far corner of the general living-room,
a clear floor now waxed to perfection.  A few palms here and
there made embrasured parapets of green.  "I hope you'll excuse me,"
he added, deferentially, to her companion.

"Surely," the latter replied, rising.

"Yes, indeed," she replied.  "And you'd better stay here with me.
It's going to begin soon.  You won't mind?" she added, giving her
companion a radiant smile.

"Not at all.  I've had a lovely waltz."  He strolled off.

Cowperwood sat down.  "That's young Ledoux, isn't it? I thought
so.  I saw you dancing.  You like it, don't you?"

"I'm crazy about it."

"Well, I can't say that myself.  It's fascinating, though.  Your
partner makes such a difference.  Mrs. Cowperwood doesn't like it
as much as I do."

His mention of Lillian made Aileen think of her in a faintly
derogative way for a moment.

"I think you dance very well.  I watched you, too."  She questioned
afterwards whether she should have said this.  It sounded most
forward now--almost brazen.

"Oh, did you?"

"Yes."

He was a little keyed up because of her--slightly cloudy in his
thoughts--because she was generating a problem in his life, or
would if he let her, and so his talk was a little tame.  He was
thinking of something to say--some words which would bring them
a little nearer together.  But for the moment he could not.  Truth
to tell, he wanted to say a great deal.

"Well, that was nice of you," he added, after a moment.  "What
made you do it?"

He turned with a mock air of inquiry.  The music was beginning
again.  The dancers were rising.  He arose.

He had not intended to give this particular remark a serious
turn; but, now that she was so near him, he looked into her eyes
steadily but with a soft appeal and said, "Yes, why?"

They had come out from behind the palms.  He had put his hand
to her waist.  His right arm held her left extended arm to arm,
palm to palm.  Her right hand was on his shoulder, and she was
close to him, looking into his eyes.  As they began the gay
undulations of the waltz she looked away and then down without
answering.  Her movements were as light and airy as those of a
butterfly.  He felt a sudden lightness himself, communicated as
by an invisible current.  He wanted to match the suppleness of
her body with his own, and did.  Her arms, the flash and glint
of the crimson sequins against the smooth, black silk of her
closely fitting dress, her neck, her glowing, radiant hair, all
combined to provoke a slight intellectual intoxication.  She was
so vigorously young, so, to him, truly beautiful.

"But you didn't answer," he continued.

"Isn't this lovely music?"

He pressed her fingers.

She lifted shy eyes to him now, for, in spite of her gay,
aggressive force, she was afraid of him.  His personality was
obviously so dominating.  Now that he was so close to her,
dancing, she conceived of him as something quite wonderful, and
yet she experienced a nervous reaction--a momentary desire to
run away.

"Very well, if you won't tell me," he smiled, mockingly.

He thought she wanted him to talk to her so, to tease her with
suggestions of this concealed feeling of his--this strong liking.
He wondered what could come of any such understanding as this,
anyhow?

"Oh, I just wanted to see how you danced," she said, tamely, the
force of her original feeling having been weakened by a thought
of what she was doing.  He noted the change and smiled.  It was
lovely to be dancing with her.  He had not thought mere dancing
could hold such charm.

"You like me?" he said, suddenly, as the music drew to its close.

She thrilled from head to toe at the question.  A piece of ice
dropped down her back could not have startled her more.  It was
apparently tactless, and yet it was anything but tactless.  She
looked up quickly, directly, but his strong eyes were too much for
her.

"Why, yes," she answered, as the music stopped, trying to keep an
even tone to her voice.  She was glad they were walking toward a
chair.

"I like you so much," he said, "that I have been wondering if you
really like me."  There was an appeal in his voice, soft and gentle.
His manner was almost sad.

"Why, yes," she replied, instantly, returning to her earlier mood
toward him.  "You know I do."

"I need some one like you to like me," he continued, in the same
vein.  "I need some one like you to talk to.  I didn't think so
before--but now I do.  You are beautiful--wonderful."

"We mustn't," she said.  "I mustn't.  I don't know what I'm doing."
She looked at a young man strolling toward her, and asked: "I have
to explain to him.  He's the one I had this dance with."

Cowperwood understood.  He walked away.  He was quite warm and
tense now--almost nervous.  It was quite clear to him that he had
done or was contemplating perhaps a very treacherous thing.  Under
the current code of society he had no right to do it.  It was
against the rules, as they were understood by everybody.  Her
father, for instance--his father--every one in this particular
walk of life.  However, much breaking of the rules under the
surface of things there might be, the rules were still there.  As
he had heard one young man remark once at school, when some story
had been told of a boy leading a girl astray and to a disastrous
end, "That isn't the way at all."

Still, now that he had said this, strong thoughts of her were in
his mind.  And despite his involved social and financial position,
which he now recalled, it was interesting to him to see how
deliberately and even calculatingly--and worse, enthusiastically--
he was pumping the bellows that tended only to heighten the flames
of his desire for this girl; to feed a fire that might ultimately
consume him--and how deliberately and resourcefully!

Aileen toyed aimlessly with her fan as a black-haired, thin-faced
young law student talked to her, and seeing Norah in the distance
she asked to be allowed to run over to her.

"Oh, Aileen," called Norah, "I've been looking for you everywhere.
Where have you been?"

"Dancing, of course.  Where do you suppose I've been? Didn't you
see me on the floor?"

"No, I didn't," complained Norah, as though it were most essential
that she should.  "How late are you going to stay?"

"Until it's over, I suppose.  I don't know."

"Owen says he's going at twelve."

"Well, that doesn't matter.  Some one will take me home.  Are you
having a good time?"

"Fine.  Oh, let me tell you.  I stepped on a lady's dress over
there, last dance.  She was terribly angry.  She gave me such a
look."

"Well, never mind, honey.  She won't hurt you.  Where are you going
now?"

Aileen always maintained a most guardian-like attitude toward her
sister.

"I want to find Callum.  He has to dance with me next time.  I
know what he's trying to do.  He's trying to get away from me.
But he won't."

Aileen smiled.  Norah looked very sweet.  And she was so bright.
What would she think of her if she knew? She turned back, and her
fourth partner sought her.  She began talking gayly, for she felt
that she had to make a show of composure; but all the while there
was ringing in her ears that definite question of his, "You like
me, don't you?" and her later uncertain but not less truthful
answer, "Yes, of course I do."





Chapter XIX




The growth of a passion is a very peculiar thing.  In highly
organized intellectual and artistic types it is so often apt to
begin with keen appreciation of certain qualities, modified by
many, many mental reservations.  The egoist, the intellectual,
gives but little of himself and asks much.  Nevertheless, the
lover of life, male or female, finding himself or herself in
sympathetic accord with such a nature, is apt to gain much.

Cowperwood was innately and primarily an egoist and intellectual,
though blended strongly therewith, was a humane and democratic
spirit.  We think of egoism and intellectualism as closely confined
to the arts.  Finance is an art.  And it presents the operations
of the subtlest of the intellectuals and of the egoists.  Cowperwood
was a financier.  Instead of dwelling on the works of nature, its
beauty and subtlety, to his material disadvantage, he found a happy
mean, owing to the swiftness of his intellectual operations,
whereby he could, intellectually and emotionally, rejoice in the
beauty of life without interfering with his perpetual material
and financial calculations.  And when it came to women and morals,
which involved so much relating to beauty, happiness, a sense of
distinction and variety in living, he was but now beginning to
suspect for himself at least that apart from maintaining organized
society in its present form there was no basis for this one-life,
one-love idea.  How had it come about that so many people agreed
on this single point, that it was good and necessary to marry one
woman and cleave to her until death? He did not know.  It was not
for him to bother about the subtleties of evolution, which even
then was being noised abroad, or to ferret out the curiosities of
history in connection with this matter.  He had no time.  Suffice
it that the vagaries of temperament and conditions with which he
came into immediate contact proved to him that there was great
dissatisfaction with that idea.  People did not cleave to each other
until death; and in thousands of cases where they did, they did not
want to.  Quickness of mind, subtlety of idea, fortuitousness of
opportunity, made it possible for some people to right their
matrimonial and social infelicities; whereas for others, because of
dullness of wit, thickness of comprehension, poverty, and lack of
charm, there was no escape from the slough of their despond.  They
were compelled by some devilish accident of birth or lack of force
or resourcefulness to stew in their own juice of wretchedness, or to
shuffle off this mortal coil--which under other circumstances had
such glittering possibilities--via the rope, the knife, the bullet,
or the cup of poison.

"I would die, too," he thought to himself, one day, reading of a
man who, confined by disease and poverty, had lived for twelve years
alone in a back bedroom attended by an old and probably decrepit
housekeeper.  A darning-needle forced into his heart had ended his
earthly woes.  "To the devil with such a life! Why twelve years?
Why not at the end of the second or third?"

Again, it was so very evident, in so many ways, that force was the
answer--great mental and physical force.  Why, these giants of
commerce and money could do as they pleased in this life, and did.
He had already had ample local evidence of it in more than one
direction.  Worse--the little guardians of so-called law and morality,
the newspapers, the preachers, the police, and the public moralists
generally, so loud in their denunciation of evil in humble places,
were cowards all when it came to corruption in high ones.  They did
not dare to utter a feeble squeak until some giant had accidentally
fallen and they could do so without danger to themselves.  Then, O
Heavens, the palaver! What beatings of tom-toms! What mouthings of
pharisaical moralities--platitudes! Run now, good people, for you
may see clearly how evil is dealt with in high places! It made him
smile.  Such hypocrisy! Such cant! Still, so the world was organized,
and it was not for him to set it right.  Let it wag as it would.
The thing for him to do was to get rich and hold his own--to build
up a seeming of virtue and dignity which would pass muster for the
genuine thing.  Force would do that.  Quickness of wit.  And he had
these.  "I satisfy myself," was his motto; and it might well have
been emblazoned upon any coat of arms which he could have contrived
to set forth his claim to intellectual and social nobility.

But this matter of Aileen was up for consideration and solution at
this present moment, and because of his forceful, determined
character he was presently not at all disturbed by the problem it
presented.  It was a problem, like some of those knotty financial
complications which presented themselves daily; but it was not
insoluble.  What did he want to do? He couldn't leave his wife and
fly with Aileen, that was certain.  He had too many connections.
He had too many social, and thinking of his children and parents,
emotional as well as financial ties to bind him.  Besides, he was
not at all sure that he wanted to.  He did not intend to leave his
growing interests, and at the same time he did not intend to give
up Aileen immediately.  The unheralded manifestation of interest
on her part was too attractive.  Mrs. Cowperwood was no longer
what she should be physically and mentally, and that in itself
to him was sufficient to justify his present interest in this girl.
Why fear anything, if only he could figure out a way to achieve it
without harm to himself? At the same time he thought it might never
be possible for him to figure out any practical or protective
program for either himself or Aileen, and that made him silent and
reflective.  For by now he was intensely drawn to her, as he could
feel--something chemic and hence dynamic was uppermost in him now
and clamoring for expression.

At the same time, in contemplating his wife in connection with
all this, he had many qualms, some emotional, some financial.
While she had yielded to his youthful enthusiasm for her after
her husband's death, he had only since learned that she was a
natural conservator of public morals--the cold purity of the
snowdrift in so far as the world might see, combined at times
with the murky mood of the wanton.  And yet, as he had also
learned, she was ashamed of the passion that at times swept and
dominated her.  This irritated Cowperwood, as it would always
irritate any strong, acquisitive, direct-seeing temperament.
While he had no desire to acquaint the whole world with his
feelings, why should there be concealment between them, or at
least mental evasion of a fact which physically she subscribed
to? Why do one thing and think another? To be sure, she was devoted
to him in her quiet way, not passionately (as he looked back he
could not say that she had ever been that), but intellectually.
Duty, as she understood it, played a great part in this.  She was
dutiful.  And then what people thought, what the time-spirit
demanded--these were the great things.  Aileen, on the contrary,
was probably not dutiful, and it was obvious that she had no
temperamental connection with current convention.  No doubt she
had been as well instructed as many another girl, but look at her.
She was not obeying her instructions.

In the next three months this relationship took on a more flagrant
form.  Aileen, knowing full well what her parents would think, how
unspeakable in the mind of the current world were the thoughts
she was thinking, persisted, nevertheless, in so thinking and
longing.  Cowperwood, now that she had gone thus far and compromised
herself in intention, if not in deed, took on a peculiar charm for
her.  It was not his body--great passion is never that, exactly.
The flavor of his spirit was what attracted and compelled, like the
glow of a flame to a moth.  There was a light of romance in his
eyes, which, however governed and controlled--was directive and
almost all-powerful to her.

When he touched her hand at parting, it was as though she had
received an electric shock, and she recalled that it was very
difficult for her to look directly into his eyes.  Something akin
to a destructive force seemed to issue from them at times.  Other
people, men particularly, found it difficult to face Cowperwood's
glazed stare.  It was as though there were another pair of eyes
behind those they saw, watching through thin, obscuring curtains.
You could not tell what he was thinking.

And during the next few months she found herself coming closer
and closer to Cowperwood.  At his home one evening, seated at the
piano, no one else being present at the moment, he leaned over and
kissed her.  There was a cold, snowy street visible through the
interstices of the hangings of the windows, and gas-lamps flickering
outside.  He had come in early, and hearing Aileen, he came to where
she was seated at the piano.  She was wearing a rough, gray wool
cloth dress, ornately banded with fringed Oriental embroidery in
blue and burnt-orange, and her beauty was further enhanced by a gray
hat planned to match her dress, with a plume of shaded orange and
blue.  On her fingers were four or five rings, far too many--an opal,
an emerald, a ruby, and a diamond--flashing visibly as she played.

She knew it was he, without turning.  He came beside her, and she
looked up smiling, the reverie evoked by Schubert partly vanishing--
or melting into another mood.  Suddenly he bent over and pressed
his lips firmly to hers.  His mustache thrilled her with its silky
touch.  She stopped playing and tried to catch her breath, for,
strong as she was, it affected her breathing.  Her heart was beating
like a triphammer.  She did not say, "Oh," or, "You mustn't," but
rose and walked over to a window, where she lifted a curtain,
pretending to look out.  She felt as though she might faint, so
intensely happy was she.

Cowperwood followed her quickly.  Slipping his arms about her
waist, he looked at her flushed cheeks, her clear, moist eyes and
red mouth.

"You love me?" he whispered, stern and compelling because of his
desire.

"Yes! Yes! You know I do."

He crushed her face to his, and she put up her hands and stroked
his hair.

A thrilling sense of possession, mastery, happiness and understanding,
love of her and of her body, suddenly overwhelmed him.

"I love you," he said, as though he were surprised to hear himself
say it.  "I didn't think I did, but I do.  You're beautiful.  I'm
wild about you."

"And I love you" she answered.  "I can't help it.  I know I shouldn't,
but--oh--" Her hands closed tight over his ears and temples.  She
put her lips to his and dreamed into his eyes.  Then she stepped
away quickly, looking out into the street, and he walked back into
the living-room.  They were quite alone.  He was debating whether
he should risk anything further when Norah, having been in to see
Anna next door, appeared and not long afterward Mrs. Cowperwood.
Then Aileen and Norah left.





Chapter XX




This definite and final understanding having been reached, it
was but natural that this liaison should proceed to a closer and
closer relationship.  Despite her religious upbringing, Aileen was
decidedly a victim of her temperament.  Current religious feeling
and belief could not control her.  For the past nine or ten years
there had been slowly forming in her mind a notion of what her
lover should be like.  He should be strong, handsome, direct,
successful, with clear eyes, a ruddy glow of health, and a certain
native understanding and sympathy--a love of life which matched
her own.  Many young men had approached her.  Perhaps the nearest
realization of her ideal was Father David, of St. Timothy's, and
he was, of course, a priest and sworn to celibacy.  No word had
ever passed between them but he had been as conscious of her as
she of him.  Then came Frank Cowperwood, and by degrees, because
of his presence and contact, he had been slowly built up in her
mind as the ideal person.  She was drawn as planets are drawn to
their sun.

It is a question as to what would have happened if antagonistic
forces could have been introduced just at this time.  Emotions and
liaisons of this character can, of course, occasionally be broken
up and destroyed.  The characters of the individuals can be modified
or changed to a certain extent, but the force must be quite
sufficient.  Fear is a great deterrent--fear of material loss where
there is no spiritual dread--but wealth and position so often tend
to destroy this dread.  It is so easy to scheme with means.  Aileen
had no spiritual dread whatever.  Cowperwood was without spiritual
or religious feeling.  He looked at this girl, and his one thought
was how could he so deceive the world that he could enjoy her love
and leave his present state undisturbed.  Love her he did surely.

Business necessitated his calling at the Butlers' quite frequently,
and on each occasion he saw Aileen.  She managed to slip forward
and squeeze his hand the first time he came--to steal a quick,
vivid kiss; and another time, as he was going out, she suddenly
appeared from behind the curtains hanging at the parlor door.

"Honey!"

The voice was soft and coaxing.  He turned, giving her a warning
nod in the direction of her father's room upstairs.

She stood there, holding out one hand, and he stepped forward for
a second.  Instantly her arms were about his neck, as he slipped
his about her waist.

"I long to see you so."

"I, too.  I'll fix some way.  I'm thinking."

He released her arms, and went out, and she ran to the window and
looked out after him.  He was walking west on the street, for his
house was only a few blocks away, and she looked at the breadth
of his shoulders, the balance of his form.  He stepped so briskly,
so incisively.  Ah, this was a man! He was her Frank.  She thought
of him in that light already.  Then she sat down at the piano and
played pensively until dinner.

And it was so easy for the resourceful mind of Frank Cowperwood,
wealthy as he was, to suggest ways and means.  In his younger
gallivantings about places of ill repute, and his subsequent
occasional variations from the straight and narrow path, he had
learned much of the curious resources of immorality.  Being a city
of five hundred thousand and more at this time, Philadelphia had
its nondescript hotels, where one might go, cautiously and fairly
protected from observation; and there were houses of a conservative,
residential character, where appointments might be made, for a
consideration.  And as for safeguards against the production of
new life--they were not mysteries to him any longer.  He knew all
about them.  Care was the point of caution.  He had to be cautious,
for he was so rapidly coming to be an influential and a distinguished
man.  Aileen, of course, was not conscious, except in a vague way,
of the drift of her passion; the ultimate destiny to which this
affection might lead was not clear to her.  Her craving was for
love--to be fondled and caressed--and she really did not think so
much further.  Further thoughts along this line were like rats that
showed their heads out of dark holes in shadowy corners and scuttled
back at the least sound.  And, anyhow, all that was to be connected
with Cowperwood would be beautiful.  She really did not think that
he loved her yet as he should; but he would.  She did not know that
she wanted to interfere with the claims of his wife.  She did not
think she did.  But it would not hurt Mrs. Cowperwood if Frank
loved her--Aileen--also.

How shall we explain these subtleties of temperament and desire?
Life has to deal with them at every turn.  They will not down, and
the large, placid movements of nature outside of man's little
organisms would indicate that she is not greatly concerned.  We
see much punishment in the form of jails, diseases, failures, and
wrecks; but we also see that the old tendency is not visibly
lessened.  Is there no law outside of the subtle will and power of
the individual to achieve? If not, it is surely high time that we
knew it--one and all.  We might then agree to do as we do; but
there would be no silly illusion as to divine regulation.  Vox
populi, vox Dei.

So there were other meetings, lovely hours which they soon began
to spend the moment her passion waxed warm enough to assure
compliance, without great fear and without thought of the deadly
risk involved.  From odd moments in his own home, stolen when
there was no one about to see, they advanced to clandestine
meetings beyond the confines of the city.  Cowperwood was not one
who was temperamentally inclined to lose his head and neglect his
business.  As a matter of fact, the more he thought of this rather
unexpected affectional development, the more certain he was that
he must not let it interfere with his business time and judgment.
His office required his full attention from nine until three,
anyhow.  He could give it until five-thirty with profit; but he
could take several afternoons off, from three-thirty until
five-thirty or six, and no one would be the wiser.  It was
customary for Aileen to drive alone almost every afternoon a
spirited pair of bays, or to ride a mount, bought by her father
for her from a noted horse-dealer in Baltimore.  Since Cowperwood
also drove and rode, it was not difficult to arrange meeting-places
far out on the Wissahickon or the Schuylkill road.  There were
many spots in the newly laid-out park, which were as free from
interruption as the depths of a forest.  It was always possible
that they might encounter some one; but it was also always
possible to make a rather plausible explanation, or none at all,
since even in case of such an encounter nothing, ordinarily, would
be suspected.

So, for the time being there was love-making, the usual billing
and cooing of lovers in a simple and much less than final fashion;
and the lovely horseback rides together under the green trees of
the approaching spring were idyllic.  Cowperwood awakened to a
sense of joy in life such as he fancied, in the blush of this
new desire, he had never experienced before.  Lillian had been
lovely in those early days in which he had first called on her
in North Front Street, and he had fancied himself unspeakably
happy at that time; but that was nearly ten years since, and he
had forgotten.  Since then he had had no great passion, no notable
liaison; and then, all at once, in the midst of his new, great
business prosperity, Aileen.  Her young body and soul, her
passionate illusions.  He could see always, for all her daring,
that she knew so little of the calculating, brutal world with
which he was connected.  Her father had given her all the toys
she wanted without stint; her mother and brothers had coddled her,
particularly her mother.  Her young sister thought she was adorable.
No one imagined for one moment that Aileen would ever do anything
wrong.  She was too sensible, after all, too eager to get up in
the world.  Why should she, when her life lay open and happy before
her--a delightful love-match, some day soon, with some very eligible
and satisfactory lover?

"When you marry, Aileen," her mother used to say to her, "we'll
have a grand time here.  Sure we'll do the house over then, if
we don't do it before.  Eddie will have to fix it up, or I'll do
it meself.  Never fear."

"Yes--well, I'd rather you'd fix it now," was her reply.

Butler himself used to strike her jovially on the shoulder in a
rough, loving way, and ask, "Well, have you found him yet?" or
"Is he hanging around the outside watchin' for ye?"

If she said, "No," he would reply: "Well, he will be, never
fear--worse luck.  I'll hate to see ye go, girlie! You can stay
here as long as ye want to, and ye want to remember that you can
always come back."

Aileen paid very little attention to this bantering.  She loved
her father, but it was all such a matter of course.  It was the
commonplace of her existence, and not so very significant, though
delightful enough.

But how eagerly she yielded herself to Cowperwood under the spring
trees these days! She had no sense of that ultimate yielding that
was coming, for now he merely caressed and talked to her.  He was
a little doubtful about himself.  His growing liberties for
himself seemed natural enough, but in a sense of fairness to her
he began to talk to her about what their love might involve.  Would
she? Did she understand? This phase of it puzzled and frightened
Aileen a little at first.  She stood before him one afternoon in
her black riding-habit and high silk riding-hat perched jauntily
on her red-gold hair; and striking her riding-skirt with her short
whip, pondering doubtfully as she listened.  He had asked her
whether she knew what she was doing? Whither they were drifting?
If she loved him truly enough? The two horses were tethered in a
thicket a score of yards away from the main road and from the bank
of a tumbling stream, which they had approached.  She was trying
to discover if she could see them.  It was pretense.  There was no
interest in her glance.  She was thinking of him and the smartness
of his habit, and the exquisiteness of this moment.  He had such
a charming calico pony.  The leaves were just enough developed to
make a diaphanous lacework of green.  It was like looking through
a green-spangled arras to peer into the woods beyond or behind.
The gray stones were already faintly messy where the water rippled
and sparkled, and early birds were calling--robins and blackbirds
and wrens.

"Baby mine," he said, "do you understand all about this? Do you
know exactly what you're doing when you come with me this way?"

"I think I do."

She struck her boot and looked at the ground, and then up through
the trees at the blue sky.

"Look at me, honey."

"I don't want to."

"But look at me, sweet.  I want to ask you something."

"Don't make me, Frank, please.  I can't."

"Oh yes, you can look at me."

"No."

She backed away as he took her hands, but came forward again,
easily enough.

"Now look in my eyes."

"I can't."

"See here."

"I can't.  Don't ask me.  I'll answer you, but don't make me look
at you."

His hand stole to her cheek and fondled it.  He petted her shoulder,
and she leaned her head against him.

"Sweet, you're so beautiful," he said finally, "I can't give you
up.  I know what I ought to do.  You know, too, I suppose; but I
can't.  I must have you.  If this should end in exposure, it would
be quite bad for you and me.  Do you understand?"

"Yes."

"I don't know your brothers very well; but from looking at them I
judge they're pretty determined people.  They think a great deal
of you."

"Indeed, they do."  Her vanity prinked slightly at this.

"They would probably want to kill me, and very promptly, for just
this much.  What do you think they would want to do if--well, if
anything should happen, some time?"

He waited, watching her pretty face.

"But nothing need happen.  We needn't go any further."

"Aileen!"

"I won't look at you.  You needn't ask.  I can't."

"Aileen! Do you mean that?"

"I don't know.  Don't ask me, Frank."

"You know it can't stop this way, don't you? You know it.  This
isn't the end.  Now, if--" He explained the whole theory of
illicit meetings, calmly, dispassionately.  "You are perfectly
safe, except for one thing, chance exposure.  It might just so
happen; and then, of course, there would be a great deal to settle
for.  Mrs. Cowperwood would never give me a divorce; she has no
reason to.  If I should clean up in the way I hope to--if I should
make a million--I wouldn't mind knocking off now.  I don't expect
to work all my days.  I have always planned to knock off at
thirty-five.  I'll have enough by that time.  Then I want to travel.
It will only be a few more years now.  If you were free--if your
father and mother were dead"--curiously she did not wince at this
practical reference--"it would be a different matter."

He paused.  She still gazed thoughtfully at the water below, her
mind running out to a yacht on the sea with him, a palace somewhere--
just they two.  Her eyes, half closed, saw this happy world; and,
listening to him, she was fascinated.

"Hanged if I see the way out of this, exactly.  But I love you!"
He caught her to him.  "I love you--love you!"

"Oh, yes," she replied intensely, "I want you to.  I'm not afraid."

"I've taken a house in North Tenth Street," he said finally, as
they walked over to the horses and mounted them.  "It isn't furnished
yet; but it will be soon.  I know a woman who will take charge."

"Who is she?"

"An interesting widow of nearly fifty.  Very intelligent--she is
attractive, and knows a good deal of life.  I found her through
an advertisement.  You might call on her some afternoon when
things are arranged, and look the place over.  You needn't meet
her except in a casual way.  Will you?"

She rode on, thinking, making no reply.  He was so direct and
practical in his calculations.

"Will you? It will be all right.  You might know her.  She isn't
objectionable in any way.  Will you?"

"Let me know when it is ready," was all she said finally.





Chapter XXI




The vagaries of passion! Subtleties! Risks! What sacrifices are
not laid willfully upon its altar! In a little while this more
than average residence to which Cowperwood had referred was
prepared solely to effect a satisfactory method of concealment.
The house was governed by a seemingly recently-bereaved widow,
and it was possible for Aileen to call without seeming strangely
out of place.  In such surroundings, and under such circumstances,
it was not difficult to persuade her to give herself wholly to her
lover, governed as she was by her wild and unreasoning affection
and passion.  In a way, there was a saving element of love, for
truly, above all others, she wanted this man.  She had no thought
or feeling toward any other.  All her mind ran toward visions of
the future, when, somehow, she and he might be together for all
time.  Mrs. Cowperwood might die, or he might run away with her at
thirty-five when he had a million.  Some adjustment would be made,
somehow.  Nature had given her this man.  She relied on him
implicitly.  When he told her that he would take care of her so
that nothing evil should befall, she believed him fully.  Such
sins are the commonplaces of the confessional.

It is a curious fact that by some subtlety of logic in the Christian
world, it has come to be believed that there can be no love outside
the conventional process of courtship and marriage.  One life, one
love, is the Christian idea, and into this sluice or mold it has
been endeavoring to compress the whole world.  Pagan thought held
no such belief.  A writing of divorce for trivial causes was the
theory of the elders; and in the primeval world nature apparently
holds no scheme for the unity of two beyond the temporary care of
the young.  That the modern home is the most beautiful of schemes,
when based upon mutual sympathy and understanding between two, need
not be questioned.  And yet this fact should not necessarily carry
with it a condemnation of all love not so fortunate as to find so
happy a denouement.  Life cannot be put into any mold, and the
attempt might as well be abandoned at once.  Those so fortunate as
to find harmonious companionship for life should congratulate
themselves and strive to be worthy of it.  Those not so blessed,
though they be written down as pariahs, have yet some justification.
And, besides, whether we will or not, theory or no theory, the
basic facts of chemistry and physics remain.  Like is drawn to like.
Changes in temperament bring changes in relationship.  Dogma may
bind some minds; fear, others.  But there are always those in whom
the chemistry and physics of life are large, and in whom neither
dogma nor fear is operative.  Society lifts its hands in horror;
but from age to age the Helens, the Messalinas, the Du Barrys,
the Pompadours, the Maintenons, and the Nell Gwyns flourish and
point a freer basis of relationship than we have yet been able to
square with our lives.

These two felt unutterably bound to each other.  Cowperwood, once
he came to understand her, fancied that he had found the one person
with whom he could live happily the rest of his life.  She was so
young, so confident, so hopeful, so undismayed.  All these months
since they had first begun to reach out to each other he had been
hourly contrasting her with his wife.  As a matter of fact, his
dissatisfaction, though it may be said to have been faint up to
this time, was now surely tending to become real enough.  Still,
his children were pleasing to him; his home beautiful.  Lillian,
phlegmatic and now thin, was still not homely.  All these years
he had found her satisfactory enough; but now his dissatisfaction
with her began to increase.  She was not like Aileen--not young,
not vivid, not as unschooled in the commonplaces of life.  And
while ordinarily, he was not one who was inclined to be querulous,
still now on occasion, he could be.  He began by asking questions
concerning his wife's appearance--irritating little whys which
are so trivial and yet so exasperating and discouraging to a
woman.  Why didn't she get a mauve hat nearer the shade of her
dress? Why didn't she go out more? Exercise would do her good.
Why didn't she do this, and why didn't she do that? He scarcely
noticed that he was doing this; but she did, and she felt the
undertone--the real significance--and took umbrage.

"Oh, why--why?" she retorted, one day, curtly.  "Why do you ask
so many questions? You don't care so much for me any more; that's
why.  I can tell."

He leaned back startled by the thrust.  It had not been based on
any evidence of anything save his recent remarks; but he was not
absolutely sure.  He was just the least bit sorry that he had
irritated her, and he said so.

"Oh, it's all right," she replied.  "I don't care.  But I notice
that you don't pay as much attention to me as you used to.  It's
your business now, first, last, and all the time.  You can't get
your mind off of that."

He breathed a sigh of relief.  She didn't suspect, then.

But after a little time, as he grew more and more in sympathy
with Aileen, he was not so disturbed as to whether his wife might
suspect or not.  He began to think on occasion, as his mind followed
the various ramifications of the situation, that it would be better
if she did.  She was really not of the contentious fighting sort.
He now decided because of various calculations in regard to her
character that she might not offer as much resistance to some
ultimate rearrangement, as he had originally imagined.  She might
even divorce him.  Desire, dreams, even in him were evoking
calculations not as sound as those which ordinarily generated in
his brain.

No, as he now said to himself, the rub was not nearly so much in
his own home, as it was in the Butler family.  His relations with
Edward Malia Butler had become very intimate.  He was now advising
with him constantly in regard to the handling of his securities,
which were numerous.  Butler held stocks in such things as the
Pennsylvania Coal Company, the Delaware and Hudson Canal, the
Morris and Essex Canal, the Reading Railroad.  As the old gentleman's
mind had broadened to the significance of the local street-railway
problem in Philadelphia, he had decided to close out his other
securities at such advantageous terms as he could, and reinvest
the money in local lines.  He knew that Mollenhauer and Simpson
were doing this, and they were excellent judges of the significance
of local affairs.  Like Cowperwood, he had the idea that if he
controlled sufficient of the local situation in this field, he
could at last effect a joint relationship with Mollenhauer and
Simpson.  Political legislation, advantageous to the combined lines,
could then be so easily secured.  Franchises and necessary extensions
to existing franchises could be added.  This conversion of his
outstanding stock in other fields, and the picking up of odd lots
in the local street-railway, was the business of Cowperwood.
Butler, through his sons, Owen and Callum, was also busy planning
a new line and obtaining a franchise, sacrificing, of course, great
blocks of stock and actual cash to others, in order to obtain
sufficient influence to have the necessary legislation passed.
Yet it was no easy matter, seeing that others knew what the general
advantages of the situation were, and because of this Cowperwood,
who saw the great source of profit here, was able, betimes, to
serve himself--buying blocks, a part of which only went to Butler,
Mollenhauer or others.  In short he was not as eager to serve Butler,
or any one else, as he was to serve himself if he could.

In this connection, the scheme which George W. Stener had brought
forward, representing actually in the background Strobik, Wycroft,
and Harmon, was an opening wedge for himself.  Stener's plan was
to loan him money out of the city treasury at two per cent., or,
if he would waive all commissions, for nothing (an agent for
self-protective purposes was absolutely necessary), and with it
take over the North Pennsylvania Company's line on Front Street,
which, because of the shortness of its length, one mile and a
half, and the brevity of the duration of its franchise, was
neither doing very well nor being rated very high.  Cowperwood in
return for his manipulative skill was to have a fair proportion
of the stock--twenty per cent.  Strobik and Wycroft knew the parties
from whom the bulk of the stock could be secured if engineered
properly.  Their plan was then, with this borrowed treasury money,
to extend its franchise and then the line itself, and then later
again, by issuing a great block of stock and hypothecating it with
a favored bank, be able to return the principal to the city
treasury and pocket their profits from the line as earned.  There
was no trouble in this, in so far as Cowperwood was concerned,
except that it divided the stock very badly among these various
individuals, and left him but a comparatively small share--for
his thought and pains.

But Cowperwood was an opportunist.  And by this time his
financial morality had become special and local in its character.
He did not think it was wise for any one to steal anything from
anybody where the act of taking or profiting was directly and
plainly considered stealing.  That was unwise--dangerous--hence
wrong.  There were so many situations wherein what one might do
in the way of taking or profiting was open to discussion and doubt.
Morality varied, in his mind at least, with conditions, if not
climates.  Here, in Philadelphia, the tradition (politically, mind
you--not generally) was that the city treasurer might use the money
of the city without interest so long as he returned the principal
intact.  The city treasury and the city treasurer were like a
honey-laden hive and a queen bee around which the drones--the
politicians--swarmed in the hope of profit.  The one disagreeable
thing in connection with this transaction with Stener was that
neither Butler, Mollenhauer nor Simpson, who were the actual
superiors of Stener and Strobik, knew anything about it.  Stener
and those behind him were, through him, acting for themselves.
If the larger powers heard of this, it might alienate them.  He
had to think of this.  Still, if he refused to make advantageous
deals with Stener or any other man influential in local affairs,
he was cutting off his nose to spite his face, for other bankers
and brokers would, and gladly.  And besides it was not at all
certain that Butler, Mollenhauer, and Simpson would ever hear.

In this connection, there was another line, which he rode on
occasionally, the Seventeenth and Nineteenth Street line, which
he felt was a much more interesting thing for him to think about,
if he could raise the money.  It had been originally capitalized
for five hundred thousand dollars; but there had been a series of
bonds to the value of two hundred and fifty thousand dollars
added for improvements, and the company was finding great difficulty
in meeting the interest.  The bulk of the stock was scattered
about among small investors, and it would require all of two
hundred and fifty thousand dollars to collect it and have himself
elected president or chairman of the board of directors.  Once in,
however, he could vote this stock as he pleased, hypothecating it
meanwhile at his father's bank for as much as he could get, and
issuing more stocks with which to bribe legislators in the matter
of extending the line, and in taking up other opportunities to
either add to it by purchase or supplement it by working agreements.
The word "bribe" is used here in this matter-of-fact American way,
because bribery was what was in every one's mind in connection with
the State legislature.  Terrence Relihan--the small, dark-faced
Irishman, a dandy in dress and manners--who represented the financial
interests at Harrisburg, and who had come to Cowperwood after the
five million bond deal had been printed, had told him that nothing
could be done at the capital without money, or its equivalent,
negotiable securities.  Each significant legislator, if he yielded
his vote or his influence, must be looked after.  If he, Cowperwood,
had any scheme which he wanted handled at any time, Relihan had
intimated to him that he would be glad to talk with him.  Cowperwood
had figured on this Seventeenth and Nineteenth Street line scheme
more than once, but he had never felt quite sure that he was willing
to undertake it.  His obligations in other directions were so large.
But the lure was there, and he pondered and pondered.

Stener's scheme of loaning him money wherewith to manipulate the
North Pennsylvania line deal put this Seventeenth and Nineteenth
Street dream in a more favorable light.  As it was he was constantly
watching the certificates of loan issue, for the city treasury,
--buying large quantities when the market was falling to protect
it and selling heavily, though cautiously, when he saw it rising
and to do this he had to have a great deal of free money to permit
him to do it.  He was constantly fearful of some break in the
market which would affect the value of all his securities and result
in the calling of his loans.  There was no storm in sight.  He did
not see that anything could happen in reason; but he did not want
to spread himself out too thin.  As he saw it now, therefore if
he took one hundred and fifty thousand dollars of this city money
and went after this Seventeenth and Nineteenth Street matter it
would not mean that he was spreading himself out too thin, for
because of this new proposition could he not call on Stener for
more as a loan in connection with these other ventures? But if
anything should happen--well--

"Frank," said Stener, strolling into his office one afternoon
after four o'clock when the main rush of the day's work was over
--the relationship between Cowperwood and Stener had long since
reached the "Frank" and "George" period--"Strobik thinks he has
that North Pennsylvania deal arranged so that we can take it up
if we want to.  The principal stockholder, we find, is a man by
the name of Coltan--not Ike Colton, but Ferdinand.  How's that
for a name?" Stener beamed fatly and genially.

Things had changed considerably for him since the days when he
had been fortuitously and almost indifferently made city treasurer.
His method of dressing had so much improved since he had been
inducted into office, and his manner expressed so much more good
feeling, confidence, aplomb, that he would not have recognized
himself if he had been permitted to see himself as had those who
had known him before.  An old, nervous shifting of the eyes had
almost ceased, and a feeling of restfulness, which had previously
been restlessness, and had sprung from a sense of necessity, had
taken its place.  His large feet were incased in good, square-toed,
soft-leather shoes; his stocky chest and fat legs were made somewhat
agreeable to the eye by a well-cut suit of brownish-gray cloth;
and his neck was now surrounded by a low, wing-point white collar
and brown-silk tie.  His ample chest, which spread out a little
lower in around and constantly enlarging stomach, was ornamented
by a heavy-link gold chain, and his white cuffs had large gold
cuff-buttons set with rubies of a very notable size.  He was rosy
and decidedly well fed.  In fact, he was doing very well indeed.

He had moved his family from a shabby two-story frame house in South
Ninth Street to a very comfortable brick one three stories in height,
and three times as large, on Spring Garden Street.  His wife had a
few acquaintances--the wives of other politicians.  His children
were attending the high school, a thing he had hardly hoped for
in earlier days.  He was now the owner of fourteen or fifteen
pieces of cheap real estate in different portions of the city,
which might eventually become very valuable, and he was a silent
partner in the South Philadelphia Foundry Company and the American
Beef and Pork Company, two corporations on paper whose principal
business was subletting contracts secured from the city to the
humble butchers and foundrymen who would carry out orders as given
and not talk too much or ask questions.

"Well, that is an odd name," said Cowperwood, blandly.  "So he has
it? I never thought that road would pay, as it was laid out.  It's
too short.  It ought to run about three miles farther out into the
Kensington section."

"You're right," said Stener, dully.

"Did Strobik say what Colton wants for his shares?"

"Sixty-eight, I think."

"The current market rate.  He doesn't want much, does he? Well,
George, at that rate it will take about"--he calculated quickly
on the basis of the number of shares Cotton was holding--"one
hundred and twenty thousand to get him out alone.  That isn't all.
There's Judge Kitchen and Joseph Zimmerman and Senator Donovan"--
he was referring to the State senator of that name.  "You'll be
paying a pretty fair price for that stud when you get it.  It will
cost considerable more to extend the line.  It's too much, I think."

Cowperwood was thinking how easy it would be to combine this line
with his dreamed-of Seventeenth and Nineteenth Street line, and
after a time and with this in view he added:

"Say, George, why do you work all your schemes through Strobik
and Harmon and Wycroft? Couldn't you and I manage some of these
things for ourselves alone instead of for three or four? It seems
to me that plan would be much more profitable to you."

"It would, it would!" exclaimed Stener, his round eyes fixed on
Cowperwood in a rather helpless, appealing way.  He liked
Cowperwood and had always been hoping that mentally as well as
financially he could get close to him.  "I've thought of that.  But
these fellows have had more experience in these matters than I
have had, Frank.  They've been longer at the game.  I don't know
as much about these things as they do."

Cowperwood smiled in his soul, though his face remained passive.

"Don't worry about them, George," he continued genially and
confidentially.  "You and I together can know and do as much as
they ever could and more.  I'm telling you.  Take this railroad
deal you're in on now, George; you and I could manipulate that
just as well and better than it can be done with Wycroft, Strobik,
and Harmon in on it.  They're not adding anything to the wisdom of
the situation.  They're not putting up any money.  You're doing
that.  All they're doing is agreeing to see it through the
legislature and the council, and as far as the legislature is
concerned, they can't do any more with that than any one else
could--than I could, for instance.  It's all a question of arranging
things with Relihan, anyhow, putting up a certain amount of money
for him to work with.  Here in town there are other people who can
reach the council just as well as Strobik."  He was thinking (once
he controlled a road of his own) of conferring with Butler and
getting him to use his influence.  It would serve to quiet Strobik
and his friends.  "I'm not asking you to change your plans on this
North Pennsylvania deal.  You couldn't do that very well.  But there
are other things.  In the future why not let's see if you and I
can't work some one thing together? You'll be much better off, and
so will I.  We've done pretty well on the city-loan proposition
so far, haven't we?"

The truth was, they had done exceedingly well.  Aside from what
the higher powers had made, Stener's new house, his lots, his
bank-account, his good clothes, and his changed and comfortable
sense of life were largely due to Cowperwood's successful
manipulation of these city-loan certificates.  Already there had
been four issues of two hundred thousand dollars each.  Cowperwood
had bought and sold nearly three million dollars' worth of these
certificates, acting one time as a "bull" and another as a "bear."
Stener was now worth all of one hundred and fifty thousand dollars.

"There's a line that I know of here in the city which could be made
into a splendidly paying property," continued Cowperwood, meditatively,
"if the right things could be done with it.  Just like this North
Pennsylvania line, it isn't long enough.  The territory it serves
isn't big enough.  It ought to be extended; but if you and I could
get it, it might eventually be worked with this North Pennsylvania
Company or some other as one company.  That would save officers and
offices and a lot of things.  There is always money to be made out
of a larger purchasing power."

He paused and looked out the window of his handsome little hardwood
office, speculating upon the future.  The window gave nowhere save
into a back yard behind another office building which had formerly
been a residence.  Some grass grew feebly there.  The red wall and
old-fashioned brick fence which divided it from the next lot
reminded him somehow of his old home in New Market Street, to which
his Uncle Seneca used to come as a Cuban trader followed by his
black Portuguese servitor.  He could see him now as he sat here
looking at the yard.

"Well," asked Stener, ambitiously, taking the bait, "why don't
we get hold of that--you and me? I suppose I could fix it so far
as the money is concerned.  How much would it take?"

Cowperwood smiled inwardly again.

"I don't know exactly," he said, after a time.  "I want to look
into it more carefully.  The one trouble is that I'm carrying a
good deal of the city's money as it is.  You see, I have that two
hundred thousand dollars against your city-loan deals.  And this
new scheme will take two or three hundred thousand more.  If that
were out of the way--"

He was thinking of one of the inexplicable stock panics--those
strange American depressions which had so much to do with the
temperament of the people, and so little to do with the basic
conditions of the country.  "If this North Pennsylvania deal were
through and done with--"

He rubbed his chin and pulled at his handsome silky mustache.

"Don't ask me any more about it, George," he said, finally, as
he saw that the latter was beginning to think as to which line
it might be.  "Don't say anything at all about it.  I want to
get my facts exactly right, and then I'll talk to you.  I think
you and I can do this thing a little later, when we get the North
Pennsylvania scheme under way.  I'm so rushed just now I'm not
sure that I want to undertake it at once; but you keep quiet and
we'll see."  He turned toward his desk, and Stener got up.

"I'll make any sized deposit with you that you wish, the moment
you think you're ready to act, Frank," exclaimed Stener, and with
the thought that Cowperwood was not nearly as anxious to do this
as he should be, since he could always rely on him (Stener) when
there was anything really profitable in the offing.  Why should
not the able and wonderful Cowperwood be allowed to make the two
of them rich? "Just notify Stires, and he'll send you a check.
Strobik thought we ought to act pretty soon."

"I'll tend to it, George," replied Cowperwood, confidently.  "It
will come out all right.  Leave it to me."

Stener kicked his stout legs to straighten his trousers, and
extended his hand.  He strolled out in the street thinking of
this new scheme.  Certainly, if he could get in with Cowperwood
right he would be a rich man, for Cowperwood was so successful
and so cautious.  His new house, this beautiful banking office,
his growing fame, and his subtle connections with Butler and others
put Stener in considerable awe of him.  Another line! They would
control it and the North Pennsylvania! Why, if this went on, he
might become a magnate--he really might--he, George W. Stener,
once a cheap real-estate and insurance agent.  He strolled up the
street thinking, but with no more idea of the importance of his
civic duties and the nature of the social ethics against which
he was offending than if they had never existed.





Chapter XXII




The services which Cowperwood performed during the ensuing year
and a half for Stener, Strobik, Butler, State Treasurer Van Nostrand,
State Senator Relihan, representative of "the interests," so-called,
at Harrisburg, and various banks which were friendly to these
gentlemen, were numerous and confidential.  For Stener, Strobik,
Wycroft, Harmon and himself he executed the North Pennsylvania deal,
by which he became a holder of a fifth of the controlling stock.
Together he and Stener joined to purchase the Seventeenth and
Nineteenth Street line and in the concurrent gambling in stocks.

By the summer of 1871, when Cowperwood was nearly thirty-four
years of age, he had a banking business estimated at nearly two
million dollars, personal holdings aggregating nearly half a million,
and prospects which other things being equal looked to wealth which
might rival that of any American.  The city, through its treasurer--
still Mr. Stener--was a depositor with him to the extent of nearly
five hundred thousand dollars.  The State, through its State
treasurer, Van Nostrand, carried two hundred thousand dollars on
his books.  Bode was speculating in street-railway stocks to the
extent of fifty thousand dollars.  Relihan to the same amount.  A
small army of politicians and political hangers-on were on his
books for various sums.  And for Edward Malia Butler he occasionally
carried as high as one hundred thousand dollars in margins.  His
own loans at the banks, varying from day to day on variously
hypothecated securities, were as high as seven and eight hundred
thousand dollars.  Like a spider in a spangled net, every thread
of which he knew, had laid, had tested, he had surrounded and
entangled himself in a splendid, glittering network of connections,
and he was watching all the details.

His one pet idea, the thing he put more faith in than anything
else, was his street-railway manipulations, and particularly his
actual control of the Seventeenth and Nineteenth Street line.
Through an advance to him, on deposit, made in his bank by Stener
at a time when the stock of the Seventeenth and Nineteenth Street
line was at a low ebb, he had managed to pick up fifty-one per
cent. of the stock for himself and Stener, by virtue of which he
was able to do as he pleased with the road.  To accomplish this,
however, he had resorted to some very "peculiar" methods, as they
afterward came to be termed in financial circles, to get this stock
at his own valuation.  Through agents he caused suits for damages
to be brought against the company for non-payment of interest due.
A little stock in the hands of a hireling, a request made to a
court of record to examine the books of the company in order to
determine whether a receivership were not advisable, a simultaneous
attack in the stock market, selling at three, five, seven, and
ten points off, brought the frightened stockholders into the market
with their holdings.  The banks considered the line a poor risk,
and called their loans in connection with it.  His father's bank
had made one loan to one of the principal stockholders, and that
was promptly called, of course.  Then, through an agent, the
several heaviest shareholders were approached and an offer was
made to help them out.  The stocks would be taken off their hands
at forty.  They had not really been able to discover the source
of all their woes; and they imagined that the road was in bad
condition, which it was not.  Better let it go.  The money was
immediately forthcoming, and Cowperwood and Stener jointly
controlled fifty-one per cent.  But, as in the case of the North
Pennsylvania line, Cowperwood had been quietly buying all of the
small minority holdings, so that he had in reality fifty-one per
cent. of the stock, and Stener twenty-five per cent. more.

This intoxicated him, for immediately he saw the opportunity of
fulfilling his long-contemplated dream--that of reorganizing the
company in conjunction with the North Pennsylvania line, issuing
three shares where one had been before and after unloading all
but a control on the general public, using the money secured to
buy into other lines which were to be boomed and sold in the same
way.  In short, he was one of those early, daring manipulators who
later were to seize upon other and ever larger phases of American
natural development for their own aggrandizement.

In connection with this first consolidation, his plan was to
spread rumors of the coming consolidation of the two lines, to
appeal to the legislature for privileges of extension, to get up
an arresting prospectus and later annual reports, and to boom the
stock on the stock exchange as much as his swelling resources would
permit.  The trouble is that when you are trying to make a market
for a stock--to unload a large issue such as his was (over five
hundred thousand dollars' worth)--while retaining five hundred
thousand for yourself, it requires large capital to handle it.
The owner in these cases is compelled not only to go on the market
and do much fictitious buying, thus creating a fictitious demand,
but once this fictitious demand has deceived the public and he has
been able to unload a considerable quantity of his wares, he is,
unless he rids himself of all his stock, compelled to stand behind
it.  If, for instance, he sold five thousand shares, as was done
in this instance, and retained five thousand, he must see that the
public price of the outstanding five thousand shares did not fall
below a certain point, because the value of his private shares would
fall with it.  And if, as is almost always the case, the private
shares had been hypothecated with banks and trust companies for
money wherewith to conduct other enterprises, the falling of their
value in the open market merely meant that the banks would call for
large margins to protect their loans or call their loans entirely.
This meant that his work was a failure, and he might readily fail.
He was already conducting one such difficult campaign in connection
with this city-loan deal, the price of which varied from day to day,
and which he was only too anxious to have vary, for in the main he
profited by these changes.

But this second burden, interesting enough as it was, meant that
he had to be doubly watchful.  Once the stock was sold at a high
price, the money borrowed from the city treasurer could be returned;
his own holdings created out of foresight, by capitalizing the
future, by writing the shrewd prospectuses and reports, would be
worth their face value, or little less.  He would have money to
invest in other lines.  He might obtain the financial direction
of the whole, in which case he would be worth millions.  One shrewd
thing he did, which indicated the foresight and subtlety of the man,
was to make a separate organization or company of any extension or
addition which he made to his line.  Thus, if he had two or three
miles of track on a street, and he wanted to extend it two or three
miles farther on the same street, instead of including this extension
in the existing corporation, he would make a second corporation
to control the additional two or three miles of right of way.
This corporation he would capitalize at so much, and issue stocks
and bonds for its construction, equipment, and manipulation.  Having
done this he would then take the sub-corporation over into the
parent concern, issuing more stocks and bonds of the parent company
wherewith to do it, and, of course, selling these bonds to the public.
Even his brothers who worked for him did not know the various
ramifications of his numerous deals, and executed his orders blindly.
Sometimes Joseph said to Edward, in a puzzled way, "Well, Frank
knows what he is about, I guess."

On the other hand, he was most careful to see that every current
obligation was instantly met, and even anticipated, for he wanted
to make a great show of regularity.  Nothing was so precious as
reputation and standing.  His forethought, caution, and promptness
pleased the bankers.  They thought he was one of the sanest,
shrewdest men they had ever met.

However, by the spring and summer of 1871, Cowperwood had actually,
without being in any conceivable danger from any source, spread
himself out very thin.  Because of his great success he had grown
more liberal--easier--in his financial ventures.  By degrees, and
largely because of his own confidence in himself, he had induced
his father to enter upon his street-car speculations, to use the
resources of the Third National to carry a part of his loans and
to furnish capital at such times as quick resources were necessary.
In the beginning the old gentleman had been a little nervous and
skeptical, but as time had worn on and nothing but profit eventuated,
he grew bolder and more confident.

"Frank," he would say, looking up over his spectacles, "aren't you
afraid you're going a little too fast in these matters? You're
carrying a lot of loans these days."

"No more than I ever did, father, considering my resources.  You
can't turn large deals without large loans.  You know that as
well as I do."

"Yes, I know, but--now that Green and Coates--aren't you going
pretty strong there?"

"Not at all.  I know the inside conditions there.  The stock is
bound to go up eventually.  I'll bull it up.  I'll combine it with
my other lines, if necessary."

Cowperwood stared at his boy.  Never was there such a defiant,
daring manipulator.

"You needn't worry about me, father.  If you are going to do that,
call my loans.  Other banks will loan on my stocks.  I'd like to
see your bank have the interest."

So Cowperwood, Sr., was convinced.  There was no gainsaying this
argument.  His bank was loaning Frank heavily, but not more so
than any other.  And as for the great blocks of stocks he was
carrying in his son's companies, he was to be told when to get
out should that prove necessary.  Frank's brothers were being
aided in the same way to make money on the side, and their interests
were also now bound up indissolubly with his own.

With his growing financial opportunities, however, Cowperwood
had also grown very liberal in what might be termed his standard
of living.  Certain young art dealers in Philadelphia, learning
of his artistic inclinations and his growing wealth, had followed
him up with suggestions as to furniture, tapestries, rugs, objects
of art, and paintings--at first the American and later the foreign
masters exclusively.  His own and his father's house had not been
furnished fully in these matters, and there was that other house
in North Tenth Street, which he desired to make beautiful.  Aileen
had always objected to the condition of her own home.  Love of
distinguished surroundings was a basic longing with her, though
she had not the gift of interpreting her longings.  But this place
where they were secretly meeting must be beautiful.  She was as
keen for that as he was.  So it became a veritable treasure-trove,
more distinguished in furnishings than some of the rooms of his
own home.  He began to gather here some rare examples of altar
cloths, rugs, and tapestries of the Middle Ages.  He bought
furniture after the Georgian theory--a combination of Chippendale,
Sheraton, and Heppelwhite modified by the Italian Renaissance and
the French Louis.  He learned of handsome examples of porcelain,
statuary, Greek vase forms, lovely collections of Japanese ivories
and netsukes.  Fletcher Gray, a partner in Cable & Gray, a local
firm of importers of art objects, called on him in connection with
a tapestry of the fourteenth century weaving.  Gray was an enthusiast
and almost instantly he conveyed some of his suppressed and yet
fiery love of the beautiful to Cowperwood.

"There are fifty periods of one shade of blue porcelain alone,
Mr. Cowperwood," Gray informed him.  "There are at least seven
distinct schools or periods of rugs--Persian, Armenian, Arabian,
Flemish, Modern Polish, Hungarian, and so on.  If you ever went
into that, it would be a distinguished thing to get a complete--
I mean a representative--collection of some one period, or of all
these periods.  They are beautiful.  I have seen some of them,
others I've read about."

"You'll make a convert of me yet, Fletcher," replied Cowperwood.
"You or art will be the ruin of me.  I'm inclined that way
temperamentally as it is, I think, and between you and Ellsworth
and Gordon Strake"--another young man intensely interested in
painting--"you'll complete my downfall.  Strake has a splendid
idea.  He wants me to begin right now--I'm using that word 'right'
in the sense of 'properly,'" he commented--"and get what examples
I can of just the few rare things in each school or period of art
which would properly illustrate each.  He tells me the great
pictures are going to increase in value, and what I could get for
a few hundred thousand now will be worth millions later.  He doesn't
want me to bother with American art."

"He's right," exclaimed Gray, "although it isn't good business for
me to praise another art man.  It would take a great deal of money,
though."

"Not so very much.  At least, not all at once.  It would be a
matter of years, of course.  Strake thinks that some excellent
examples of different periods could be picked up now and later
replaced if anything better in the same held showed up."

His mind, in spite of his outward placidity, was tinged with a
great seeking.  Wealth, in the beginning, had seemed the only
goal, to which had been added the beauty of women.  And now art,
for art's sake--the first faint radiance of a rosy dawn--had begun
to shine in upon him, and to the beauty of womanhood he was
beginning to see how necessary it was to add the beauty of life--
the beauty of material background--how, in fact, the only background
for great beauty was great art.  This girl, this Aileen Butler,
her raw youth and radiance, was nevertheless creating in him a
sense of the distinguished and a need for it which had never
existed in him before to the same degree.  It is impossible to
define these subtleties of reaction, temperament on temperament,
for no one knows to what degree we are marked by the things which
attract us.  A love affair such as this had proved to be was little
less or more than a drop of coloring added to a glass of clear
water, or a foreign chemical agent introduced into a delicate
chemical formula.

In short, for all her crudeness, Aileen Butler was a definite force
personally.  Her nature, in a way, a protest against the clumsy
conditions by which she found herself surrounded, was almost
irrationally ambitious.  To think that for so long, having been
born into the Butler family, she had been the subject, as well as
the victim of such commonplace and inartistic illusions and
conditions, whereas now, owing to her contact with, and mental
subordination to Cowperwood, she was learning so many wonderful
phases of social, as well as financial, refinement of which
previously she had guessed nothing.  The wonder, for instance, of
a future social career as the wife of such a man as Frank Cowperwood.
The beauty and resourcefulness of his mind, which, after hours of
intimate contact with her, he was pleased to reveal, and which, so
definite were his comments and instructions, she could not fail
to sense.  The wonder of his financial and artistic and future
social dreams.  And, oh, oh, she was his, and he was hers.  She
was actually beside herself at times with the glory, as well as
the delight of all this.

At the same time, her father's local reputation as a quondam garbage
contractor ("slop-collector" was the unfeeling comment of the
vulgarian cognoscenti); her own unavailing efforts to right a
condition of material vulgarity or artistic anarchy in her own
home; the hopelessness of ever being admitted to those distinguished
portals which she recognized afar off as the last sanctum sanctorum
of established respectability and social distinction, had bred in
her, even at this early age, a feeling of deadly opposition to her
home conditions as they stood.  Such a house compared to Cowperwood's!
Her dear, but ignorant, father! And this great man, her lover, had
now condescended to love her--see in her his future wife.  Oh,
God, that it might not fail! Through the Cowperwoods at first she
had hoped to meet a few people, young men and women--and particularly
men--who were above the station in which she found herself, and
to whom her beauty and prospective fortune would commend her; but
this had not been the case.  The Cowperwoods themselves, in spite
of Frank Cowperwood's artistic proclivities and growing wealth,
had not penetrated the inner circle as yet.  In fact, aside from
the subtle, preliminary consideration which they were receiving,
they were a long way off.

None the less, and instinctively in Cowperwood Aileen recognized
a way out--a door--and by the same token a subtle, impending
artistic future of great magnificence.  This man would rise beyond
anything he now dreamed of--she felt it.  There was in him, in
some nebulous, unrecognizable form, a great artistic reality which
was finer than anything she could plan for herself.  She wanted
luxury, magnificence, social station.  Well, if she could get this
man they would come to her.  There were, apparently, insuperable
barriers in the way; but hers was no weakling nature, and neither
was his.  They ran together temperamentally from the first like
two leopards.  Her own thoughts--crude, half formulated, half
spoken--nevertheless matched his to a degree in the equality of
their force and their raw directness.

"I don't think papa knows how to do," she said to him, one day.
"It isn't his fault.  He can't help it.  He knows that he can't.
And he knows that I know it.  For years I wanted him to move out
of that old house there.  He knows that he ought to.  But even that
wouldn't do much good."

She paused, looking at him with a straight, clear, vigorous glance.
He liked the medallion sharpness of her features--their smooth,
Greek modeling.

"Never mind, pet," he replied.  "We will arrange all these things
later.  I don't see my way out of this just now; but I think the
best thing to do is to confess to Lillian some day, and see if
some other plan can't be arranged.  I want to fix it so the children
won't suffer.  I can provide for them amply, and I wouldn't be at
all surprised if Lillian would be willing to let me go.  She
certainly wouldn't want any publicity."

He was counting practically, and man-fashion, on her love for her
children.

Aileen looked at him with clear, questioning, uncertain eyes.  She
was not wholly without sympathy, but in a way this situation did
not appeal to her as needing much.  Mrs. Cowperwood was not friendly
in her mood toward her.  It was not based on anything save a
difference in their point of view.  Mrs. Cowperwood could never
understand how a girl could carry her head so high and "put on
such airs," and Aileen could not understand how any one could be
so lymphatic and lackadaisical as Lillian Cowperwood.  Life was
made for riding, driving, dancing, going.  It was made for airs
and banter and persiflage and coquetry.  To see this woman, the
wife of a young, forceful man like Cowperwood, acting, even though
she were five years older and the mother of two children, as though
life on its romantic and enthusiastic pleasurable side were all
over was too much for her.  Of course Lillian was unsuited to
Frank; of course he needed a young woman like herself, and fate
would surely give him to her.  Then what a delicious life they
would lead!

"Oh, Frank," she exclaimed to him, over and over, "if we could
only manage it.  Do you think we can?"

"Do I think we can? Certainly I do.  It's only a matter of time.
I think if I were to put the matter to her clearly, she wouldn't
expect me to stay.  You look out how you conduct your affairs.
If your father or your brother should ever suspect me, there'd
be an explosion in this town, if nothing worse.  They'd fight me
in all my money deals, if they didn't kill me.  Are you thinking
carefully of what you are doing?"

"All the time.  If anything happens I'll deny everything.  They
can't prove it, if I deny it.  I'll come to you in the long run,
just the same."

They were in the Tenth Street house at the time.  She stroked his
cheeks with the loving fingers of the wildly enamored woman.

"I'll do anything for you, sweetheart," she declared.  "I'd die for
you if I had to.  I love you so."

"Well, pet, no danger.  You won't have to do anything like that.
But be careful."





Chapter XXIII




Then, after several years of this secret relationship, in which
the ties of sympathy and understanding grew stronger instead of
weaker, came the storm.  It burst unexpectedly and out of a clear
sky, and bore no relation to the intention or volition of any
individual.  It was nothing more than a fire, a distant one--the
great Chicago fire, October 7th, 1871, which burned that city--
its vast commercial section--to the ground, and instantly and
incidentally produced a financial panic, vicious though of short
duration in various other cities in America.  The fire began on
Saturday and continued apparently unabated until the following
Wednesday.  It destroyed the banks, the commercial houses, the
shipping conveniences, and vast stretches of property.  The heaviest
loss fell naturally upon the insurance companies, which instantly,
in many cases--the majority--closed their doors.  This threw the
loss back on the manufacturers and wholesalers in other cities
who had had dealings with Chicago as well as the merchants of that
city.  Again, very grievous losses were borne by the host of
eastern capitalists which had for years past partly owned, or
held heavy mortgages on, the magnificent buildings for business
purposes and residences in which Chicago was already rivaling
every city on the continent.  Transportation was disturbed, and
the keen scent of Wall Street, and Third Street in Philadelphia,
and State Street in Boston, instantly perceived in the early
reports the gravity of the situation.  Nothing could be done on
Saturday or Sunday after the exchange closed, for the opening
reports came too late.  On Monday, however, the facts were pouring
in thick and fast; and the owners of railroad securities, government
securities, street-car securities, and, indeed, all other forms
of stocks and bonds, began to throw them on the market in order
to raise cash.  The banks naturally were calling their loans, and
the result was a stock stampede which equaled the Black Friday of
Wall Street of two years before.

Cowperwood and his father were out of town at the time the fire
began.  They had gone with several friends--bankers--to look at a
proposed route of extension of a local steam-railroad, on which a
loan was desired.  In buggies they had driven over a good portion
of the route, and were returning to Philadelphia late Sunday evening
when the cries of newsboys hawking an "extra" reached their ears.

"Ho! Extra! Extra! All about the big Chicago fire!"

"Ho! Extra! Extra! Chicago burning down! Extra! Extra!"

The cries were long-drawn-out, ominous, pathetic.  In the dusk of
the dreary Sunday afternoon, when the city had apparently retired
to Sabbath meditation and prayer, with that tinge of the dying year
in the foliage and in the air, one caught a sense of something
grim and gloomy.

"Hey, boy," called Cowperwood, listening, seeing a shabbily clothed
misfit of a boy with a bundle of papers under his arm turning a
corner.  "What's that? Chicago burning!"

He looked at his father and the other men in a significant way as
he reached for the paper, and then, glancing at the headlines,
realized the worst.

  ALL CHICAGO BURNING

  FIRE RAGES UNCHECKED IN COMMERCIAL SECTION SINCE
  YESTERDAY EVENING.  BANKS, COMMERCIAL HOUSES, PUBLIC
  BUILDINGS IN RUINS.  DIRECT TELEGRAPHIC COMMUNICATION
  SUSPENDED SINCE THREE O'CLOCK TO-DAY.  NO END TO
  PROGRESS OF DISASTER IN SIGHT.

"That looks rather serious," he said, calmly, to his companions,
a cold, commanding force coming into his eyes and voice.  To his
father he said a little later, "It's panic, unless the majority
of the banks and brokerage firms stand together."

He was thinking quickly, brilliantly, resourcefully of his own
outstanding obligations.  His father's bank was carrying one
hundred thousand dollars' worth of his street-railway securities
at sixty, and fifty thousand dollars' worth of city loan at
seventy.  His father had "up with him" over forty thousand dollars
in cash covering market manipulations in these stocks.  The banking
house of Drexel & Co. was on his books as a creditor for one hundred
thousand, and that loan would be called unless they were especially
merciful, which was not likely.  Jay Cooke & Co. were his creditors
for another one hundred and fifty thousand.  They would want their
money.  At four smaller banks and three brokerage companies he
was debtor for sums ranging from fifty thousand dollars down.  The
city treasurer was involved with him to the extent of nearly five
hundred thousand dollars, and exposure of that would create a
scandal; the State treasurer for two hundred thousand.  There
were small accounts, hundreds of them, ranging from one hundred
dollars up to five and ten thousand.  A panic would mean not only
a withdrawal of deposits and a calling of loans, but a heavy
depression of securities.  How could he realize on his securities?
--that was the question--how without selling so many points off
that his fortune would be swept away and he would be ruined?

He figured briskly the while he waved adieu to his friends, who
hurried away, struck with their own predicament.

"You had better go on out to the house, father, and I'll send some
telegrams."  (The telephone had not yet been invented.)  "I'll be
right out and we'll go into this thing together.  It looks like
black weather to me.  Don't say anything to any one until after
we have had our talk; then we can decide what to do."

Cowperwood, Sr., was already plucking at his side-whiskers in a
confused and troubled way.  He was cogitating as to what might
happen to him in case his son failed, for he was deeply involved
with him.  He was a little gray in his complexion now, frightened,
for he had already strained many points in his affairs to accommodate
his son.  If Frank should not be able promptly on the morrow to
meet the call which the bank might have to make for one hundred
and fifty thousand dollars, the onus and scandal of the situation
would be on him.

On the other hand, his son was meditating on the tangled relation
in which he now found himself in connection with the city treasurer
and the fact that it was not possible for him to support the market
alone.  Those who should have been in a position to help him were
now as bad off as himself.  There were many unfavorable points in
the whole situation.  Drexel & Co. had been booming railway stocks--
loaning heavily on them.  Jay Cooke & Co. had been backing Northern
Pacific--were practically doing their best to build that immense
transcontinental system alone.  Naturally, they were long on that
and hence in a ticklish position.  At the first word they would
throw over their surest securities--government bonds, and the like
--in order to protect their more speculative holdings.  The bears
would see the point.  They would hammer and hammer, selling short
all along the line.  But he did not dare to do that.  He would be
breaking his own back quickly, and what he needed was time.  If he
could only get time--three days, a week, ten days--this storm would
surely blow over.

The thing that was troubling him most was the matter of the
half-million invested with him by Stener.  A fall election was
drawing near.  Stener, although he had served two terms, was slated
for reelection.  A scandal in connection with the city treasury
would be a very bad thing.  It would end Stener's career as an
official--would very likely send him to the penitentiary.  It might
wreck the Republican party's chances to win.  It would certainly
involve himself as having much to do with it.  If that happened,
he would have the politicians to reckon with.  For, if he were
hard pressed, as he would be, and failed, the fact that he had
been trying to invade the city street-railway preserves which they
held sacred to themselves, with borrowed city money, and that this
borrowing was liable to cost them the city election, would all
come out.  They would not view all that with a kindly eye.  It
would be useless to say, as he could, that he had borrowed the
money at two per cent. (most of it, to save himself, had been
covered by a protective clause of that kind), or that he had merely
acted as an agent for Stener.  That might go down with the
unsophisticated of the outer world, but it would never be swallowed
by the politicians.  They knew better than that.

There was another phase to this situation, however, that encouraged
him, and that was his knowledge of how city politics were going
in general.  It was useless for any politician, however loftly,
to take a high and mighty tone in a crisis like this.  All of them,
great and small, were profiting in one way and another through
city privileges.   Butler, Mollenhauer, and Simpson, he knew, made
money out of contracts--legal enough, though they might be looked
upon as rank favoritism--and also out of vast sums of money collected
in the shape of taxes--land taxes, water taxes, etc.--which were
deposited in the various banks designated by these men and others
as legal depositories for city money.  The banks supposedly carried
the city's money in their vaults as a favor, without paying interest
of any kind, and then reinvested it--for whom? Cowperwood had no
complaint to make, for he was being well treated, but these men
could scarcely expect to monopolize all the city's benefits.  He
did not know either Mollenhauer or Simpson personally--but he knew
they as well as Butler had made money out of his own manipulation
of city loan.  Also, Butler was most friendly to him.  It was not
unreasonable for him to think, in a crisis like this, that if worst
came to worst, he could make a clean breast of it to Butler and
receive aid.  In case he could not get through secretly with
Stener's help, Cowperwood made up his mind that he would do this.

His first move, he decided, would be to go at once to Stener's
house and demand the loan of an additional three or four hundred
thousand dollars.  Stener had always been very tractable, and in
this instance would see how important it was that his shortage of
half a million should not be made public.  Then he must get as
much more as possible.  But where to get it? Presidents of banks
and trust companies, large stock jobbers, and the like, would have
to be seen.  Then there was a loan of one hundred thousand dollars
he was carrying for Butler.  The old contractor might be induced
to leave that.  He hurried to his home, secured his runabout, and
drove rapidly to Stener's.

As it turned out, however, much to his distress and confusion,
Stener was out of town--down on the Chesapeake with several friends
shooting ducks and fishing, and was not expected back for several
days.  He was in the marshes back of some small town.  Cowperwood
sent an urgent wire to the nearest point and then, to make assurance
doubly sure, to several other points in the same neighborhood,
asking him to return immediately.  He was not at all sure, however,
that Stener would return in time and was greatly nonplussed and
uncertain for the moment as to what his next step would be.  Aid
must be forthcoming from somewhere and at once.

Suddenly a helpful thought occurred to him.  Butler and Mollenhauer
and Simpson were long on local street-railways.  They must combine
to support the situation and protect their interests.  They could
see the big bankers, Drexel & Co. and Cooke & Co., and others and
urge them to sustain the market.  They could strengthen things
generally by organizing a buying ring, and under cover of their
support, if they would, he might sell enough to let him out, and
even permit him to go short and make something--a whole lot.  It
was a brilliant thought, worthy of a greater situation, and its
only weakness was that it was not absolutely certain of fulfillment.

He decided to go to Butler at once, the only disturbing thought
being that he would now be compelled to reveal his own and Stener's
affairs.  So reentering his runabout he drove swiftly to the Butler
home.

When he arrived there the famous contractor was at dinner.  He
had not heard the calling of the extras, and of course, did not
understand as yet the significance of the fire.  The servant's
announcement of Cowperwood brought him smiling to the door.

"Won't you come in and join us? We're just havin' a light supper.
Have a cup of coffee or tea, now--do."

"I can't," replied Cowperwood.  "Not to-night, I'm in too much of
a hurry.  I want to see you for just a few moments, and then I'll
be off again.  I won't keep you very long."

"Why, if that's the case, I'll come right out."  And Butler
returned to the dining-room to put down his napkin.  Aileen, who
was also dining, had heard Cowperwood's voice, and was on the qui
vive to see him.  She wondered what it was that brought him at
this time of night to see her father.  She could not leave the
table at once, but hoped to before he went.  Cowperwood was thinking
of her, even in the face of this impending storm, as he was of his
wife, and many other things.  If his affairs came down in a heap
it would go hard with those attached to him.  In this first
clouding of disaster, he could not tell how things would eventuate.
He meditated on this desperately, but he was not panic-stricken.
His naturally even-molded face was set in fine, classic lines;
his eyes were as hard as chilled steel.

"Well, now," exclaimed Butler, returning, his countenance manifesting
a decidedly comfortable relationship with the world as at present
constituted.  "What's up with you to-night? Nawthin' wrong, I hope.
It's been too fine a day."

"Nothing very serious, I hope myself," replied Cowperwood, "But I
want to talk with you a few minutes, anyhow.  Don't you think we
had better go up to your room?"

"I was just going to say that," replied Butler--"the cigars are
up there."

They started from the reception-room to the stairs, Butler preceding
and as the contractor mounted, Aileen came out from the dining-room
in a frou-frou of silk.  Her splendid hair was drawn up from the
base of the neck and the line of the forehead into some quaint
convolutions which constituted a reddish-gold crown.  Her complexion
was glowing, and her bare arms and shoulders shone white against
the dark red of her evening gown.  She realized there was something
wrong.

"Oh, Mr. Cowperwood, how do you do?" she exclaimed, coming forward
and holding out her hand as her father went on upstairs.  She was
delaying him deliberately in order to have a word with him and
this bold acting was for the benefit of the others.

"What's the trouble, honey?" she whispered, as soon as her father
was out of hearing.  "You look worried."

"Nothing much, I hope, sweet," he said.  "Chicago is burning up
and there's going to be trouble to-morrow.  I have to talk to your
father."

She had time only for a sympathetic, distressed "Oh," before he
withdrew his hand and followed Butler upstairs.  She squeezed his
arm, and went through the reception-room to the parlor.  She sat
down, thinking, for never before had she seen Cowperwood's face
wearing such an expression of stern, disturbed calculation.  It
was placid, like fine, white wax, and quite as cold; and those
deep, vague, inscrutable eyes! So Chicago was burning.  What would
happen to him? Was he very much involved? He had never told her
in detail of his affairs.  She would not have understood fully
any more than would have Mrs. Cowperwood.  But she was worried,
nevertheless, because it was her Frank, and because she was bound
to him by what to her seemed indissoluble ties.

Literature, outside of the masters, has given us but one idea of
the mistress, the subtle, calculating siren who delights to prey
on the souls of men.  The journalism and the moral pamphleteering
of the time seem to foster it with almost partisan zeal.  It would
seem that a censorship of life had been established by divinity,
and the care of its execution given into the hands of the utterly
conservative.  Yet there is that other form of liaison which has
nothing to do with conscious calculation.  In the vast majority
of cases it is without design or guile.  The average woman,
controlled by her affections and deeply in love, is no more capable
than a child of anything save sacrificial thought--the desire to
give; and so long as this state endures, she can only do this.  She
may change--Hell hath no fury, etc.--but the sacrificial, yielding,
solicitous attitude is more often the outstanding characteristic
of the mistress; and it is this very attitude in contradistinction
to the grasping legality of established matrimony that has caused
so many wounds in the defenses of the latter.  The temperament of
man, either male or female, cannot help falling down before and
worshiping this nonseeking, sacrificial note.  It approaches vast
distinction in life.  It appears to be related to that last word
in art, that largeness of spirit which is the first characteristic
of the great picture, the great building, the great sculpture, the
great decoration--namely, a giving, freely and without stint, of
itself, of beauty.  Hence the significance of this particular
mood in Aileen.

All the subtleties of the present combination were troubling
Cowperwood as he followed Butler into the room upstairs.

"Sit down, sit down.  You won't take a little somethin'? You never
do.  I remember now.  Well, have a cigar, anyhow.  Now, what's
this that's troublin' you to-night?"

Voices could be heard faintly in the distance, far off toward the
thicker residential sections.

"Extra! Extra! All about the big Chicago fire! Chicago burning down!"

"Just that," replied Cowperwood, hearkening to them.  "Have you
heard the news?"

"No.  What's that they're calling?"

"It's a big fire out in Chicago."

"Oh," replied Butler, still not gathering the significance of it.

"It's burning down the business section there, Mr. Butler," went
on Cowperwood ominously, "and I fancy it's going to disturb financial
conditions here to-morrow.  That is what I have come to see you
about.  How are your investments? Pretty well drawn in?"

Butler suddenly gathered from Cowperwood's expression that there
was something very wrong.  He put up his large hand as he leaned
back in his big leather chair, and covered his mouth and chin
with it.  Over those big knuckles, and bigger nose, thick and
cartilaginous, his large, shaggy-eyebrowed eyes gleamed.  His gray,
bristly hair stood up stiffly in a short, even growth all over
his head.

"So that's it," he said.  "You're expectin' trouble to-morrow.
How are your own affairs?"

"I'm in pretty good shape, I think, all told, if the money element
of this town doesn't lose its head and go wild.  There has to be
a lot of common sense exercised to-morrow, or to-night, even.  You
know we are facing a real panic.  Mr. Butler, you may as well know
that.  It may not last long, but while it does it will be bad.
Stocks are going to drop to-morrow ten or fifteen points on the
opening.  The banks are going to call their loans unless some
arrangement can be made to prevent them.  No one man can do that.
It will have to be a combination of men.  You and Mr. Simpson and
Mr. Mollenhauer might do it--that is, you could if you could
persuade the big banking people to combine to back the market.
There is going to be a raid on local street-railways--all of them.
Unless they are sustained the bottom is going to drop out.  I have
always known that you were long on those.  I thought you and Mr.
Mollenhauer and some of the others might want to act.  If you don't
I might as well confess that it is going to go rather hard with me.
I am not strong enough to face this thing alone."

He was meditating on how he should tell the whole truth in regard
to Stener.

"Well, now, that's pretty bad," said Butler, calmly and meditatively.
He was thinking of his own affairs.  A panic was not good for him
either, but he was not in a desperate state.  He could not fail.
He might lose some money, but not a vast amount--before he could
adjust things.  Still he did not care to lose any money.

"How is it you're so bad off?" he asked, curiously.  He was wondering
how the fact that the bottom was going to drop out of local
street-railways would affect Cowperwood so seriously.  "You're not
carryin' any of them things, are you?" he added.

It was now a question of lying or telling the truth, and Cowperwood
was literally afraid to risk lying in this dilemma.  If he did not
gain Butler's comprehending support he might fail, and if he failed
the truth would come out, anyhow.

"I might as well make a clean breast of this, Mr. Butler," he said,
throwing himself on the old man's sympathies and looking at him
with that brisk assurance which Butler so greatly admired.  He
felt as proud of Cowperwood at times as he did of his own sons.
He felt that he had helped to put him where he was.

"The fact is that I have been buying street-railway stocks, but
not for myself exactly.  I am going to do something now which I
think I ought not to do, but I cannot help myself.  If I don't do
it, it will injure you and a lot of people whom I do not wish to
injure.  I know you are naturally interested in the outcome of
the fall election.  The truth is I have been carrying a lot of
stocks for Mr. Stener and some of his friends.  I do not know that
all the money has come from the city treasury, but I think that
most of it has.  I know what that means to Mr. Stener and the
Republican party and your interests in case I fail.  I don't
think Mr. Stener started this of his own accord in the first
place--I think I am as much to blame as anybody--but it grew out
of other things.  As you know, I handled that matter of city loan
for him and then some of his friends wanted me to invest in
street-railways for them.  I have been doing that ever since.
Personally I have borrowed considerable money from Mr. Stener at
two per cent.  In fact, originally the transactions were covered
in that way.  Now I don't want to shift the blame on any one.  It
comes back to me and I am willing to let it stay there, except that
if I fail Mr. Stener will be blamed and that will reflect on the
administration.  Naturally, I don't want to fail.  There is no
excuse for my doing so.  Aside from this panic I have never been
in a better position in my life.  But I cannot weather this storm
without assistance, and I want to know if you won't help me.  If
I pull through I will give you my word that I will see that the
money which has been taken from the treasury is put back there.
Mr. Stener is out of town or I would have brought him here with me."

Cowperwood was lying out of the whole cloth in regard to bringing
Stener with him, and he had no intention of putting the money back
in the city treasury except by degrees and in such manner as suited
his convenience; but what he had said sounded well and created a
great seeming of fairness.

"How much money is it Stener has invested with you?" asked Butler.
He was a little confused by this curious development.  It put
Cowperwood and Stener in an odd light.

"About five hundred thousand dollars," replied Cowperwood.

The old man straightened up.  "Is it as much as that?" he said.

"Just about--a little more or a little less; I'm not sure which."

The old contractor listened solemnly to all Cowperwood had to say
on this score, thinking of the effect on the Republican party and
his own contracting interests.  He liked Cowperwood, but this was
a rough thing the latter was telling him--rough, and a great deal
to ask.  He was a slow-thinking and a slow-moving man, but he did
well enough when he did think.  He had considerable money invested
in Philadelphia street-railway stocks--perhaps as much as eight
hundred thousand dollars.  Mollenhauer had perhaps as much more.
Whether Senator Simpson had much or little he could not tell.
Cowperwood had told him in the past that he thought the Senator
had a good deal.  Most of their holdings, as in the case of
Cowperwood's, were hypothecated at the various banks for loans and
these loans invested in other ways.  It was not advisable or
comfortable to have these loans called, though the condition of
no one of the triumvirate was anything like as bad as that of
Cowperwood.  They could see themselves through without much trouble,
though not without probable loss unless they took hurried action
to protect themselves.

He would not have thought so much of it if Cowperwood had told him
that Stener was involved, say, to the extent of seventy-five or a
hundred thousand dollars.  That might be adjusted.  But five hundred
thousand dollars!

"That's a lot of money," said Butler, thinking of the amazing
audacity of Stener, but failing at the moment to identify it with
the astute machinations of Cowperwood.  "That's something to think
about.  There's no time to lose if there's going to be a panic in
the morning.  How much good will it do ye if we do support the
market?"

"A great deal," returned Cowperwood, "although of course I have to
raise money in other ways.  I have that one hundred thousand
dollars of yours on deposit.  Is it likely that you'll want that
right away?"

"It may be," said Butler.

"It's just as likely that I'll need it so badly that I can't give
it up without seriously injuring myself," added Cowperwood.  "That's
just one of a lot of things.  If you and Senator Simpson and Mr.
Mollenhauer were to get together--you're the largest holders of
street-railway stocks--and were to see Mr. Drexel and Mr. Cooke,
you could fix things so that matters would be considerably easier.
I will be all right if my loans are not called, and my loans will
not be called if the market does not slump too heavily.  If it
does, all my securities are depreciated, and I can't hold out."

Old Butler got up.  "This is serious business," he said.  "I wish
you'd never gone in with Stener in that way.  It don't look
quite right and it can't be made to.  It's bad, bad business," he
added dourly.  "Still, I'll do what I can.  I can't promise much,
but I've always liked ye and I'll not be turning on ye now unless
I have to.  But I'm sorry--very.  And I'm not the only one that
has a hand in things in this town."  At the same time he was
thinking it was right decent of Cowperwood to forewarn him this
way in regard to his own affairs and the city election, even though
he was saving his own neck by so doing.  He meant to do what he
could.

"I don't suppose you could keep this matter of Stener and the city
treasury quiet for a day or two until I see how I come out?"
suggested Cowperwood warily.

"I can't promise that," replied Butler.  "I'll have to do the best
I can.  I won't lave it go any further than I can help--you can
depend on that."  He was thinking how the effect of Stener's crime
could be overcome if Cowperwood failed.

"Owen!"

He stepped to the door, and, opening it, called down over the
banister.

"Yes, father."

"Have Dan hitch up the light buggy and bring it around to the
door.  And you get your hat and coat.  I want you to go along with
me."

"Yes, father."

He came back.

"Sure that's a nice little storm in a teapot, now, isn't it?
Chicago begins to burn, and I have to worry here in Philadelphia.
Well, well--" Cowperwood was up now and moving to the door.  "And
where are you going?"

"Back to the house.  I have several people coming there to see me.
But I'll come back here later, if I may."

"Yes, yes," replied Butler.  "To be sure I'll be here by midnight,
anyhow.  Well, good night.  I'll see you later, then, I suppose.
I'll tell you what I find out."

He went back in his room for something, and Cowperwood descended
the stair alone.  From the hangings of the reception-room entryway
Aileen signaled him to draw near.

"I hope it's nothing serious, honey?" she sympathized, looking
into his solemn eyes.

It was not time for love, and he felt it.

"No," he said, almost coldly, "I think not."

"Frank, don't let this thing make you forget me for long, please.
You won't, will you? I love you so."

"No, no, I won't!" he replied earnestly, quickly and yet absently.

"I can't! Don't you know I won't?" He had started to kiss her, but
a noise disturbed him.  "Sh!"

He walked to the door, and she followed him with eager, sympathetic
eyes.

What if anything should happen to her Frank? What if anything could?
What would she do? That was what was troubling her.  What would,
what could she do to help him? He looked so pale--strained.





Chapter XXIV




The condition of the Republican party at this time in Philadelphia,
its relationship to George W. Stener, Edward Malia Butler, Henry
A. Mollenhauer, Senator Mark Simpson, and others, will have to be
briefly indicated here, in order to foreshadow Cowperwood's actual
situation.  Butler, as we have seen, was normally interested in and
friendly to Cowperwood.  Stener was Cowperwood's tool.  Mollenhauer
and Senator Simpson were strong rivals of Butler for the control of
city affairs.  Simpson represented the Republican control of the
State legislature, which could dictate to the city if necessary,
making new election laws, revising the city charter, starting
political investigations, and the like.  He had many influential
newspapers, corporations, banks, at his beck and call.  Mollenhauer
represented the Germans, some Americans, and some large stable
corporations--a very solid and respectable man.  All three were
strong, able, and dangerous politically.  The two latter counted
on Butler's influence, particularly with the Irish, and a certain
number of ward leaders and Catholic politicians and laymen, who
were as loyal to him as though he were a part of the church itself.
Butler's return to these followers was protection, influence, aid,
and good-will generally.  The city's return to him, via Mollenhauer
and Simpson, was in the shape of contracts--fat ones--street-paving,
bridges, viaducts, sewers.  And in order for him to get these
contracts the affairs of the Republican party, of which he was a
beneficiary as well as a leader, must be kept reasonably straight.
At the same time it was no more a part of his need to keep the
affairs of the party straight than it was of either Mollenhauer's
or Simpson's, and Stener was not his appointee.  The latter was
more directly responsible to Mollenhauer than to any one else.

As Butler stepped into the buggy with his son he was thinking
about this, and it was puzzling him greatly.

"Cowperwood's just been here," he said to Owen, who had been
rapidly coming into a sound financial understanding of late, and
was already a shrewder man politically and socially than his father,
though he had not the latter's magnetism.  "He's been tellin' me
that he's in a rather tight place.  You hear that?" he continued,
as some voice in the distance was calling "Extra! Extra!" "That's
Chicago burnin', and there's goin' to be trouble on the stock
exchange to-morrow.  We have a lot of our street-railway stocks
around at the different banks.  If we don't look sharp they'll be
callin' our loans.  We have to 'tend to that the first thing in
the mornin'.  Cowperwood has a hundred thousand of mine with him
that he wants me to let stay there, and he has some money that
belongs to Stener, he tells me."

"Stener?" asked Owen, curiously.  "Has he been dabbling in stocks?"
Owen had heard some rumors concerning Stener and others only very
recently, which he had not credited nor yet communicated to his
father.  "How much money of his has Cowperwood?" he asked.

Butler meditated.  "Quite a bit, I'm afraid," he finally said.
"As a matter of fact, it's a great deal--about five hundred thousand
dollars.  If that should become known, it would be makin' a good
deal of noise, I'm thinkin'."

"Whew!" exclaimed Owen in astonishment.  "Five hundred thousand
dollars! Good Lord, father! Do you mean to say Stener has got away
with five hundred thousand dollars? Why, I wouldn't think he was
clever enough to do that.  Five hundred thousand dollars! It will
make a nice row if that comes out."

"Aisy, now! Aisy, now!" replied Butler, doing his best to keep
all phases of the situation in mind.  "We can't tell exactly what
the circumstances were yet.  He mayn't have meant to take so much.
It may all come out all right yet.  The money's invested.  Cowperwood
hasn't failed yet.  It may be put back.  The thing to be settled
on now is whether anything can be done to save him.  If he's tellin'
me the truth--and I never knew him to lie--he can get out of this
if street-railway stocks don't break too heavy in the mornin'.
I'm going over to see Henry Mollenhauer and Mark Simpson.  They're
in on this.  Cowperwood wanted me to see if I couldn't get them
to get the bankers together and have them stand by the market.  He
thought we might protect our loans by comin' on and buyin' and
holdin' up the price."

Owen was running swiftly in his mind over Cowperwood's affairs--as
much as he knew of them.  He felt keenly that the banker ought to
be shaken out.  This dilemma was his fault, not Stener's--he felt.
It was strange to him that his father did not see it and resent it.

"You see what it is, father," he said, dramatically, after a time.
"Cowperwood's been using this money of Stener's to pick up stocks,
and he's in a hole.  If it hadn't been for this fire he'd have got
away with it; but now he wants you and Simpson and Mollenhauer and
the others to pull him out.  He's a nice fellow, and I like him
fairly well; but you're a fool if you do as he wants you to.  He
has more than belongs to him already.  I heard the other day that
he has the Front Street line, and almost all of Green and Coates;
and that he and Stener own the Seventeenth and Nineteenth; but I
didn't believe it.  I've been intending to ask you about it.  I
think Cowperwood has a majority for himself stowed away somewhere
in every instance.  Stener is just a pawn.  He moves him around
where he pleases."

Owen's eyes gleamed avariciously, opposingly.  Cowperwood ought
to be punished, sold out, driven out of the street-railway business
in which Owen was anxious to rise.

"Now you know," observed Butler, thickly and solemnly, "I always
thought that young felly was clever, but I hardly thought he was
as clever as all that.  So that's his game.  You're pretty shrewd
yourself, aren't you? Well, we can fix that, if we think well of
it.  But there's more than that to all this.  You don't want to
forget the Republican party.  Our success goes with the success
of that, you know"--and he paused and looked at his son.  "If
Cowperwood should fail and that money couldn't be put back--" He
broke off abstractedly.  "The thing that's troublin' me is this
matter of Stener and the city treasury.  If somethin' ain't done
about that, it may go hard with the party this fall, and with some
of our contracts.  You don't want to forget that an election is
comin' along in November.  I'm wonderin' if I ought to call in
that one hundred thousand dollars.  It's goin' to take considerable
money to meet my loans in the mornin'."

It is a curious matter of psychology, but it was only now that
the real difficulties of the situation were beginning to dawn on
Butler.  In the presence of Cowperwood he was so influenced by
that young man's personality and his magnetic presentation of his
need and his own liking for him that he had not stopped to consider
all the phases of his own relationship to the situation.  Out here
in the cool night air, talking to Owen, who was ambitious on his
own account and anything but sentimentally considerate of Cowperwood,
he was beginning to sober down and see things in their true light.
He had to admit that Cowperwood had seriously compromised the city
treasury and the Republican party, and incidentally Butler's own
private interests.  Nevertheless, he liked Cowperwood.  He was in
no way prepared to desert him.  He was now going to see Mollenhauer
and Simpson as much to save Cowperwood really as the party and his
own affairs.  And yet a scandal.  He did not like that--resented
it.  This young scalawag! To think he should be so sly.  None the
less he still liked him, even here and now, and was feeling that
he ought to do something to help the young man, if anything could
help him.  He might even leave his hundred-thousand-dollar loan
with him until the last hour, as Cowperwood had requested, if the
others were friendly.

"Well, father," said Owen, after a time, "I don't see why you need
to worry any more than Mollenhauer or Simpson.  If you three want
to help him out, you can; but for the life of me I don't see why
you should.  I know this thing will have a bad effect on the
election, if it comes out before then; but it could be hushed up
until then, couldn't it? Anyhow, your street-railway holdings are
more important than this election, and if you can see your way
clear to getting the street-railway lines in your hands you won't
need to worry about any elections.  My advice to you is to call
that one-hundred-thousand-dollar loan of yours in the morning, and
meet the drop in your stocks that way.  It may make Cowperwood
fail, but that won't hurt you any.  You can go into the market
and buy his stocks.  I wouldn't be surprised if he would run to
you and ask you to take them.  You ought to get Mollenhauer and
Simpson to scare Stener so that he won't loan Cowperwood any more
money.  If you don't, Cowperwood will run there and get more.
Stener's in too far now.  If Cowperwood won't sell out, well and
good; the chances are he will bust, anyhow, and then you can pick
up as much on the market as any one else.  I think he'll sell.
You can't afford to worry about Stener's five hundred thousand
dollars.  No one told him to loan it.  Let him look out for himself.
It may hurt the party, but you can look after that later.  You and
Mollenhauer can fix the newspapers so they won't talk about it till
after election."

"Aisy! Aisy!" was all the old contractor would say.  He was
thinking hard.





Chapter XXV




The residence of Henry A. Mollenhauer was, at that time, in a
section of the city which was almost as new as that in which Butler
was living.  It was on South Broad Street, near a handsome library
building which had been recently erected.  It was a spacious house
of the type usually affected by men of new wealth in those days--a
structure four stories in height of yellow brick and white stone
built after no school which one could readily identify, but not
unattractive in its architectural composition.  A broad flight of
steps leading to a wide veranda gave into a decidedly ornate door,
which was set on either side by narrow windows and ornamented to
the right and left with pale-blue jardinieres of considerable
charm of outline.  The interior, divided into twenty rooms, was
paneled and parqueted in the most expensive manner for homes of
that day.  There was a great reception-hall, a large parlor or
drawing-room, a dining-room at least thirty feet square paneled
in oak; and on the second floor were a music-room devoted to the
talents of Mollenhauer's three ambitious daughters, a library and
private office for himself, a boudoir and bath for his wife, and
a conservatory.

Mollenhauer was, and felt himself to be, a very important man.  His
financial and political judgment was exceedingly keen.  Although he
was a German, or rather an American of German parentage, he was a
man of a rather impressive American presence.  He was tall and heavy
and shrewd and cold.  His large chest and wide shoulders supported
a head of distinguished proportions, both round and long when seen
from different angles.  The frontal bone descended in a protruding
curve over the nose, and projected solemnly over the eyes, which
burned with a shrewd, inquiring gaze.  And the nose and mouth and
chin below, as well as his smooth, hard cheeks, confirmed the
impression that he knew very well what he wished in this world,
and was very able without regard to let or hindrance to get it.  It
was a big face, impressive, well modeled.  He was an excellent
friend of Edward Malia Butler's, as such friendships go, and his
regard for Mark Simpson was as sincere as that of one tiger for
another.  He respected ability; he was willing to play fair when
fair was the game.  When it was not, the reach of his cunning was
not easily measured.

When Edward Butler and his son arrived on this Sunday evening,
this distinguished representative of one-third of the city's
interests was not expecting them.  He was in his library reading
and listening to one of his daughters playing the piano.  His wife
and his other two daughters had gone to church.  He was of a domestic
turn of mind.  Still, Sunday evening being an excellent one for
conference purposes generally in the world of politics, he was not
without the thought that some one or other of his distinguished
confreres might call, and when the combination footman and butler
announced the presence of Butler and his son, he was well pleased.

"So there you are," he remarked to Butler, genially, extending his
hand.  "I'm certainly glad to see you.  And Owen! How are you, Owen?
What will you gentlemen have to drink, and what will you smoke? I
know you'll have something.  John"--to the servitor---"see if you
can find something for these gentlemen.  I have just been listening
to Caroline play; but I think you've frightened her off for the
time being."

He moved a chair into position for Butler, and indicated to Owen
another on the other side of the table.  In a moment his servant
had returned with a silver tray of elaborate design, carrying
whiskies and wines of various dates and cigars in profusion.  Owen
was the new type of young financier who neither smoked nor drank.
His father temperately did both.

"It's a comfortable place you have here," said Butler, without any
indication of the important mission that had brought him.  "I don't
wonder you stay at home Sunday evenings.  What's new in the city?"

"Nothing much, so far as I can see," replied Mollenhauer, pacifically.
"Things seem to be running smooth enough.  You don't know anything
that we ought to worry about, do you?"

"Well, yes," said Butler, draining off the remainder of a brandy
and soda that had been prepared for him.  "One thing.  You haven't
seen an avenin' paper, have you?"

"No, I haven't," said Mollenhauer, straightening up.  "Is there
one out? What's the trouble anyhow?"

"Nothing--except Chicago's burning, and it looks as though we'd
have a little money-storm here in the morning."

"You don't say! I didn't hear that.  There's a paper out, is there?
Well, well--is it much of a fire?"

"The city is burning down, so they say," put in Owen, who was
watching the face of the distinguished politician with considerable
interest.

"Well, that is news.  I must send out and get a paper.  John!" he
called.  His man-servant appeared.  "See if you can get me a paper
somewhere."  The servant disappeared.  "What makes you think that
would have anything to do with us?" observed Mollenhauer, returning
to Butler.

"Well, there's one thing that goes with that that I didn't know
till a little while ago and that is that our man Stener is apt to
be short in his accounts, unless things come out better than some
people seem to think," suggested Butler, calmly.  "That might not
look so well before election, would it?" His shrewd gray Irish
eyes looked into Mollenhauer's, who returned his gaze.

"Where did you get that?" queried Mr. Mollenhauer icily.  "He
hasn't deliberately taken much money, has he? How much has he
taken--do you know?"

"Quite a bit," replied Butler, quietly.  "Nearly five hundred
thousand, so I understand.  Only I wouldn't say that it has been
taken as yet.  It's in danger of being lost."

"Five hundred thousand!" exclaimed Mollenhauer in amazement, and
yet preserving his usual calm.  "You don't tell me! How long has
this been going on? What has he been doing with the money?"

"He's loaned a good deal--about five hundred thousand dollars to
this young Cowperwood in Third Street, that's been handlin' city
loan.  They've been investin' it for themselves in one thing and
another--mostly in buyin' up street-railways."  (At the mention
of street-railways Mollenhauer's impassive countenance underwent
a barely perceptible change.)  "This fire, accordin' to Cowperwood,
is certain to produce a panic in the mornin', and unless he gets
considerable help he doesn't see how he's to hold out.  If he
doesn't hold out, there'll be five hundred thousand dollars missin'
from the city treasury which can't be put back.  Stener's out of
town and Cowperwood's come to me to see what can be done about it.
As a matter of fact, he's done a little business for me in times
past, and he thought maybe I could help him now--that is, that I
might get you and the Senator to see the big bankers with me and
help support the market in the mornin'.  If we don't he's goin'
to fail, and he thought the scandal would hurt us in the election.
He doesn't appear to me to be workin' any game--just anxious to
save himself and do the square thing by me--by us, if he can."
Butler paused.

Mollenhauer, sly and secretive himself, was apparently not at all
moved by this unexpected development.  At the same time, never
having thought of Stener as having any particular executive or
financial ability, he was a little stirred and curious.  So his
treasurer was using money without his knowing it, and now stood
in danger of being prosecuted! Cowperwood he knew of only indirectly,
as one who had been engaged to handle city loan.  He had profited
by his manipulation of city loan.  Evidently the banker had made
a fool of Stener, and had used the money for street-railway shares!
He and Stener must have quite some private holdings then.  That
did interest Mollenhauer greatly.

"Five hundred thousand dollars!" he repeated, when Butler had
finished.  "That is quite a little money.  If merely supporting
the market would save Cowperwood we might do that, although if
it's a severe panic I do not see how anything we can do will be
of very much assistance to him.  If he's in a very tight place
and a severe slump is coming, it will take a great deal more than
our merely supporting the market to save him.  I've been through
that before.  You don't know what his liabilities are?"

"I do not," said Butler.

"He didn't ask for money, you say?"

"He wants me to l'ave a hundred thousand he has of mine until he
sees whether he can get through or not."

"Stener is really out of town, I suppose?" Mollenhauer was innately
suspicious.

"So Cowperwood says.  We can send and find out."

Mollenhauer was thinking of the various aspects of the case.
Supporting the market would be all very well if that would save
Cowperwood, and the Republican party and his treasurer.  At the
same time Stener could then be compelled to restore the five
hundred thousand dollars to the city treasury, and release his
holdings to some one--preferably to him--Mollenhauer.  But here
was Butler also to be considered in this matter.  What might he
not want? He consulted with Butler and learned that Cowperwood
had agreed to return the five hundred thousand in case he could
get it together.  The various street-car holdings were not asked
after.  But what assurance had any one that Cowperwood could be
so saved? And could, or would get the money together? And if he
were saved would he give the money back to Stener? If he required
actual money, who would loan it to him in a time like this--in case
a sharp panic was imminent? What security could he give? On the
other hand, under pressure from the right parties he might be made
to surrender all his street-railway holdings for a song--his and
Stener's.  If he (Mollenhauer) could get them he would not
particularly care whether the election was lost this fall or not,
although he felt satisfied, as had Owen, that it would not be lost.
It could be bought, as usual.  The defalcation--if Cowperwood's
failure made Stener's loan into one--could be concealed long enough,
Mollenhauer thought, to win.  Personally as it came to him now he
would prefer to frighten Stener into refusing Cowperwood additional
aid, and then raid the latter's street-railway stock in combination
with everybody else's, for that matter--Simpson's and Butler's
included.  One of the big sources of future wealth in Philadelphia
lay in these lines.  For the present, however, he had to pretend
an interest in saving the party at the polls.

"I can't speak for the Senator, that's sure," pursued Mollenhauer,
reflectively.  "I don't know what he may think.  As for myself, I
am perfectly willing to do what I can to keep up the price of
stocks, if that will do any good.  I would do so naturally in
order to protect my loans.  The thing that we ought to be thinking
about, in my judgment, is how to prevent exposure, in case Mr.
Cowperwood does fail, until after election.  We have no assurance,
of course, that however much we support the market we will be able
to sustain it."

"We have not," replied Butler, solemnly.

Owen thought he could see Cowperwood's approaching doom quite
plainly.  At that moment the door-bell rang.  A maid, in the absence
of the footman, brought in the name of Senator Simpson.

"Just the man," said Mollenhauer.  "Show him up.  You can see what
he thinks."

"Perhaps I had better leave you alone now," suggested Owen to his
father.  "Perhaps I can find Miss Caroline, and she will sing for
me.  I'll wait for you, father," he added.

Mollenhauer cast him an ingratiating smile, and as he stepped out
Senator Simpson walked in.

A more interesting type of his kind than Senator Mark Simpson never
flourished in the State of Pennsylvania, which has been productive
of interesting types.  Contrasted with either of the two men who
now greeted him warmly and shook his hand, he was physically
unimpressive.  He was small--five feet nine inches, to Mollenhauer's
six feet and Butler's five feet eleven inches and a half, and then
his face was smooth, with a receding jaw.  In the other two this
feature was prominent.  Nor were his eyes as frank as those of Butler,
nor as defiant as those of Mollenhauer; but for subtlety they were
unmatched by either--deep, strange, receding, cavernous eyes which
contemplated you as might those of a cat looking out of a dark hole,
and suggesting all the artfulness that has ever distinguished the
feline family.  He had a strange mop of black hair sweeping down
over a fine, low, white forehead, and a skin as pale and bluish
as poor health might make it; but there was, nevertheless, resident
here a strange, resistant, capable force that ruled men--the
subtlety with which he knew how to feed cupidity with hope and
gain and the ruthlessness with which he repaid those who said him
nay.  He was a still man, as such a man might well have been--feeble
and fish-like in his handshake, wan and slightly lackadaisical in
his smile, but speaking always with eyes that answered for every
defect.

"Av'nin', Mark, I'm glad to see you," was Butler's greeting.

"How are you, Edward?" came the quiet reply.

"Well, Senator, you're not looking any the worse for wear.  Can I
pour you something?"

"Nothing to-night, Henry," replied Simpson.  "I haven't long to
stay.  I just stopped by on my way home.  My wife's over here at
the Cavanaghs', and I have to stop by to fetch her."

"Well, it's a good thing you dropped in, Senator, just when you
did," began Mollenhauer, seating himself after his guest.  "Butler
here has been telling me of a little political problem that has
arisen since I last saw you.  I suppose you've heard that Chicago
is burning?"

"Yes; Cavanagh was just telling me.  It looks to be quite serious.
I think the market will drop heavily in the morning."

"I wouldn't be surprised myself," put in Mollenhauer, laconically.

"Here's the paper now," said Butler, as John, the servant, came
in from the street bearing the paper in his hand.  Mollenhauer
took it and spread it out before them.  It was among the earliest
of the "extras" that were issued in this country, and contained a
rather impressive spread of type announcing that the conflagration
in the lake city was growing hourly worse since its inception the
day before.

"Well, that is certainly dreadful," said Simpson.  "I'm very sorry
for Chicago.  I have many friends there.  I shall hope to hear
that it is not so bad as it seems."

The man had a rather grandiloquent manner which he never abandoned
under any circumstances.

"The matter that Butler was telling me about," continued Mollenhauer,
"has something to do with this in a way.  You know the habit our
city treasurers have of loaning out their money at two per cent.?"

"Yes?" said Simpson, inquiringly.

"Well, Mr. Stener, it seems, has been loaning out a good deal of
the city's money to this young Cowperwood, in Third Street, who
has been handling city loans."

"You don't say!" said Simpson, putting on an air of surprise.  "Not
much, I hope?" The Senator, like Butler and Mollenhauer, was
profiting greatly by cheap loans from the same source to various
designated city depositories.

"Well, it seems that Stener has loaned him as much as five hundred
thousand dollars, and if by any chance Cowperwood shouldn't be
able to weather this storm, Stener is apt to be short that amount,
and that wouldn't look so good as a voting proposition to the
people in November, do you think? Cowperwood owes Mr. Butler here
one hundred thousand dollars, and because of that he came to see
him to-night.  He wanted Butler to see if something couldn't be
done through us to tide him over.  If not"--he waved one hand
suggestively--"well, he might fail."

Simpson fingered his strange, wide mouth with his delicate hand.
"What have they been doing with the five hundred thousand dollars?"
he asked.

"Oh, the boys must make a little somethin' on the side," said
Butler, cheerfully.  "I think they've been buyin' up street-railways,
for one thing."  He stuck his thumbs in the armholes of his vest.
Both Mollenhauer and Simpson smiled wan smiles.

"Quite so," said Mollenhauer.  Senator Simpson merely looked the
deep things that he thought.

He, too, was thinking how useless it was for any one to approach
a group of politicians with a proposition like this, particularly
in a crisis such as bid fair to occur.  He reflected that if he
and Butler and Mollenhauer could get together and promise Cowperwood
protection in return for the surrender of his street-railway holdings
it would be a very different matter.  It would be very easy in this
case to carry the city treasury loan along in silence and even
issue more money to support it; but it was not sure, in the first
place, that Cowperwood could be made to surrender his stocks, and
in the second place that either Butler or Mollenhauer would enter
into any such deal with him, Simpson.  Butler had evidently come
here to say a good word for Cowperwood.  Mollenhauer and himself
were silent rivals.  Although they worked together politically it
was toward essentially different financial ends.  They were allied
in no one particular financial proposition, any more than Mollenhauer
and Butler were.  And besides, in all probability Cowperwood was
no fool.  He was not equally guilty with Stener; the latter had
loaned him money.  The Senator reflected on whether he should
broach some such subtle solution of the situation as had occurred
to him to his colleagues, but he decided not.  Really Mollenhauer
was too treacherous a man to work with on a thing of this kind.
It was a splendid chance but dangerous.  He had better go it alone.
For the present they should demand of Stener that he get Cowperwood
to return the five hundred thousand dollars if he could.  If not,
Stener could be sacrificed for the benefit of the party, if need be.
Cowperwood's stocks, with this tip as to his condition, would,
Simpson reflected, offer a good opportunity for a little stock-exchange
work on the part of his own brokers.  They could spread rumors as
to Cowperwood's condition and then offer to take his shares off his
hands--for a song, of course.  It was an evil moment that led
Cowperwood to Butler.

"Well, now," said the Senator, after a prolonged silence, "I might
sympathize with Mr. Cowperwood in his situation, and I certainly
don't blame him for buying up street-railways if he can; but I
really don't see what can be done for him very well in this crisis.
I don't know about you, gentlemen, but I am rather certain that I
am not in a position to pick other people's chestnuts out of the
fire if I wanted to, just now.  It all depends on whether we feel
that the danger to the party is sufficient to warrant our going
down into our pockets and assisting him."

At the mention of real money to be loaned Mollenhauer pulled a
long face.  "I can't see that I will be able to do very much for
Mr. Cowperwood," he sighed.

"Begad," said Buler, with a keen sense of humor, "it looks to me
as if I'd better be gettin' in my one hundred thousand dollars.
That's the first business of the early mornin'."  Neither Simpson
nor Mollenhauer condescended on this occasion to smile even the
wan smile they had smiled before.  They merely looked wise and
solemn.

"But this matter of the city treasury, now," said Senator Simpson,
after the atmosphere had been allowed to settle a little, "is
something to which we shall have to devote a little thought.  If
Mr. Cowperwood should fail, and the treasury lose that much money,
it would embarrass us no little.  What lines are they," he added,
as an afterthought, "that this man has been particularly interested
in?"

"I really don't know," replied Butler, who did not care to say
what Owen had told him on the drive over.

"I don't see," said Mollenhauer, "unless we can make Stener get
the money back before this man Cowperwood fails, how we can save
ourselves from considerable annoyance later; but if we did anything
which would look as though we were going to compel restitution,
he would probably shut up shop anyhow.  So there's no remedy in
that direction.  And it wouldn't be very kind to our friend Edward
here to do it until we hear how he comes out on his affair."  He
was referring to Butler's loan.

"Certainly not," said Senator Simpson, with true political sagacity
and feeling.

"I'll have that one hundred thousand dollars in the mornin'," said
Butler, "and never fear."

"I think," said Simpson, "if anything comes of this matter that we
will have to do our best to hush it up until after the election.
The newspapers can just as well keep silent on that score as not.
There's one thing I would suggest"--and he was now thinking of the
street-railway properties which Cowperwood had so judiciously
collected--"and that is that the city treasurer be cautioned against
advancing any more money in a situation of this kind.  He might
readily be compromised into advancing much more.  I suppose a word
from you, Henry, would prevent that."

"Yes; I can do that," said Mollenhauer, solemnly.

"My judgement would be," said Butler, in a rather obscure manner,
thinking of Cowperwood's mistake in appealing to these noble
protectors of the public, "that it's best to let sleepin' dogs
run be thimselves."

Thus ended Frank Cowperwood's dreams of what Butler and his
political associates might do for him in his hour of distress.

The energies of Cowperwood after leaving Butler were devoted to
the task of seeing others who might be of some assistance to him.
He had left word with Mrs. Stener that if any message came from
her husband he was to be notified at once.  He hunted up Walter
Leigh, of Drexel & Co., Avery Stone of Jay Cooke & Co., and
President Davison of the Girard National Bank.  He wanted to see
what they thought of the situation and to negotiate a loan with
President Davison covering all his real and personal property.

"I can't tell you, Frank," Walter Leigh insisted, "I don't know
how things will be running by to-morrow noon.  I'm glad to know
how you stand.  I'm glad you're doing what you're doing--getting
all your affairs in shape.  It will help a lot.  I'll favor you
all I possibly can.  But if the chief decides on a certain group
of loans to be called, they'll have to be called, that's all.
I'll do my best to make things look better.  If the whole of
Chicago is wiped out, the insurance companies--some of them,
anyhow--are sure to go, and then look out.  I suppose you'll call
in all your loans?"

"Not any more than I have to."

"Well, that's just the way it is here--or will be."

The two men shook hands.  They liked each other.  Leigh was of
the city's fashionable coterie, a society man to the manner born,
but with a wealth of common sense and a great deal of worldly
experience.

"I'll tell you, Frank," he observed at parting, "I've always
thought you were carrying too much street-railway.  It's great
stuff if you can get away with it, but it's just in a pinch like
this that you're apt to get hurt.  You've been making money pretty
fast out of that and city loans."

He looked directly into his long-time friend's eyes, and they smiled.

It was the same with Avery Stone, President Davison, and others.
They had all already heard rumors of disaster when he arrived.
They were not sure what the morrow would bring forth.  It looked
very unpromising.

Cowperwood decided to stop and see Butler again for he felt certain
his interview with Mollenhauer and Simpson was now over.  Butler,
who had been meditating what he should say to Cowperwood, was not
unfriendly in his manner.  "So you're back," he said, when Cowperwood
appeared.

"Yes, Mr. Butler."

"Well, I'm not sure that I've been able to do anything for you.
I'm afraid not," Butler said, cautiously.  "It's a hard job you
set me.  Mollenhauer seems to think that he'll support the market,
on his own account.  I think he will.  Simpson has interests which
he has to protect.  I'm going to buy for myself, of course."

He paused to reflect.

"I couldn't get them to call a conference with any of the big
moneyed men as yet," he added, warily.  "They'd rather wait and
see what happens in the mornin'.  Still, I wouldn't be down-hearted
if I were you.  If things turn out very bad they may change their
minds.  I had to tell them about Stener.  It's pretty bad, but
they're hopin' you'll come through and straighten that out.  I
hope so.  About my own loan--well, I'll see how things are in the
mornin'.  If I raisonably can I'll lave it with you.  You'd better
see me again about it.  I wouldn't try to get any more money out
of Stener if I were you.  It's pretty bad as it is."

Cowperwood saw at once that he was to get no aid from the politicians.
The one thing that disturbed him was this reference to Stener.
Had they already communicated with him--warned him? If so, his
own coming to Butler had been a bad move; and yet from the point
of view of his possible failure on the morrow it had been advisable.
At least now the politicians knew where he stood.  If he got in a
very tight corner he would come to Butler again--the politicians
could assist him or not, as they chose.  If they did not help him
and he failed, and the election were lost, it was their own fault.
Anyhow, if he could see Stener first the latter would not be such
a fool as to stand in his own light in a crisis like this.

"Things look rather dark to-night, Mr. Butler," he said, smartly,
"but I still think I'll come through.  I hope so, anyhow.  I'm sorry
to have put you to so much trouble.  I wish, of course, that you
gentlemen could see your way clear to assist me, but if you can't,
you can't.  I have a number of things that I can do.  I hope that
you will leave your loan as long as you can."

He went briskly out, and Butler meditated.  "A clever young chap
that," he said.  "It's too bad.  But he may come out all right at
that."

Cowperwood hurried to his own home only to find his father awake
and brooding.  To him he talked with that strong vein of sympathy
and understanding which is usually characteristic of those drawn
by ties of flesh and blood.  He liked his father.  He sympathized
with his painstaking effort to get up in the world.  He could not
forget that as a boy he had had the loving sympathy and interest
of his father.  The loan which he had from the Third National,
on somewhat weak Union Street Railway shares he could probably
replace if stocks did not drop too tremendously.  He must replace
this at all costs.  But his father's investments in street-railways,
which had risen with his own ventures, and which now involved an
additional two hundred thousand--how could he protect those? The
shares were hypothecated and the money was used for other things.
Additional collateral would have to be furnished the several banks
carrying them.  It was nothing except loans, loans, loans, and the
need of protecting them.  If he could only get an additional deposit
of two or three hundred thousand dollars from Stener.  But that, in
the face of possible financial difficulties, was rank criminality.
All depended on the morrow.

Monday, the ninth, dawned gray and cheerless.  He was up with the
first ray of light, shaved and dressed, and went over, under the
gray-green pergola, to his father's house.  He was up, also, and
stirring about, for he had not been able to sleep.  His gray
eyebrows and gray hair looked rather shaggy and disheveled, and
his side-whiskers anything but decorative.  The old gentleman's
eyes were tired, and his face was gray.  Cowperwood could see that
he was worrying.  He looked up from a small, ornate escritoire of
buhl, which Ellsworth had found somewhere, and where he was quietly
tabulating a list of his resources and liabilities.  Cowperwood
winced.  He hated to see his father worried, but he could not help
it.  He had hoped sincerely, when they built their houses together,
that the days of worry for his father had gone forever.

"Counting up?" he asked, familiarly, with a smile.  He wanted to
hearten the old gentleman as much as possible.

"I was just running over my affairs again to see where I stood
in case--" He looked quizzically at his son, and Frank smiled
again.

"I wouldn't worry, father.  I told you how I fixed it so that
Butler and that crowd will support the market.  I have Rivers
and Targool and Harry Eltinge on 'change helping me sell out,
and they are the best men there.  They'll handle the situation
carefully.  I couldn't trust Ed or Joe in this case, for the
moment they began to sell everybody would know what was going on
with me.  This way my men will seem like bears hammering the
market, but not hammering too hard.  I ought to be able to unload
enough at ten points off to raise five hundred thousand.  The
market may not go lower than that.  You can't tell.  It isn't
going to sink indefinitely.  If I just knew what the big insurance
companies were going to do! The morning paper hasn't come yet,
has it?"

He was going to pull a bell, but remembered that the servants
would scarcely be up as yet.  He went to the front door himself.
There were the Press and the Public Ledger lying damp from the
presses.  He picked them up and glanced at the front pages.  His
countenance fell.  On one, the Press, was spread a great black map
of Chicago, a most funereal-looking thing, the black portion
indicating the burned section.  He had never seen a map of Chicago
before in just this clear, definite way.  That white portion was
Lake Michigan, and there was the Chicago River dividing the city
into three almost equal portions--the north side, the west side,
the south side.  He saw at once that the city was curiously arranged,
somewhat like Philadelphia, and that the business section was
probably an area of two or three miles square, set at the juncture
of the three sides, and lying south of the main stem of the river,
where it flowed into the lake after the southwest and northwest
branches had united to form it.  This was a significant central
area; but, according to this map, it was all burned out.  "Chicago
in Ashes" ran a great side-heading set in heavily leaded black
type.  It went on to detail the sufferings of the homeless, the
number of the dead, the number of those whose fortunes had been
destroyed.  Then it descanted upon the probable effect in the East.
Insurance companies and manufacturers might not be able to meet
the great strain of all this.

"Damn!" said Cowperwood gloomily.  "I wish I were out of this
stock-jobbing business.  I wish I had never gotten into it."  He
returned to his drawing-room and scanned both accounts most carefully.

Then, though it was still early, he and his father drove to his
office.  There were already messages awaiting him, a dozen or more,
to cancel or sell.  While he was standing there a messenger-boy
brought him three more.  One was from Stener and said that he would
be back by twelve o'clock, the very earliest he could make it.
Cowperwood was relieved and yet distressed.  He would need large
sums of money to meet various loans before three.  Every hour was
precious.  He must arrange to meet Stener at the station and talk
to him before any one else should see him.  Clearly this was going
to be a hard, dreary, strenuous day.

Third Street, by the time he reached there, was stirring with other
bankers and brokers called forth by the exigencies of the occasion.
There was a suspicious hurrying of feet--that intensity which makes
all the difference in the world between a hundred people placid and
a hundred people disturbed.  At the exchange, the atmosphere was
feverish.  At the sound of the gong, the staccato uproar began.
Its metallic vibrations were still in the air when the two hundred
men who composed this local organization at its utmost stress of
calculation, threw themselves upon each other in a gibbering struggle
to dispose of or seize bargains of the hour.  The interests were
so varied that it was impossible to say at which pole it was best
to sell or buy.

Targool and Rivers had been delegated to stay at the center of
things, Joseph and Edward to hover around on the outside and to
pick up such opportunities of selling as might offer a reasonable
return on the stock.  The "bears" were determined to jam things
down, and it all depended on how well the agents of Mollenhauer,
Simpson, Butler, and others supported things in the street-railway
world whether those stocks retained any strength or not.  The last
thing Butler had said the night before was that they would do the
best they could.  They would buy up to a certain point.  Whether
they would support the market indefinitely he would not say.  He
could not vouch for Mollenhauer and Simpson.  Nor did he know the
condition of their affairs.

While the excitement was at its highest Cowperwood came in.  As
he stood in the door looking to catch the eye of Rivers, the 'change
gong sounded, and trading stopped.  All the brokers and traders
faced about to the little balcony, where the secretary of the
'change made his announcements; and there he stood, the door open
behind him, a small, dark, clerkly man of thirty-eight or forty,
whose spare figure and pale face bespoke the methodic mind that
knows no venturous thought.  In his right hand he held a slip of
white paper.

"The American Fire Insurance Company of Boston announces its
inability to meet its obligations."  The gong sounded again.

Immediately the storm broke anew, more voluble than before,
because, if after one hour of investigation on this Monday morning
one insurance company had gone down, what would four or five hours
or a day or two bring forth? It meant that men who had been burned
out in Chicago would not be able to resume business.  It meant that
all loans connected with this concern had been, or would be called
now.  And the cries of frightened "bulls" offering thousand and
five thousand lot holdings in Northern Pacific, Illinois Central,
Reading, Lake Shore, Wabash; in all the local streetcar lines; and
in Cowperwood's city loans at constantly falling prices was
sufficient to take the heart out of all concerned.  He hurried to
Arthur Rivers's side in the lull; but there was little he could
say.

"It looks as though the Mollenhauer and Simpson crowds aren't
doing much for the market," he observed, gravely.

"They've had advices from New York," explained Rivers solemnly.
"It can't be supported very well.  There are three insurance
companies over there on the verge of quitting, I understand.  I
expect to see them posted any minute."

They stepped apart from the pandemonium, to discuss ways and means.
Under his agreement with Stener, Cowperwood could buy up to one
hundred thousand dollars of city loan, above the customary wash
sales, or market manipulation, by which they were making money.
This was in case the market had to be genuinely supported.  He
decided to buy sixty thousand dollars worth now, and use this to
sustain his loans elsewhere.  Stener would pay him for this
instantly, giving him more ready cash.  It might help him in one
way and another; and, anyhow, it might tend to strengthen the
other securities long enough at least to allow him to realize a
little something now at better than ruinous rates.  If only he had
the means "to go short" on this market! If only doing so did not
really mean ruin to his present position.  It was characteristic
of the man that even in this crisis he should be seeing how the
very thing that of necessity, because of his present obligations,
might ruin him, might also, under slightly different conditions,
yield him a great harvest.  He could not take advantage of it,
however.  He could not be on both sides of this market.  It was
either "bear" or "bull," and of necessity he was "bull."  It was
strange but true.  His subtlety could not avail him here.  He
was about to turn and hurry to see a certain banker who might
loan him something on his house, when the gong struck again.  Once
more trading ceased.  Arthur Rivers, from his position at the
State securities post, where city loan was sold, and where he had
started to buy for Cowperwood, looked significantly at him.
Newton Targool hurried to Cowperwood's side.

"You're up against it," he exclaimed.  "I wouldn't try to sell
against this market.  It's no use.  They're cutting the ground
from under you.  The bottom's out.  Things are bound to turn in
a few days.  Can't you hold out? Here's more trouble."

He raised his eyes to the announcer's balcony.

"The Eastern and Western Fire Insurance Company of New York
announces that it cannot meet its obligations."

A low sound something like "Haw!" broke forth.  The announcer's
gavel struck for order.

"The Erie Fire Insurance Company of Rochester announces that it
cannot meet its obligations."

Again that "H-a-a-a-w!"

Once more the gavel.

"The American Trust Company of New York has suspended payment."

"H-a-a-a-w!"

The storm was on.

What do you think?" asked Targool.  "You can't brave this storm.
Can't you quit selling and hold out for a few days? Why not sell
short?"

"They ought to close this thing up," Cowperwood said, shortly.
"It would be a splendid way out.  Then nothing could be done."

He hurried to consult with those who, finding themselves in a
similar predicament with himself, might use their influence to
bring it about.  It was a sharp trick to play on those who, now
finding the market favorable to their designs in its falling
condition, were harvesting a fortune.  But what was that to him?
Business was business.  There was no use selling at ruinous figures,
and he gave his lieutenants orders to stop.  Unless the bankers
favored him heavily, or the stock exchange was closed, or Stener
could be induced to deposit an additional three hundred thousand
with him at once, he was ruined.  He hurried down the street to
various bankers and brokers suggesting that they do this--close
the exchange.  At a few minutes before twelve o'clock he drove
rapidly to the station to meet Stener; but to his great disappointment
the latter did not arrive.  It looked as though he had missed his
train.  Cowperwood sensed something, some trick; and decided to
go to the city hall and also to Stener's house.  Perhaps he had
returned and was trying to avoid him.

Not finding him at his office, he drove direct to his house.  Here
he was not surprised to meet Stener just coming out, looking very
pale and distraught.  At the sight of Cowperwood he actually blanched.

"Why, hello, Frank," he exclaimed, sheepishly, "where do you come
from?"

"What's up, George?" asked Cowperwood.  "I thought you were coming
into Broad Street."

"So I was," returned Stener, foolishly, "but I thought I would get
off at West Philadelphia and change my clothes.  I've a lot of
things to 'tend to yet this afternoon.  I was coming in to see
you."  After Cowperwood's urgent telegram this was silly, but the
young banker let it pass.

"Jump in, George," he said.  "I have something very important to
talk to you about.  I told you in my telegram about the likelihood
of a panic.  It's on.  There isn't a moment to lose.  Stocks are
'way down, and most of my loans are being called.  I want to know
if you won't let me have three hundred and fifty thousand dollars
for a few days at four or five per cent.  I'll pay it all back to
you.  I need it very badly.  If I don't get it I'm likely to fail.
You know what that means, George.  It will tie up every dollar I
have.  Those street-car holdings of yours will be tied up with me.
I won't be able to let you realize on them, and that will put those
loans of mine from the treasury in bad shape.  You won't be able
to put the money back, and you know what that means.  We're in
this thing together.  I want to see you through safely, but I can't
do it without your help.  I had to go to Butler last night to see
about a loan of his, and I'm doing my best to get money from other
sources.  But I can't see my way through on this, I'm afraid,
unless you're willing to help me."  Cowperwood paused.  He wanted
to put the whole case clearly and succinctly to him before he had
a chance to refuse--to make him realize it as his own predicament.

As a matter of fact, what Cowperwood had keenly suspected was
literally true.  Stener had been reached.  The moment Butler and
Simpson had left him the night before, Mollenhauer had sent for
his very able secretary, Abner Sengstack, and despatched him to
learn the truth about Stener's whereabouts.  Sengstack had then
sent a long wire to Strobik, who was with Stener, urging him to
caution the latter against Cowperwood.  The state of the treasury
was known.  Stener and Strobik were to be met by Sengstack at
Wilmington (this to forefend against the possibility of Cowperwood's
reaching Stener first)--and the whole state of affairs made
perfectly plain.  No more money was to be used under penalty of
prosecution.  If Stener wanted to see any one he must see
Mollenhauer.  Sengstack, having received a telegram from Strobik
informing him of their proposed arrival at noon the next day, had
proceeded to Wilmington to meet them.  The result was that Stener
did not come direct into the business heart of the city, but instead
got off at West Philadelphia, proposing to go first to his house
to change his clothes and then to see Mollenhauer before meeting
Cowperwood.  He was very badly frightened and wanted time to think.

"I can't do it, Frank," he pleaded, piteously.  "I'm in pretty
bad in this matter.  Mollenhauer's secretary met the train out
at Wilmington just now to warn me against this situation, and
Strobik is against it.  They know how much money I've got outstanding.
You or somebody has told them.  I can't go against Mollenhauer.
I owe everything I've got to him, in a way.  He got me this place."

"Listen, George.  Whatever you do at this time, don't let this
political loyalty stuff cloud your judgment.  You're in a very
serious position and so am I.  If you don't act for yourself with
me now no one is going to act for you--now or later--no one.  And
later will be too late.  I proved that last night when I went to
Butler to get help for the two of us.  They all know about this
business of our street-railway holdings and they want to shake us
out and that's the big and little of it--nothing more and nothing
less.  It's a case of dog eat dog in this game and this particular
situation and it's up to us to save ourselves against everybody or
go down together, and that's just what I'm here to tell you.
Mollenhauer doesn't care any more for you to-day than he does for
that lamp-post.  It isn't that money you've paid out to me that's
worrying him, but who's getting something for it and what.  Well
they know that you and I are getting street-railways, don't you
see, and they don't want us to have them.  Once they get those out
of our hands they won't waste another day on you or me.  Can't you
see that? Once we've lost all we've invested, you're down and so
am I--and no one is going to turn a hand for you or me politically
or in any other way.  I want you to understand that, George,
because it's true.  And before you say you won't or you will do
anything because Mollenhauer says so, you want to think over what
I have to tell you."

He was in front of Stener now, looking him directly in the eye and
by the kinetic force of his mental way attempting to make Stener
take the one step that might save him--Cowperwood--however little
in the long run it might do for Stener.  And, more interesting
still, he did not care.  Stener, as he saw him now, was a pawn
in whosoever's hands he happened to be at the time, and despite
Mr. Mollenhauer and Mr. Simpson and Mr. Butler he proposed to
attempt to keep him in his own hands if possible.  And so he
stood there looking at him as might a snake at a bird determined
to galvanize him into selfish self-interest if possible.  But
Stener was so frightened that at the moment it looked as though
there was little to be done with him.  His face was a grayish-blue:
his eyelids and eye rings puffy and his hands and lips moist.  God,
what a hole he was in now!

"Say that's all right, Frank," he exclaimed desperately.  "I know
what you say is true.  But look at me and my position, if I do
give you this money.  What can't they do to me, and won't.  If
you only look at it from my point of view.  If only you hadn't
gone to Butler before you saw me."

"As though I could see you, George, when you were off duck shooting
and when I was wiring everywhere I knew to try to get in touch with
you.  How could I? The situation had to be met.  Besides, I thought
Butler was more friendly to me than he proved.  But there's no use
being angry with me now, George, for going to Butler as I did, and
anyhow you can't afford to be now.  We're in this thing together.
It's a case of sink or swim for just us two--not any one else--just
us--don't you get that? Butler couldn't or wouldn't do what I
wanted him to do--get Mollenhauer and Simpson to support the market.
Instead of that they are hammering it.  They have a game of their
own.  It's to shake us out--can't you see that? Take everything that
you and I have gathered.  It is up to you and me, George, to save
ourselves, and that's what I'm here for now.  If you don't let me
have three hundred and fifty thousand dollars--three hundred
thousand, anyhow--you and I are ruined.  It will be worse for you,
George, than for me, for I'm not involved in this thing in any
way--not legally, anyhow.  But that's not what I'm thinking of.
What I want to do is to save us both--put us on easy street for
the rest of our lives, whatever they say or do, and it's in your
power, with my help, to do that for both of us.  Can't you see
that? I want to save my business so then I can help you to save
your name and money."  He paused, hoping this had convinced Stener,
but the latter was still shaking.

"But what can I do, Frank?" he pleaded, weakly.  "I can't go against
Mollenhauer.  They can prosecute me if I do that.  They can do it,
anyhow.  I can't do that.  I'm not strong enough.  If they didn't
know, if you hadn't told them, it might be different, but this way--"
He shook his head sadly, his gray eyes filled with a pale distress.

"George," replied Cowperwood, who realized now that only the sternest
arguments would have any effect here, "don't talk about what I did.
What I did I had to do.  You're in danger of losing your head and
your nerve and making a serious mistake here, and I don't want to
see you make it.  I have five hundred thousand of the city's money
invested for you--partly for me, and partly for you, but more for
you than for me"--which, by the way, was not true--"and here you
are hesitating in an hour like this as to whether you will protect
your interest or not.  I can't understand it.  This is a crisis,
George.  Stocks are tumbling on every side--everybody's stocks.
You're not alone in this--neither am I.  This is a panic, brought
on by a fire, and you can't expect to come out of a panic alive
unless you do something to protect yourself.  You say you owe your
place to Mollenhauer and that you're afraid of what he'll do.  If
you look at your own situation and mine, you'll see that it doesn't
make much difference what he does, so long as I don't fail.  If
I fail, where are you? Who's going to save you from prosecution?
Will Mollenhauer or any one else come forward and put five hundred
thousand dollars in the treasury for you? He will not.  If
Mollenhauer and the others have your interests at heart, why aren't
they helping me on 'change today? I'll tell you why.  They want
your street-railway holdings and mine, and they don't care whether
you go to jail afterward or not.  Now if you're wise you will
listen to me.  I've been loyal to you, haven't I? You've made money
through me--lots of it.  If you're wise, George, you'll go to your
office and write me your check for three hundred thousand dollars,
anyhow, before you do a single other thing.  Don't see anybody and
don't do anything till you've done that.  You can't be hung any
more for a sheep than you can for a lamb.  No one can prevent you
from giving me that check.  You're the city treasurer.  Once I
have that I can see my way out of this, and I'll pay it all back
to you next week or the week after--this panic is sure to end in
that time.  With that put back in the treasury we can see them about
the five hundred thousand a little later.  In three months, or
less, I can fix it so that you can put that back.  As a matter of
fact, I can do it in fifteen days once I am on my feet again.  Time
is all I want.  You won't have lost your holdings and nobody will
cause you any trouble if you put the money back.  They don't care
to risk a scandal any more than you do.  Now what'll you do, George?
Mollenhauer can't stop you from doing this any more than I can make
you.  Your life is in your own hands.  What will you do?"

Stener stood there ridiculously meditating when, as a matter of
fact, his very financial blood was oozing away.  Yet he was afraid
to act.  He was afraid of Mollenhauer, afraid of Cowperwood, afraid
of life and of himself.  The thought of panic, loss, was not so
much a definite thing connected with his own property, his money,
as it was with his social and political standing in the community.
Few people have the sense of financial individuality strongly
developed.  They do not know what it means to be a controller of
wealth, to have that which releases the sources of social action--
its medium of exchange.  They want money, but not for money's sake.
They want it for what it will buy in the way of simple comforts,
whereas the financier wants it for what it will control--for what
it will represent in the way of dignity, force, power.  Cowperwood
wanted money in that way; Stener not.  That was why he had been so
ready to let Cowperwood act for him; and now, when he should have
seen more clearly than ever the significance of what Cowperwood
was proposing, he was frightened and his reason obscured by such
things as Mollenhauer's probable opposition and rage, Cowperwood's
possible failure, his own inability to face a real crisis.
Cowperwood's innate financial ability did not reassure Stener in
this hour.  The banker was too young, too new.  Mollenhauer was
older, richer.  So was Simpson; so was Butler.  These men, with
their wealth, represented the big forces, the big standards in
his world.  And besides, did not Cowperwood himself confess that
he was in great danger--that he was in a corner.  That was the
worst possible confession to make to Stener--although under the
circumstances it was the only one that could be made--for he had
no courage to face danger.

So it was that now, Stener stood by Cowperwood meditating--pale,
flaccid; unable to see the main line of his interests quickly,
unable to follow it definitely, surely, vigorously--while they
drove to his office.  Cowperwood entered it with him for the sake
of continuing his plea.

"Well, George," he said earnestly, "I wish you'd tell me.  Time's
short.  We haven't a moment to lose.  Give me the money, won't
you, and I'll get out of this quick.  We haven't a moment, I tell
you.  Don't let those people frighten you off.  They're playing
their own little game; you play yours."

"I can't, Frank," said Stener, finally, very weakly, his sense
of his own financial future, overcome for the time being by the
thought of Mollenhauer's hard, controlling face.  "I'll have to
think.  I can't do it right now.  Strobik just left me before I
saw you, and--"

"Good God, George," exclaimed Cowperwood, scornfully, "don't talk
about Strobik! What's he got to do with it? Think of yourself.
Think of where you will be.  It's your future--not Strobik's--that
you have to think of."

"I know, Frank," persisted Stener, weakly; "but, really, I don't
see how I can.  Honestly I don't.  You say yourself you're not
sure whether you can come out of things all right, and three
hundred thousand more is three hundred thousand more.  I can't,
Frank.  I really can't.  It wouldn't be right.  Besides, I want
to talk to Mollenhauer first, anyhow."

"Good God, how you talk!" exploded Cowperwood, angrily, looking
at him with ill-concealed contempt.  "Go ahead! See Mollenhauer!
Let him tell you how to cut your own throat for his benefit.  It
won't be right to loan me three hundred thousand dollars more,
but it will be right to let the five hundred thousand dollars you
have loaned stand unprotected and lose it.  That's right, isn't
it? That's just what you propose to do--lose it, and everything
else besides.  I want to tell you what it is, George--you've lost
your mind.  You've let a single message from Mollenhauer frighten
you to death, and because of that you're going to risk your
fortune, your reputation, your standing--everything.  Do you really
realize what this means if I fail? You will be a convict, I tell
you, George.  You will go to prison.  This fellow Mollenhauer, who
is so quick to tell you what not to do now, will be the last man
to turn a hand for you once you're down.  Why, look at me--I've
helped you, haven't I? Haven't I handled your affairs satisfactorily
for you up to now? What in Heaven's name has got into you? What
have you to be afraid of?"

Stener was just about to make another weak rejoinder when the
door from the outer office opened, and Albert Stires, Stener's
chief clerk, entered.  Stener was too flustered to really pay
any attention to Stires for the moment; but Cowperwood took
matters in his own hands.

"What is it, Albert?" he asked, familiarly.

"Mr. Sengstack from Mr. Mollenhauer to see Mr. Stener."

At the sound of this dreadful name Stener wilted like a leaf.
Cowperwood saw it.  He realized that his last hope of getting
the three hundred thousand dollars was now probably gone.  Still
he did not propose to give up as yet.

"Well, George," he said, after Albert had gone out with instructions
that Stener would see Sengstack in a moment.  "I see how it is.
This man has got you mesmerized.  You can't act for yourself now--
you're too frightened.  I'll let it rest for the present; I'll
come back.  But for Heaven's sake pull yourself together.  Think
what it means.  I'm telling you exactly what's going to happen if
you don't.  You'll be independently rich if you do.  You'll be a
convict if you don't."

And deciding he would make one more effort in the street before
seeing Butler again, he walked out briskly, jumped into his light
spring runabout waiting outside--a handsome little yellow-glazed
vehicle, with a yellow leather cushion seat, drawn by a young,
high-stepping bay mare--and sent her scudding from door to door,
throwing down the lines indifferently and bounding up the steps
of banks and into office doors.

But all without avail.  All were interested, considerate; but
things were very uncertain.  The Girard National Bank refused an
hour's grace, and he had to send a large bundle of his most valuable
securities to cover his stock shrinkage there.  Word came from his
father at two that as president of the Third National he would have
to call for his one hundred and fifty thousand dollars due there.
The directors were suspicious of his stocks.  He at once wrote a
check against fifty thousand dollars of his deposits in that bank,
took twenty-five thousand of his available office funds, called a
loan of fifty thousand against Tighe & Co., and sold sixty thousand
Green & Coates, a line he had been tentatively dabbling in, for
one-third their value--and, combining the general results, sent
them all to the Third National.  His father was immensely relieved
from one point of view, but sadly depressed from another.  He
hurried out at the noon-hour to see what his own holdings would
bring.  He was compromising himself in a way by doing it, but his
parental heart, as well as is own financial interests, were involved.
By mortgaging his house and securing loans on his furniture,
carriages, lots, and stocks, he managed to raise one hundred thousand
in cash, and deposited it in his own bank to Frank's credit; but it
was a very light anchor to windward in this swirling storm, at that.
Frank had been counting on getting all of his loans extended three
or four days at least.  Reviewing his situation at two o'clock of
this Monday afternoon, he said to himself thoughtfully but grimly:
"Well, Stener has to loan me three hundred thousand--that's all
there is to it.  And I'll have to see Butler now, or he'll be
calling his loan before three."

He hurried out, and was off to Butler's house, driving like mad.





Chapter XXVI




Things had changed greatly since last Cowperwood had talked with
Butler.  Although most friendly at the time the proposition was
made that he should combine with Mollenhauer and Simpson to sustain
the market, alas, now on this Monday morning at nine o'clock, an
additional complication had been added to the already tangled
situation which had changed Butler's attitude completely.  As he
was leaving his home to enter his runabout, at nine o'clock in the
morning of this same day in which Cowperwood was seeking Stener's
aid, the postman, coming up, had handed Butler four letters, all
of which he paused for a moment to glance at.  One was from a
sub-contractor by the name of O'Higgins, the second was from Father
Michel, his confessor, of St. Timothy's, thanking him for a
contribution to the parish poor fund; a third was from Drexel & Co.
relating to a deposit, and the fourth was an anonymous communication,
on cheap stationery from some one who was apparently not very
literate--a woman most likely--written in a scrawling hand, which
read:

     DEAR SIR--This is to warn you that your daughter
     Aileen is running around with a man that she shouldn't,
     Frank A. Cowperwood, the banker.  If you don't believe
     it, watch the house at 931 North Tenth Street.  Then you
     can see for yourself.

There was neither signature nor mark of any kind to indicate from
whence it might have come.  Butler got the impression strongly
that it might have been written by some one living in the vicinity
of the number indicated.  His intuitions were keen at times.  As
a matter of fact, it was written by a girl, a member of St. Timothy's
Church, who did live in the vicinity of the house indicated, and
who knew Aileen by sight and was jealous of her airs and her position.
She was a thin, anemic, dissatisfied creature who had the type of
brain which can reconcile the gratification of personal spite with
a comforting sense of having fulfilled a moral duty.  Her home was
some five doors north of the unregistered Cowperwood domicile on
the opposite side of the street, and by degrees, in the course of
time, she made out, or imagined that she had, the significance of
this institution, piecing fact to fancy and fusing all with that
keen intuition which is so closely related to fact.  The result
was eventually this letter which now spread clear and grim before
Butler's eyes.

The Irish are a philosophic as well as a practical race.  Their
first and strongest impulse is to make the best of a bad situation--
to put a better face on evil than it normally wears.  On first
reading these lines the intelligence they conveyed sent a peculiar
chill over Butler's sturdy frame.  His jaw instinctively closed,
and his gray eyes narrowed.  Could this be true? If it were not,
would the author of the letter say so practically, "If you don't
believe it, watch the house at 931 North Tenth Street"? Wasn't
that in itself proof positive--the hard, matter-of-fact realism
of it? And this was the man who had come to him the night before
seeking aid--whom he had done so much to assist.  There forced
itself into his naturally slow-moving but rather accurate mind a
sense of the distinction and charm of his daughter--a considerably
sharper picture than he had ever had before, and at the same time
a keener understanding of the personality of Frank Algernon
Cowperwood.  How was it he had failed to detect the real subtlety
of this man? How was it he had never seen any sign of it, if there
had been anything between Cowperwood and Aileen?

Parents are frequently inclined, because of a time-flattered sense
of security, to take their children for granted.  Nothing ever has
happened, so nothing ever will happen.  They see their children
every day, and through the eyes of affection; and despite their
natural charm and their own strong parental love, the children
are apt to become not only commonplaces, but ineffably secure
against evil.  Mary is naturally a good girl--a little wild, but
what harm can befall her? John is a straight-forward, steady-going
boy--how could he get into trouble? The astonishment of most
parents at the sudden accidental revelation of evil in connection
with any of their children is almost invariably pathetic.  "My
John! My Mary! Impossible!" But it is possible.  Very possible.
Decidedly likely.  Some, through lack of experience or understanding,
or both, grow hard and bitter on the instant.  They feel themselves
astonishingly abased in the face of notable tenderness and sacrifice.
Others collapse before the grave manifestation of the insecurity
and uncertainty of life--the mystic chemistry of our being.  Still
others, taught roughly by life, or endowed with understanding or
intuition, or both, see in this the latest manifestation of that
incomprehensible chemistry which we call life and personality, and,
knowing that it is quite vain to hope to gainsay it, save by greater
subtlety, put the best face they can upon the matter and call a
truce until they can think.  We all know that life is unsolvable--
we who think.  The remainder imagine a vain thing, and are full of
sound and fury signifying nothing.

So Edward Butler, being a man of much wit and hard, grim experience,
stood there on his doorstep holding in his big, rough hand his thin
slip of cheap paper which contained such a terrific indictment of
his daughter.  There came to him now a picture of her as she was
when she was a very little girl--she was his first baby girl--and
how keenly he had felt about her all these years.  She had been a
beautiful child--her red-gold hair had been pillowed on his breast
many a time, and his hard, rough fingers had stroked her soft
cheeks, lo, these thousands of times.  Aileen, his lovely, dashing
daughter of twenty-three! He was lost in dark, strange, unhappy
speculations, without any present ability to think or say or do the
right thing.  He did not know what the right thing was, he finally
confessed to himself.  Aileen! Aileen! His Aileen! If her mother
knew this it would break her heart.  She mustn't! She mustn't! And
yet mustn't she?

The heart of a father! The world wanders into many strange by-paths
of affection.  The love of a mother for her children is dominant,
leonine, selfish, and unselfish.  It is concentric.  The love of
a husband for his wife, or of a lover for his sweetheart, is a
sweet bond of agreement and exchange trade in a lovely contest.
The love of a father for his son or daughter, where it is love at
all, is a broad, generous, sad, contemplative giving without thought
of return, a hail and farewell to a troubled traveler whom he would
do much to guard, a balanced judgment of weakness and strength,
with pity for failure and pride in achievement.  It is a lovely,
generous, philosophic blossom which rarely asks too much, and
seeks only to give wisely and plentifully.  "That my boy may
succeed! That my daughter may be happy!" Who has not heard and
dwelt upon these twin fervors of fatherly wisdom and tenderness?

As Butler drove downtown his huge, slow-moving, in some respects
chaotic mind turned over as rapidly as he could all of the
possibilities in connection with this unexpected, sad, and disturbing
revelation.  Why had Cowperwood not been satisfied with his wife?
Why should he enter into his (Butler's) home, of all places, to
establish a clandestine relationship of this character? Was Aileen
in any way to blame? She was not without mental resources of her
own.  She must have known what she was doing.  She was a good
Catholic, or, at least, had been raised so.  All these years she
had been going regularly to confession and communion.  True, of
late Butler had noticed that she did not care so much about going
to church, would sometimes make excuses and stay at home on Sundays;
but she had gone, as a rule.  And now, now--his thoughts would
come to the end of a blind alley, and then he would start back,
as it were, mentally, to the center of things, and begin all over
again.

He went up the stairs to his own office slowly.  He went in and
sat down, and thought and thought.  Ten o'clock came, and eleven.
His son bothered him with an occasional matter of interest, but,
finding him moody, finally abandoned him to his own speculations.
It was twelve, and then one, and he was still sitting there thinking,
when the presence of Cowperwood was announced.

Cowperwood, on finding Butler not at home, and not encountering
Aileen, had hurried up to the office of the Edward Butler Contracting
Company, which was also the center of some of Butler's street-railway
interests.  The floor space controlled by the company was divided
into the usual official compartments, with sections for the
bookkeepers, the road-managers, the treasurer, and so on.  Owen
Butler, and his father had small but attractively furnished offices
in the rear, where they transacted all the important business of the
company.

During this drive, curiously, by reason of one of those strange
psychologic intuitions which so often precede a human difficulty
of one sort or another, he had been thinking of Aileen.  He was
thinking of the peculiarity of his relationship with her, and of
the fact that now he was running to her father for assistance.  As
he mounted the stairs he had a peculiar sense of the untoward; but
he could not, in his view of life, give it countenance.  One glance
at Butler showed him that something had gone amiss.  He was not
so friendly; his glance was dark, and there was a certain sternness
to his countenance which had never previously been manifested
there in Cowperwood's memory.  He perceived at once that here was
something different from a mere intention to refuse him aid and
call his loan.  What was it? Aileen? It must be that.  Somebody
had suggested something.  They had been seen together.  Well, even
so, nothing could be proved.  Butler would obtain no sign from him.
But his loan--that was to be called, surely.  And as for an
additional loan, he could see now, before a word had been said,
that that thought was useless.

"I came to see you about that loan of yours, Mr. Butler," he
observed, briskly, with an old-time, jaunty air.  You could not
have told from his manner or his face that he had observed anything
out of the ordinary.

Butler, who was alone in the room--Owen having gone into an
adjoining room--merely stared at him from under his shaggy brows.

"I'll have to have that money," he said, brusquely, darkly.

An old-time Irish rage suddenly welled up in his bosom as he
contemplated this jaunty, sophisticated undoer of his daughter's
virtue.  He fairly glared at him as he thought of him and her.

"I judged from the way things were going this morning that you
might want it," Cowperwood replied, quietly, without sign of tremor.
"The bottom's out, I see."

"The bottom's out, and it'll not be put back soon, I'm thinkin'.
I'll have to have what's belongin' to me to-day.  I haven't any
time to spare."

"Very well," replied Cowperwood, who saw clearly how treacherous
the situation was.  The old man was in a dour mood.  His presence
was an irritation to him, for some reason--a deadly provocation.
Cowperwood felt clearly that it must be Aileen, that he must know
or suspect something.

He must pretend business hurry and end this.  "I'm sorry.  I thought
I might get an extension; but that's all right.  I can get the
money, though.  I'll send it right over."

He turned and walked quickly to the door.

Butler got up.  He had thought to manage this differently.

He had thought to denounce or even assault this man.  He was about
to make some insinuating remark which would compel an answer, some
direct charge; but Cowperwood was out and away as jaunty as ever.

The old man was flustered, enraged, disappointed.  He opened the
small office door which led into the adjoining room, and called,
"Owen!"

"Yes, father."

"Send over to Cowperwood's office and get that money."

"You decided to call it, eh?"

"I have."

Owen was puzzled by the old man's angry mood.  He wondered what
it all meant, but thought he and Cowperwood might have had a few
words.  He went out to his desk to write a note and call a clerk.
Butler went to the window and stared out.  He was angry, bitter,
brutal in his vein.

"The dirty dog!" he suddenly exclaimed to himself, in a low voice.
"I'll take every dollar he's got before I'm through with him.
I'll send him to jail, I will.  I'll break him, I will.  Wait!"

He clinched his big fists and his teeth.

"I'll fix him.  I'll show him.  The dog! The damned scoundrel!"

Never in his life before had he been so bitter, so cruel, so
relentless in his mood.

He walked his office floor thinking what he could do.  Question
Aileen--that was what he would do.  If her face, or her lips, told
him that his suspicion was true, he would deal with Cowperwood
later.  This city treasurer business, now.  It was not a crime in
so far as Cowperwood was concerned; but it might be made to be.

So now, telling the clerk to say to Owen that he had gone down
the street for a few moments, he boarded a street-car and rode
out to his home, where he found his elder daughter just getting
ready to go out.  She wore a purple-velvet street dress edged with
narrow, flat gilt braid, and a striking gold-and-purple turban.
She had on dainty new boots of bronze kid and long gloves of
lavender suede.  In her ears was one of her latest affectations,
a pair of long jet earrings.  The old Irishman realized on this
occasion, when he saw her, perhaps more clearly than he ever had
in his life, that he had grown a bird of rare plumage.

"Where are you going, daughter?" he asked, with a rather unsuccessful
attempt to conceal his fear, distress, and smoldering anger.

"To the library," she said easily, and yet with a sudden realization
that all was not right with her father.  His face was too heavy
and gray.  He looked tired and gloomy.

"Come up to my office a minute," he said.  "I want to see you
before you go."

Aileen heard this with a strange feeling of curiosity and wonder.
It was not customary for her father to want to see her in his
office just when she was going out; and his manner indicated, in
this instance, that the exceptional procedure portended a strange
revelation of some kind.  Aileen, like every other person who
offends against a rigid convention of the time, was conscious of
and sensitive to the possible disastrous results which would follow
exposure.  She had often thought about what her family would think
if they knew what she was doing; she had never been able to satisfy
herself in her mind as to what they would do.  Her father was a
very vigorous man.  But she had never known him to be cruel or
cold in his attitude toward her or any other member of the family,
and especially not toward her.  Always he seemed too fond of her
to be completely alienated by anything that might happen; yet she
could not be sure.

Butler led the way, planting his big feet solemnly on the steps
as he went up.  Aileen followed with a single glance at herself
in the tall pier-mirror which stood in the hall, realizing at
once how charming she looked and how uncertain she was feeling
about what was to follow.  What could her father want? It made
the color leave her cheeks for the moment, as she thought what he
might want.

Butler strolled into his stuffy room and sat down in the big leather
chair, disproportioned to everything else in the chamber, but which,
nevertheless, accompanied his desk.  Before him, against the light,
was the visitor's chair, in which he liked to have those sit whose
faces he was anxious to study.  When Aileen entered he motioned her
to it, which was also ominous to her, and said, "Sit down there."

She took the seat, not knowing what to make of his procedure.  On
the instant her promise to Cowperwood to deny everything, whatever
happened, came back to her.  If her father was about to attack her
on that score, he would get no satisfaction, she thought.  She owed
it to Frank.  Her pretty face strengthened and hardened on the
instant.  Her small, white teeth set themselves in two even rows;
and her father saw quite plainly that she was consciously bracing
herself for an attack of some kind.  He feared by this that she was
guilty, and he was all the more distressed, ashamed, outraged, made
wholly unhappy.  He fumbled in the left-hand pocket of his coat and
drew forth from among the various papers the fatal communication
so cheap in its physical texture.  His big fingers fumbled almost
tremulously as he fished the letter-sheet out of the small envelope
and unfolded it without saying a word.  Aileen watched his face
and his hands, wondering what it could be that he had here.  He
handed the paper over, small in his big fist, and said, "Read that."

Aileen took it, and for a second was relieved to be able to lower
her eyes to the paper.  Her relief vanished in a second, when she
realized how in a moment she would have to raise them again and
look him in the face.

     DEAR SIR--This is to warn you that your daughter
     Aileen is running around with a man that she shouldn't,
     Frank A. Cowperwood, the banker.  If you don't believe
     it, watch the house at 931 North Tenth Street.  Then you
     can see for yourself.

In spite of herself the color fled from her cheeks instantly,
only to come back in a hot, defiant wave.

"Why, what a lie!" she said, lifting her eyes to her father's.
"To think that any one should write such a thing of me! How dare
they! I think it's a shame!"

Old Butler looked at her narrowly, solemnly.  He was not deceived
to any extent by her bravado.  If she were really innocent, he
knew she would have jumped to her feet in her defiant way.  Protest
would have been written all over her.  As it was, she only stared
haughtily.  He read through her eager defiance to the guilty truth.

"How do ye know, daughter, that I haven't had the house watched?"
he said, quizzically.  "How do ye know that ye haven't been seen
goin' in there?"

Only Aileen's solemn promise to her lover could have saved her
from this subtle thrust.  As it was, she paled nervously; but she
saw Frank Cowperwood, solemn and distinguished, asking her what
she would say if she were caught.

"It's a lie!" she said, catching her breath.  "I wasn't at any
house at that number, and no one saw me going in there.  How can
you ask me that, father?"

In spite of his mixed feelings of uncertainty and yet unshakable
belief that his daughter was guilty, he could not help admiring
her courage--she was so defiant, as she sat there, so set in her
determination to lie and thus defend herself.  Her beauty helped
her in his mood, raised her in his esteem.  After all, what could
you do with a woman of this kind? She was not a ten-year-old girl
any more, as in a way he sometimes continued to fancy her.

"Ye oughtn't to say that if it isn't true, Aileen," he said.  "Ye
oughtn't to lie.  It's against your faith.  Why would anybody write
a letter like that if it wasn't so?"

"But it's not so," insisted Aileen, pretending anger and outraged
feeling, "and I don't think you have any right to sit there and
say that to me.  I haven't been there, and I'm not running around
with Mr. Cowperwood.  Why, I hardly know the man except in a social
way."

Butler shook his head solemnly.

"It's a great blow to me, daughter.  It's a great blow to me," he
said.  "I'm willing to take your word if ye say so; but I can't
help thinkin' what a sad thing it would be if ye were lyin' to me.
I haven't had the house watched.  I only got this this mornin'.
And what's written here may not be so.  I hope it isn't.  But
we'll not say any more about that now.  If there is anythin' in
it, and ye haven't gone too far yet to save yourself, I want ye
to think of your mother and your sister and your brothers, and be
a good girl.  Think of the church ye was raised in, and the name
we've got to stand up for in the world.  Why, if ye were doin'
anything wrong, and the people of Philadelphy got a hold of it,
the city, big as it is, wouldn't be big enough to hold us.  Your
brothers have got a reputation to make, their work to do here.
You and your sister want to get married sometime.  How could ye
expect to look the world in the face and do anythin' at all if ye
are doin' what this letter says ye are, and it was told about ye?"

The old man's voice was thick with a strange, sad, alien emotion.
He did not want to believe that his daughter was guilty, even
though he knew she was.  He did not want to face what he considered
in his vigorous, religious way to be his duty, that of reproaching
her sternly.  There were some fathers who would have turned her out,
he fancied.  There were others who might possibly kill Cowperwood
after a subtle investigation.  That course was not for him.  If
vengeance he was to have, it must be through politics and finance--
he must drive him out.  But as for doing anything desperate in
connection with Aileen, he could not think of it.

"Oh, father," returned Aileen, with considerable histrionic ability
in her assumption of pettishness, "how can you talk like this when
you know I'm not guilty? When I tell you so?"

The old Irishman saw through her make-believe with profound
sadness--the feeling that one of his dearest hopes had been
shattered.  He had expected so much of her socially and matrimonially.
Why, any one of a dozen remarkable young men might have married her,
and she would have had lovely children to comfort him in his old age.

"Well, we'll not talk any more about it now, daughter," he said,
wearily.  "Ye've been so much to me during all these years that
I can scarcely belave anythin' wrong of ye.  I don't want to, God
knows.  Ye're a grown woman, though, now; and if ye are doin'
anythin' wrong I don't suppose I could do so much to stop ye.  I
might turn ye out, of course, as many a father would; but I wouldn't
like to do anythin' like that.  But if ye are doin' anythin' wrong"--
and he put up his hand to stop a proposed protest on the part of
Aileen--"remember, I'm certain to find it out in the long run, and
Philadelphy won't be big enough to hold me and the man that's done
this thing to me.  I'll get him," he said, getting up dramatically.
"I'll get him, and when I do--" He turned a livid face to the wall,
and Aileen saw clearly that Cowperwood, in addition to any other
troubles which might beset him, had her father to deal with.  Was
this why Frank had looked so sternly at her the night before?

"Why, your mother would die of a broken heart if she thought there
was anybody could say the least word against ye," pursued Butler,
in a shaken voice.  "This man has a family--a wife and children,
Ye oughtn't to want to do anythin' to hurt them.  They'll have
trouble enough, if I'm not mistaken--facin' what's comin' to them
in the future," and Butler's jaw hardened just a little.  "Ye're
a beautiful girl.  Ye're young.  Ye have money.  There's dozens
of young men'd be proud to make ye their wife.  Whatever ye may
be thinkin' or doin', don't throw away your life.  Don't destroy
your immortal soul.  Don't break my heart entirely."

Aileen, not ungenerous--fool of mingled affection and passion--
could now have cried.  She pitied her father from her heart; but
her allegiance was to Cowperwood, her loyalty unshaken.  She wanted
to say something, to protest much more; but she knew that it was
useless.  Her father knew that she was lying.

"Well, there's no use of my saying anything more, father," she
said, getting up.  The light of day was fading in the windows.
The downstairs door closed with a light slam, indicating that one
of the boys had come in.  Her proposed trip to the library was
now without interest to her.  "You won't believe me, anyhow.  I
tell you, though, that I'm innocent just the same."

Butler lifted his big, brown hand to command silence.  She saw
that this shameful relationship, as far as her father was concerned,
had been made quite clear, and that this trying conference was now
at an end.  She turned and walked shamefacedly out.  He waited
until he heard her steps fading into faint nothings down the hall
toward her room.  Then he arose.  Once more he clinched his big
fists.

"The scoundrel!" he said.  "The scoundrel! I'll drive him out of
Philadelphy, if it takes the last dollar I have in the world."





Chapter XXVII




For the first time in his life Cowperwood felt conscious of having
been in the presence of that interesting social phenomenon--the
outraged sentiment of a parent.  While he had no absolute knowledge
as to why Butler had been so enraged, he felt that Aileen was the
contributing cause.  He himself was a father.  His boy, Frank, Jr.,
was to him not so remarkable.  But little Lillian, with her dainty
little slip of a body and bright-aureoled head, had always appealed
to him.  She was going to be a charming woman one day, he thought,
and he was going to do much to establish her safely.  He used to
tell her that she had "eyes like buttons," "feet like a pussy-cat,"
and hands that were "just five cents' worth," they were so little.
The child admired her father and would often stand by his chair
in the library or the sitting-room, or his desk in his private
office, or by his seat at the table, asking him questions.

This attitude toward his own daughter made him see clearly how
Butler might feel toward Aileen.  He wondered how he would feel if
it were his own little Lillian, and still he did not believe he
would make much fuss over the matter, either with himself or with
her, if she were as old as Aileen.  Children and their lives were
more or less above the willing of parents, anyhow, and it would
be a difficult thing for any parent to control any child, unless
the child were naturally docile-minded and willing to be controlled.

It also made him smile, in a grim way, to see how fate was raining
difficulties on him.  The Chicago fire, Stener's early absence,
Butler, Mollenhauer, and Simpson's indifference to Stener's fate
and his.  And now this probable revelation in connection with
Aileen.  He could not be sure as yet, but his intuitive instincts
told him that it must be something like this.

Now he was distressed as to what Aileen would do, say if suddenly
she were confronted by her father.  If he could only get to her!
But if he was to meet Butler's call for his loan, and the others
which would come yet to-day or on the morrow, there was not a
moment to lose.  If he did not pay he must assign at once.  Butler's
rage, Aileen, his own danger, were brushed aside for the moment.
His mind concentrated wholly on how to save himself financially.

He hurried to visit George Waterman; David Wiggin, his wife's
brother, who was now fairly well to do; Joseph Zimmerman, the
wealthy dry-goods dealer who had dealt with him in the past; Judge
Kitchen, a private manipulator of considerable wealth; Frederick
Van Nostrand, the State treasurer, who was interested in local
street-railway stocks, and others.  Of all those to whom he appealed
one was actually not in a position to do anything for him; another
was afraid; a third was calculating eagerly to drive a hard bargain;
a fourth was too deliberate, anxious to have much time.  All
scented the true value of his situation, all wanted time to consider,
and he had no time to consider.  Judge Kitchen did agree to lend
him thirty thousand dollars--a paltry sum.  Joseph Zimmerman would
only risk twenty-five thousand dollars.  He could see where, all
told, he might raise seventy-five thousand dollars by hypothecating
double the amount in shares; but this was ridiculously insufficient.
He had figured again, to a dollar, and he must have at least two
hundred and fifty thousand dollars above all his present holdings,
or he must close his doors.  To-morrow at two o'clock he would
know.  If he didn't he would be written down as "failed" on a score
of ledgers in Philadelphia.

What a pretty pass for one to come to whose hopes had so recently
run so high! There was a loan of one hundred thousand dollars from
the Girard National Bank which he was particularly anxious to clear
off.  This bank was the most important in the city, and if he
retained its good will by meeting this loan promptly he might hope
for favors in the future whatever happened.  Yet, at the moment,
he did not see how he could do it.  He decided, however, after some
reflection, that he would deliver the stocks which Judge Kitchen,
Zimmerman, and others had agreed to take and get their checks or
cash yet this night.  Then he would persuade Stener to let him
have a check for the sixty thousand dollars' worth of city loan
he had purchased this morning on 'change.  Out of it he could take
twenty-five thousand dollars to make up the balance due the bank,
and still have thirty-five thousand for himself.

The one unfortunate thing about such an arrangement was that by
doing it he was building up a rather complicated situation in
regard to these same certificates.  Since their purchase in the
morning, he had not deposited them in the sinking-fund, where
they belonged (they had been delivered to his office by half past
one in the afternoon), but, on the contrary, had immediately
hypothecated them to cover another loan.  It was a risky thing to
have done, considering that he was in danger of failing and that
he was not absolutely sure of being able to take them up in time.

But, he reasoned, he had a working agreement with the city treasurer
(illegal of course), which would make such a transaction rather
plausible, and almost all right, even if he failed, and that was
that none of his accounts were supposed necessarily to be put
straight until the end of the month.  If he failed, and the
certificates were not in the sinking-fund, he could say, as was
the truth, that he was in the habit of taking his time, and had
forgotten.  This collecting of a check, therefore, for these as
yet undeposited certificates would be technically, if not legally
and morally, plausible.  The city would be out only an additional
sixty thousand dollars--making five hundred and sixty thousand
dollars all told, which in view of its probable loss of five hundred
thousand did not make so much difference.  But his caution clashed
with his need on this occasion, and he decided that he would not
call for the check unless Stener finally refused to aid him with
three hundred thousand more, in which case he would claim it as
his right.  In all likelihood Stener would not think to ask whether
the certificates were in the sinking-fund or not.  If he did, he
would have to lie--that was all.

He drove rapidly back to his office, and, finding Butler's note,
as he expected, wrote a check on his father's bank for the one
hundred thousand dollars which had been placed to his credit by
his loving parent, and sent it around to Butler's office.  There
was another note, from Albert Stires, Stener's secretary, advising
him not to buy or sell any more city loan--that until further notice
such transactions would not be honored.  Cowperwood immediately
sensed the source of this warning.  Stener had been in conference
with Butler or Mollenhauer, and had been warned and frightened.
Nevertheless, he got in his buggy again and drove directly to the
city treasurer's office.

Since Cowperwood's visit Stener had talked still more with Sengstack,
Strobik, and others, all sent to see that a proper fear of things
financial had been put in his heart.  The result was decidedly one
which spelled opposition to Cowperwood.

Strobik was considerably disturbed himself.  He and Wycroft and
Harmon had also been using money out of the treasury--much smaller
sums, of course, for they had not Cowperwood's financial imagination--
and were disturbed as to how they would return what they owed before
the storm broke.  If Cowperwood failed, and Stener was short in
his accounts, the whole budget might be investigated, and then
their loans would be brought to light.  The thing to do was to
return what they owed, and then, at least, no charge of malfeasance
would lie against them.

"Go to Mollenhauer," Strobik had advised Stener, shortly after
Cowperwood had left the latter's office, "and tell him the whole
story.  He put you here.  He was strong for your nomination.  Tell
him just where you stand and ask him what to do.  He'll probably
be able to tell you.  Offer him your holdings to help you out.
You have to.  You can't help yourself.  Don't loan Cowperwood
another damned dollar, whatever you do.  He's got you in so deep
now you can hardly hope to get out.  Ask Mollenhauer if he won't
help you to get Cowperwood to put that money back.  He may be able
to influence him."

There was more in this conversation to the same effect, and then
Stener hurried as fast as his legs could carry him to Mollenhauer's
office.  He was so frightened that he could scarcely breathe, and
he was quite ready to throw himself on his knees before the big
German-American financier and leader.  Oh, if Mr. Mollenhauer would
only help him! If he could just get out of this without going to
jail!

"Oh, Lord! Oh, Lord! Oh, Lord!" he repeated, over and over to
himself, as he walked.  "What shall I do?"

The attitude of Henry A. Mollenhauer, grim, political boss that
he was--trained in a hard school--was precisely the attitude of
every such man in all such trying circumstances.

He was wondering, in view of what Butler had told him, just how
much he could advantage himself in this situation.  If he could,
he wanted to get control of whatever street-railway stock Stener
now had, without in any way compromising himself.  Stener's shares
could easily be transferred on 'change through Mollenhauer's brokers
to a dummy, who would eventually transfer them to himself
(Mollenhauer).  Stener must be squeezed thoroughly, though, this
afternoon, and as for his five hundred thousand dollars' indebtedness
to the treasury, Mollenhauer did not see what could be done about
that.  If Cowperwood could not pay it, the city would have to lose
it; but the scandal must be hushed up until after election.  Stener,
unless the various party leaders had more generosity than Mollenhauer
imagined, would have to suffer exposure, arrest, trial, confiscation
of his property, and possibly sentence to the penitentiary, though
this might easily be commuted by the governor, once public excitement
died down.  He did not trouble to think whether Cowperwood was
criminally involved or not.  A hundred to one he was not.  Trust
a shrewd man like that to take care of himself.  But if there was
any way to shoulder the blame on to Cowperwood, and so clear the
treasurer and the skirts of the party, he would not object to that.
He wanted to hear the full story of Stener's relations with the
broker first.  Meanwhile, the thing to do was to seize what Stener
had to yield.

The troubled city treasurer, on being shown in Mr. Mollenhauer's
presence, at once sank feebly in a chair and collapsed.  He was
entirely done for mentally.  His nerve was gone, his courage
exhausted like a breath.

"Well, Mr. Stener?" queried Mr. Mollenhauer, impressively,
pretending not to know what brought him.

"I came about this matter of my loans to Mr. Cowperwood."

"Well, what about them?"

"Well, he owes me, or the city treasury rather, five hundred
thousand dollars, and I understand that he is going to fail and
that he can't pay it back."

"Who told you that?"

"Mr. Sengstack, and since then Mr. Cowperwood has been to see me.
He tells me he must have more money or he will fail and he wants
to borrow three hundred thousand dollars more.  He says he must
have it."

"So!" said Mr. Mollenhauer, impressively, and with an air of
astonishment which he did not feel.  "You would not think of doing
that, of course.  You're too badly involved as it is.  If he wants
to know why, refer him to me.  Don't advance him another dollar.
If you do, and this case comes to trial, no court would have any
mercy on you.  It's going to be difficult enough to do anything
for you as it is.  However, if you don't advance him any more--we
will see.  It may be possible, I can't say, but at any rate, no
more money must leave the treasury to bolster up this bad business.
It's much too difficult as it now is."  He stared at Stener warningly.
And he, shaken and sick, yet because of the faint suggestion of
mercy involved somewhere in Mollenhauer's remarks, now slipped
from his chair to his knees and folded his hands in the uplifted
attitude of a devotee before a sacred image.

"Oh, Mr. Mollenhauer," he choked, beginning to cry, "I didn't
mean to do anything wrong.  Strobik and Wycroft told me it was
all right.  You sent me to Cowperwood in the first place.  I only
did what I thought the others had been doing.  Mr. Bode did it,
just like I have been doing.  He dealt with Tighe and Company.
I have a wife and four children, Mr. Mollenhauer.  My youngest boy
is only seven years old.  Think of them, Mr. Mollenhauer! Think of
what my arrest will mean to them! I don't want to go to jail.  I
didn't think I was doing anything very wrong--honestly I didn't.
I'll give up all I've got.  You can have all my stocks and houses
and lots--anything--if you'll only get me out of this.  You won't
let 'em send me to jail, will you?"

His fat, white lips were trembling--wabbling nervously--and big
hot tears were coursing down his previously pale but now flushed
cheeks.  He presented one of those almost unbelievable pictures
which are yet so intensely human and so true.  If only the great
financial and political giants would for once accurately reveal
the details of their lives!

Mollenhauer looked at him calmly, meditatively.  How often had he
seen weaklings no more dishonest than himself, but without his
courage and subtlety, pleading to him in this fashion, not on their
knees exactly, but intellectually so! Life to him, as to every
other man of large practical knowledge and insight, was an
inexplicable tangle.  What were you going to do about the so-called
morals and precepts of the world? This man Stener fancied that he
was dishonest, and that he, Mollenhauer, was honest.  He was here,
self-convicted of sin, pleading to him, Mollenhauer, as he would
to a righteous, unstained saint.  As a matter of fact, Mollenhauer
knew that he was simply shrewder, more far-seeing, more calculating,
not less dishonest.  Stener was lacking in force and brains--not
morals.  This lack was his principal crime.  There were people who
believed in some esoteric standard of right--some ideal of conduct
absolutely and very far removed from practical life; but he had
never seen them practice it save to their own financial (not moral--
he would not say that) destruction.  They were never significant,
practical men who clung to these fatuous ideals.  They were always
poor, nondescript, negligible dreamers.  He could not have made
Stener understand all this if he had wanted to, and he certainly
did not want to.  It was too bad about Mrs. Stener and the little
Steners.  No doubt she had worked hard, as had Stener, to get up
in the world and be something--just a little more than miserably
poor; and now this unfortunate complication had to arise to undo
them--this Chicago fire.  What a curious thing that was! If any
one thing more than another made him doubt the existence of a kindly,
overruling Providence, it was the unheralded storms out of clear
skies--financial, social, anything you choose--that so often
brought ruin and disaster to so many.

"Get Up, Stener," he said, calmly, after a few moments.  "You
mustn't give way to your feelings like this.  You must not cry.
These troubles are never unraveled by tears.  You must do a
little thinking for yourself.  Perhaps your situation isn't so
bad."

As he was saying this Stener was putting himself back in his
chair, getting out his handkerchief, and sobbing hopelessly in it.

"I'll do what I can, Stener.  I won't promise anything.  I can't
tell you what the result will be.  There are many peculiar political
forces in this city.  I may not be able to save you, but I am
perfectly willing to try.  You must put yourself absolutely under
my direction.  You must not say or do anything without first
consulting with me.  I will send my secretary to you from time to
time.  He will tell you what to do.  You must not come to me unless
I send for you.  Do you understand that thoroughly?"

"Yes, Mr. Mollenhauer."

"Well, now, dry your eyes.  I don't want you to go out of this
office crying.  Go back to your office, and I will send Sengstack
to see you.  He will tell you what to do.  Follow him exactly.
And whenever I send for you come at once."

He got up, large, self-confident, reserved.  Stener, buoyed up by
the subtle reassurance of his remarks, recovered to a degree his
equanimity.  Mr. Mollenhauer, the great, powerful Mr. Mollenhauer
was going to help him out of his scrape.  He might not have to go
to jail after all.  He left after a few moments, his face a little
red from weeping, but otherwise free of telltale marks, and returned
to his office.

Three-quarters of an hour later, Sengstack called on him for the
second time that day--Abner Sengstack, small, dark-faced, club-footed,
a great sole of leather three inches thick under his short, withered
right leg, his slightly Slavic, highly intelligent countenance
burning with a pair of keen, piercing, inscrutable black eyes.
Sengstack was a fit secretary for Mollenhauer.  You could see at
one glance that he would make Stener do exactly what Mollenhauer
suggested.  His business was to induce Stener to part with his
street-railway holdings at once through Tighe & Co., Butler's
brokers, to the political sub-agent who would eventually transfer
them to Mollenhauer.  What little Stener received for them might
well go into the treasury.  Tighe & Co. would manage the "'change"
subtleties of this without giving any one else a chance to bid,
while at the same time making it appear an open-market transaction.
At the same time Sengstack went carefully into the state of the
treasurer's office for his master's benefit--finding out what it
was that Strobik, Wycroft, and Harmon had been doing with their
loans.  Via another source they were ordered to disgorge at once
or face prosecution.  They were a part of Mollenhauer's political
machine.  Then, having cautioned Stener not to set over the remainder
of his property to any one, and not to listen to any one, most of
all to the Machiavellian counsel of Cowperwood, Sengstack left.

Needless to say, Mollenhauer was greatly gratified by this turn
of affairs.  Cowperwood was now most likely in a position where he
would have to come and see him, or if not, a good share of the
properties he controlled were already in Mollenhauer's possession.
If by some hook or crook he could secure the remainder, Simpson
and Butler might well talk to him about this street-railway business.
His holdings were now as large as any, if not quite the largest.





Chapter XXVIII




It was in the face of this very altered situation that Cowperwood
arrived at Stener's office late this Monday afternoon.

Stener was quite alone, worried and distraught.  He was anxious
to see Cowperwood, and at the same time afraid.

"George," began Cowperwood, briskly, on seeing him, "I haven't
much time to spare now, but I've come, finally, to tell you that
you'll have to let me have three hundred thousand more if you don't
want me to fail.  Things are looking very bad today.  They've
caught me in a corner on my loans; but this storm isn't going to
last.  You can see by the very character of it that it can't."

He was looking at Stener's face, and seeing fear and a pained and
yet very definite necessity for opposition written there.  "Chicago
is burning, but it will be built up again.  Business will be all
the better for it later on.  Now, I want you to be reasonable and
help me.  Don't get frightened."

Stener stirred uneasily.  "Don't let these politicians scare you
to death.  It will all blow over in a few days, and then we'll be
better off than ever.  Did you see Mollenhauer?"

"Yes."

"Well, what did he have to say?"

"He said just what I thought he'd say.  He won't let me do this.
I can't, Frank, I tell you!" exclaimed Stener, jumping up.  He was
so nervous that he had had a hard time keeping his seat during this
short, direct conversation.  "I can't! They've got me in a corner!
They're after me! They all know what we've been doing.  Oh, say,
Frank"--he threw up his arms wildly--"you've got to get me out of
this.  You've got to let me have that five hundred thousand back
and get me out of this.  If you don't, and you should fail, they'll
send me to the penitentiary.  I've got a wife and four children,
Frank.  I can't go on in this.  It's too big for me.  I never
should have gone in on it in the first place.  I never would have
if you hadn't persuaded me, in a way.  I never thought when I began
that I would ever get in as bad as all this.  I can't go on, Frank.
I can't! I'm willing you should have all my stock.  Only give me
back that five hundred thousand, and we'll call it even."  His
voice rose nervously as he talked, and he wiped his wet forehead
with his hand and stared at Cowperwood pleadingly, foolishly.

Cowperwood stared at him in return for a few moments with a cold,
fishy eye.  He knew a great deal about human nature, and he was
ready for and expectant of any queer shift in an individual's
attitude, particularly in time of panic; but this shift of Stener's
was quite too much.  "Whom else have you been talking to, George,
since I saw you? Whom have you seen? What did Sengstack have to
say?"

"He says just what Mollenhauer does, that I mustn't loan any more
money under any circumstances, and he says I ought to get that
five hundred thousand back as quickly as possible."

"And you think Mollenhauer wants to help you, do you?" inquired
Cowperwood, finding it hard to efface the contempt which kept
forcing itself into his voice.

"I think he does, yes.  I don't know who else will, Frank, if he
don't.  He's one of the big political forces in this town."

"Listen to me," began Cowperwood, eyeing him fixedly.  Then he
paused.  "What did he say you should do about your holdings?"

"Sell them through Tighe & Company and put the money back in the
treasury, if you won't take them."

"Sell them to whom?" asked Cowperwood, thinking of Stener's last
words.

"To any one on 'change who'll take them, I suppose.  I don't know."

"I thought so," said Cowperwood, comprehendingly.  "I might have
known as much.  They're working you, George.  They're simply trying
to get your stocks away from you.  Mollenhauer is leading you on.
He knows I can't do what you want--give you back the five hundred
thousand dollars.  He wants you to throw your stocks on the market
so that he can pick them up.  Depend on it, that's all arranged for
already.  When you do, he's got me in his clutches, or he thinks
he has--he and Butler and Simpson.  They want to get together on
this local street-railway situation, and I know it, I feel it.
I've felt it coming all along.  Mollenhauer hasn't any more intention
of helping you than he has of flying.  Once you've sold your stocks
he's through with you--mark my word.  Do you think he'll turn a
hand to keep you out of the penitentiary once you're out of this
street-railway situation? He will not.  And if you think so, you're
a bigger fool than I take you to be, George.  Don't go crazy.
Don't lose your head.  Be sensible.  Look the situation in the
face.  Let me explain it to you.  If you don't help me now--if
you don't let me have three hundred thousand dollars by to-morrow
noon, at the very latest, I'm through, and so are you.  There is
not a thing the matter with our situation.  Those stocks of ours
are as good to-day as they ever were.  Why, great heavens, man,
the railways are there behind them.  They're paying.  The Seventeenth
and Nineteenth Street line is earning one thousand dollars a day
right now.  What better evidence do you want than that? Green &
Coates is earning five hundred dollars.  You're frightened, George.
These damned political schemers have scared you.  Why, you've as
good a right to loan that money as Bode and Murtagh had before you.
They did it.  You've been doing it for Mollenhauer and the others,
only so long as you do it for them it's all right.  What's a
designated city depository but a loan?"

Cowperwood was referring to the system under which certain portions
of city money, like the sinking-fund, were permitted to be kept in
certain banks at a low rate of interest or no rate--banks in which
Mollenhauer and Butler and Simpson were interested.  This was their
safe graft.

"Don't throw your chances away, George.  Don't quit now.  You'll
be worth millions in a few years, and you won't have to turn a hand.
All you will have to do will be to keep what you have.  If you don't
help me, mark my word, they'll throw you over the moment I'm out
of this, and they'll let you go to the penitentiary.  Who's going
to put up five hundred thousand dollars for you, George? Where is
Mollenhauer going to get it, or Butler, or anybody, in these times?
They can't.  They don't intend to.  When I'm through, you're
through, and you'll be exposed quicker than any one else.  They
can't hurt me, George.  I'm an agent.  I didn't ask you to come
to me.  You came to me in the first place of your own accord.  If
you don't help me, you're through, I tell you, and you're going
to be sent to the penitentiary as sure as there are jails.  Why
don't you take a stand, George? Why don't you stand your ground?
You have your wife and children to look after.  You can't be any
worse off loaning me three hundred thousand more than you are right
now.  What difference does it make--five hundred thousand or eight
hundred thousand? It's all one and the same thing, if you're going
to be tried for it.  Besides, if you loan me this, there isn't
going to be any trial.  I'm not going to fail.  This storm will
blow over in a week or ten days, and we'll be rich again.  For
Heaven's sake, George, don't go to pieces this way! Be sensible!
Be reasonable!"

He paused, for Stener's face had become a jelly-like mass of woe.

"I can't, Frank," he wailed.  "I tell you I can't.  They'll
punish me worse than ever if I do that.  They'll never let up on
me.  You don't know these people."

In Stener's crumpling weakness Cowperwood read his own fate.  What
could you do with a man like that? How brace him up? You couldn't!
And with a gesture of infinite understanding, disgust, noble
indifference, he threw up his hands and started to walk out.  At
the door he turned.

"George," he said, "I'm sorry.  I'm sorry for you, not for myself.
I'll come out of things all right, eventually.  I'll be rich.  But,
George, you're making the one great mistake of your life.  You'll
be poor; you'll be a convict, and you'll have only yourself to
blame.  There isn't a thing the matter with this money situation
except the fire.  There isn't a thing wrong with my affairs except
this slump in stocks--this panic.  You sit there, a fortune in your
hands, and you allow a lot of schemers, highbinders, who don't know
any more of your affairs or mine than a rabbit, and who haven't
any interest in you except to plan what they can get out of you,
to frighten you and prevent you from doing the one thing that will
save your life.  Three hundred thousand paltry dollars that in
three or four weeks from now I can pay back to you four and five
times over, and for that you will see me go broke and yourself to
the penitentiary.  I can't understand it, George.  You're out of
your mind.  You're going to rue this the longest day that you live."

He waited a few moments to see if this, by any twist of chance,
would have any effect; then, noting that Stener still remained a
wilted, helpless mass of nothing, he shook his head gloomily and
walked out.

It was the first time in his life that Cowperwood had ever shown
the least sign of weakening or despair.  He had felt all along as
though there were nothing to the Greek theory of being pursued by
the furies.  Now, however, there seemed an untoward fate which was
pursuing him.  It looked that way.  Still, fate or no fate, he did
not propose to be daunted.  Even in this very beginning of a
tendency to feel despondent he threw back his head, expanded his
chest, and walked as briskly as ever.


In the large room outside Stener's private office he encountered
Albert Stires, Stener's chief clerk and secretary.  He and Albert
had exchanged many friendly greetings in times past, and all the
little minor transactions in regard to city loan had been discussed
between them, for Albert knew more of the intricacies of finance
and financial bookkeeping than Stener would ever know.

At the sight of Stires the thought in regard to the sixty thousand
dollars' worth of city loan certificates, previously referred to,
flashed suddenly through his mind.  He had not deposited them in
the sinking-fund, and did not intend to for the present--could not,
unless considerable free money were to reach him shortly--for he
had used them to satisfy other pressing demands, and had no free
money to buy them back--or, in other words, release them.  And he
did not want to just at this moment.  Under the law governing
transactions of this kind with the city treasurer, he was supposed
to deposit them at once to the credit of the city, and not to draw
his pay therefor from the city treasurer until he had.  To be very
exact, the city treasurer, under the law, was not supposed to pay
him for any transaction of this kind until he or his agents presented
a voucher from the bank or other organization carrying the
sinking-fund for the city showing that the certificates so purchased
had actually been deposited there.  As a matter of fact, under the
custom which had grown up between him and Stener, the law had long
been ignored in this respect.  He could buy certificates of city
loan for the sinking-fund up to any reasonable amount, hypothecate
them where he pleased, and draw his pay from the city without
presenting a voucher.  At the end of the month sufficient certificates
of city loan could usually be gathered from one source and another
to make up the deficiency, or the deficiency could actually be
ignored, as had been done on more than one occasion, for long
periods of time, while he used money secured by hypothecating the
shares for speculative purposes.  This was actually illegal; but
neither Cowperwood nor Stener saw it in that light or cared.

The trouble with this particular transaction was the note that he
had received from Stener ordering him to stop both buying and
selling, which put his relations with the city treasury on a very
formal basis.  He had bought these certificates before receiving
this note, but had not deposited them.  He was going now to collect
his check; but perhaps the old, easy system of balancing matters
at the end of the month might not be said to obtain any longer.
Stires might ask him to present a voucher of deposit.  If so, he
could not now get this check for sixty thousand dollars, for he
did not have the certificates to deposit.  If not, he might get
the money; but, also, it might constitute the basis of some subsequent
legal action.  If he did not eventually deposit the certificates
before failure, some charge such as that of larceny might be brought
against him.  Still, he said to himself, he might not really fail
even yet.  If any of his banking associates should, for any reason,
modify their decision in regard to calling his loans, he would not.
Would Stener make a row about this if he so secured this check? Would
the city officials pay any attention to him if he did? Could you
get any district attorney to take cognizance of such a transaction,
if Stener did complain? No, not in all likelihood; and, anyhow,
nothing would come of it.  No jury would punish him in the face of
the understanding existing between him and Stener as agent or broker
and principal.  And, once he had the money, it was a hundred to
one Stener would think no more about it.  It would go in among the
various unsatisfied liabilities, and nothing more would be thought
about it.  Like lightning the entire situation hashed through his
mind.  He would risk it.  He stopped before the chief clerk's desk.

"Albert," he said, in a low voice, "I bought sixty thousand dollars'
worth of city loan for the sinking-fund this morning.  Will you
give my boy a check for it in the morning, or, better yet, will
you give it to me now? I got your note about no more purchases.
I'm going back to the office.  You can just credit the sinking-fund
with eight hundred certificates at from seventy-five to eighty.
I'll send you the itemized list later."

"Certainly, Mr. Cowperwood, certainly," replied Albert, with
alacrity.  "Stocks are getting an awful knock, aren't they? I
hope you're not very much troubled by it?"

"Not very, Albert," replied Cowperwood, smiling, the while the
chief clerk was making out his check.  He was wondering if by any
chance Stener would appear and attempt to interfere with this.  It
was a legal transaction.  He had a right to the check provided he
deposited the certificates, as was his custom, with the trustee of
the fund.  He waited tensely while Albert wrote, and finally, with
the check actually in his hand, breathed a sigh of relief.  Here,
at least, was sixty thousand dollars, and to-night's work would
enable him to cash the seventy-five thousand that had been promised
him.  To-morrow, once more he must see Leigh, Kitchen, Jay Cooke &
Co., Edward Clark & Co.--all the long list of people to whom he
owed loans and find out what could be done.  If he could only get
time! If he could get just a week!





Chapter XXIX




But time was not a thing to be had in this emergency.  With the
seventy-five thousand dollars his friends had extended to him,
and sixty thousand dollars secured from Stires, Cowperwood met
the Girard call and placed the balance, thirty-five thousand
dollars, in a private safe in his own home.  He then made a final
appeal to the bankers and financiers, but they refused to help
him.  He did not, however, commiserate himself in this hour.  He
looked out of his office window into the little court, and sighed.
What more could he do? He sent a note to his father, asking him
to call for lunch.  He sent a note to his lawyer, Harper Steger,
a man of his own age whom he liked very much, and asked him to
call also.  He evolved in his own mind various plans of delay,
addresses to creditors and the like, but alas! he was going to
fail.  And the worst of it was that this matter of the city
treasurer's loans was bound to become a public, and more than a
public, a political, scandal.  And the charge of conniving, if
not illegally, at least morally, at the misuse of the city's money
was the one thing that would hurt him most.

How industriously his rivals would advertise this fact! He might
get on his feet again if he failed; but it would be uphill work.
And his father! His father would be pulled down with him.  It was
probable that he would be forced out of the presidency of his bank.
With these thoughts Cowperwood sat there waiting.  As he did so
Aileen Butler was announced by his office-boy, and at the same
time Albert Stires.

"Show in Miss Butler," he said, getting up.  "Tell Mr. Stires to
wait."  Aileen came briskly, vigorously in, her beautiful body
clothed as decoratively as ever.  The street suit that she wore
was of a light golden-brown broadcloth, faceted with small,
dark-red buttons.  Her head was decorated with a brownish-red
shake of a type she had learned was becoming to her, brimless and
with a trailing plume, and her throat was graced by a three-strand
necklace of gold beads.  Her hands were smoothly gloved as usual,
and her little feet daintily shod.  There was a look of girlish
distress in her eyes, which, however, she was trying hard to
conceal.

"Honey," she exclaimed, on seeing him, her arms extended--"what
is the trouble? I wanted so much to ask you the other night.
You're not going to fail, are you? I heard father and Owen talking
about you last night."

"What did they say?" he inquired, putting his arm around her and
looking quietly into her nervous eyes.

"Oh, you know, I think papa is very angry with you.  He suspects.
Some one sent him an anonymous letter.  He tried to get it out of
me last night, but he didn't succeed.  I denied everything.  I was
in here twice this morning to see you, but you were out.  I was
so afraid that he might see you first, and that you might say
something."

"Me, Aileen?"

"Well, no, not exactly.  I didn't think that.  I don't know what
I thought.  Oh, honey, I've been so worried.  You know, I didn't
sleep at all.  I thought I was stronger than that; but I was so
worried about you.  You know, he put me in a strong light by his
desk, where he could see my face, and then he showed me the letter.
I was so astonished for a moment I hardly know what I said or how
I looked."

"What did you say?"

"Why, I said: 'What a shame! It isn't so!' But I didn't say it
right away.  My heart was going like a trip-hammer.   I'm afraid
he must have been able to tell something from my face.  I could
hardly get my breath."

"He's a shrewd man, your father," he commented.  "He knows something
about life.  Now you see how difficult these situations are.  It's
a blessing he decided to show you the letter instead of watching
the house.  I suppose he felt too bad to do that.  He can't prove
anything now.  But he knows.  You can't deceive him."

"How do you know he knows?"

"I saw him yesterday."

"Did he talk to you about it?"

"No; I saw his face.  He simply looked at me."

"Honey! I'm so sorry for him!"

"I know you are.  So am I.  But it can't be helped now.  We should
have thought of that in the first place."

"But I love you so.  Oh, honey, he will never forgive me.  He loves
me so.  He mustn't know.  I won't admit anything.  But, oh, dear!"

She put her hands tightly together on his bosom, and he looked
consolingly into her eyes.  Her eyelids, were trembling, and her
lips.  She was sorry for her father, herself, Cowperwood.  Through
her he could sense the force of Butler's parental affection; the
volume and danger of his rage.  There were so many, many things
as he saw it now converging to make a dramatic denouement.

"Never mind," he replied; "it can't be helped now.  Where is my
strong, determined Aileen? I thought you were going to be so brave?
Aren't you going to be? I need to have you that way now."

"Do you?"

"Yes."

"Are you in trouble?"

"I think I am going to fail, dear."

"Oh, no!"

"Yes, honey.  I'm at the end of my rope.  I don't see any way out
just at present.  I've sent for my father and my lawyer.  You
mustn't stay here, sweet.  Your father may come in here at any time.
We must meet somewhere--to-morrow, say--to-morrow afternoon.  You
remember Indian Rock, out on the Wissahickon?"

"Yes."

"Could you be there at four?"

"Yes."

"Look out for who's following.  If I'm not there by four-thirty,
don't wait.  You know why.  It will be because I think some one
is watching.  There won't be, though, if we work it right.  And
now you must run, sweet.  We can't use Nine-thirty-one any more.
I'll have to rent another place somewhere else."

"Oh, honey, I'm so sorry."

"Aren't you going to be strong and brave? You see, I need you to
be."

He was almost, for the first time, a little sad in his mood.

"Yes, dear, yes," she declared, slipping her arms under his and
pulling him tight.  "Oh, yes! You can depend on me.  Oh, Frank,
I love you so! I'm so sorry.  Oh, I do hope you don't fail! But
it doesn't make any difference, dear, between you and me, whatever
happens, does it? We will love each other just the same.  I'll do
anything for you, honey! I'll do anything you say.  You can trust
me.  They sha'n't know anything from me."

She looked at his still, pale face, and a sudden strong determination
to fight for him welled up in her heart.  Her love was unjust,
illegal, outlawed; but it was love, just the same, and had much
of the fiery daring of the outcast from justice.

"I love you! I love you! I love you, Frank!" she declared.  He
unloosed her hands.

"Run, sweet.  To-morrow at four.  Don't fail.  And don't talk.
And don't admit anything, whatever you do."

"I won't."

"And don't worry about me.  I'll be all right."

He barely had time to straighten his tie, to assume a nonchalant
attitude by the window, when in hurried Stener's chief clerk--pale,
disturbed, obviously out of key with himself.

"Mr. Cowperwood! You know that check I gave you last night? Mr.
Stener says it's illegal, that I shouldn't have given it to you,
that he will hold me responsible.  He says I can be arrested for
compounding a felony, and that he will discharge me and have me
sent to prison if I don't get it back.  Oh, Mr. Cowperwood, I am
only a young man! I'm just really starting out in life.  I've got
my wife and little boy to look after.  You won't let him do that
to me? You'll give me that check back, won't you? I can't go back
to the office without it.  He says you're going to fail, and that
you knew it, and that you haven't any right to it."

Cowperwood looked at him curiously.  He was surprised at the variety
and character of these emissaries of disaster.  Surely, when
troubles chose to multiply they had great skill in presenting
themselves in rapid order.  Stener had no right to make any such
statement.  The transaction was not illegal.  The man had gone wild.
True, he, Cowperwood, had received an order after these securities
were bought not to buy or sell any more city loan, but that did
not invalidate previous purchases.  Stener was browbeating and
frightening his poor underling, a better man than himself, in
order to get back this sixty-thousand-dollar check.  What a petty
creature he was! How true it was, as somebody had remarked, that
you could not possibly measure the petty meannesses to which a
fool could stoop!

"You go back to Mr. Stener, Albert, and tell him that it can't be
done.  The certificates of loan were purchased before his order
arrived, and the records of the exchange will prove it.  There is
no illegality here.  I am entitled to that check and could have
collected it in any qualified court of law.  The man has gone out
of his head.  I haven't failed yet.  You are not in any danger of
any legal proceedings; and if you are, I'll help defend you.  I
can't give you the check back because I haven't it to give; and
if I had, I wouldn't.  That would be allowing a fool to make a
fool of me.  I'm sorry, very, but I can't do anything for you."

"Oh, Mr. Cowperwood!" Tears were in Stires's eyes.  "He'll discharge
me! He'll forfeit my sureties.  I'll be turned out into the street.
I have only a little property of my own--outside of my salary!"

He wrung his hands, and Cowperwood shook his head sadly.

"This isn't as bad as you think, Albert.  He won't do what he
says.  He can't.  It's unfair and illegal.  You can bring suit
and recover your salary.  I'll help you in that as much as I'm
able.  But I can't give you back this sixty-thousand-dollar check,
because I haven't it to give.  I couldn't if I wanted to.  It isn't
here any more.  I've paid for the securities I bought with it.
The securities are not here.  They're in the sinking-fund, or will
be."

He paused, wishing he had not mentioned that fact.  It was a slip
of the tongue, one of the few he ever made, due to the peculiar
pressure of the situation.  Stires pleaded longer.  It was no use,
Cowperwood told him.  Finally he went away, crestfallen, fearsome,
broken.  There were tears of suffering in his eyes.  Cowperwood was
very sorry.  And then his father was announced.

The elder Cowperwood brought a haggard face.  He and Frank had had
a long conversation the evening before, lasting until early morning,
but it had not been productive of much save uncertainty.

"Hello, father!" exclaimed Cowperwood, cheerfully, noting his
father's gloom.  He was satisfied that there was scarcely a coal
of hope to be raked out of these ashes of despair, but there was
no use admitting it.

"Well?" said his father, lifting his sad eyes in a peculiar way.

"Well, it looks like stormy weather, doesn't it? I've decided to
call a meeting of my creditors, father, and ask for time.  There
isn't anything else to do.  I can't realize enough on anything to
make it worth while talking about.  I thought Stener might change
his mind, but he's worse rather than better.  His head bookkeeper
just went out of here."

"What did he want?" asked Henry Cowperwood.

"He wanted me to give him back a check for sixty thousand that he
paid me for some city loan I bought yesterday morning."  Frank did
not explain to his father, however, that he had hypothecated the
certificates this check had paid for, and used the check itself
to raise money enough to pay the Girard National Bank and to give
himself thirty-five thousand in cash besides.

"Well, I declare!" replied the old man.  "You'd think he'd have
better sense than that.  That's a perfectly legitimate transaction.
When did you say he notified you not to buy city loan?"

"Yesterday noon."

"He's out of his mind," Cowperwood, Sr., commented, laconically.

"It's Mollenhauer and Simpson and Butler, I know.  They want my
street-railway lines.  Well, they won't get them.  They'll get
them through a receivership, and after the panic's all over.  Our
creditors will have first chance at these.  If they buy, they'll
buy from them.  If it weren't for that five-hundred-thousand-dollar
loan I wouldn't think a thing of this.  My creditors would sustain
me nicely.  But the moment that gets noised around!... And this
election! I hypothecated those city loan certificates because I
didn't want to get on the wrong side of Davison.  I expected to
take in enough by now to take them up.  They ought to be in the
sinking-fund, really."

The old gentleman saw the point at once, and winced.

"They might cause you trouble, there, Frank."

"It's a technical question," replied his son.  "I might have been
intending to take them up.   As a matter of fact, I will if I can
before three.  I've been taking eight and ten days to deposit them
in the past.  In a storm like this I'm entitled to move my pawns
as best I can."

Cowperwood, the father, put his hand over his mouth again.  He felt
very disturbed about this.  He saw no way out, however.  He was
at the end of his own resources.  He felt the side-whiskers on his
left cheek.  He looked out of the window into the little green
court.  Possibly it was a technical question, who should say.  The
financial relations of the city treasury with other brokers before
Frank had been very lax.  Every banker knew that.  Perhaps precedent
would or should govern in this case.  He could not say.  Still, it
was dangerous--not straight.  If Frank could get them out and
deposit them it would be so much better.

"I'd take them up if I were you and I could," he added.

"I will if I can."

"How much money have you?"

"Oh, twenty thousand, all told.  If I suspend, though, I'll have
to have a little ready cash."

"I have eight or ten thousand, or will have by night, I hope."

He was thinking of some one who would give him a second mortgage
on his house.

Cowperwood looked quietly at him.  There was nothing more to be
said to his father.  "I'm going to make one more appeal to Stener
after you leave here," be said.  "I'm going over there with Harper
Steger when he comes.  If he won't change I'll send out notice to
my creditors, and notify the secretary of the exchange.  I want
you to keep a stiff upper lip, whatever happens.  I know you will,
though.  I'm going into the thing head down.  If Stener had any
sense--" He paused.  "But what's the use talking about a damn fool?"

He turned to the window, thinking of how easy it would have been,
if Aileen and he had not been exposed by this anonymous note, to
have arranged all with Butler.  Rather than injure the party,
Butler, in extremis, would have assisted him.  Now...!

His father got up to go.  He was as stiff with despair as though
he were suffering from cold.

"Well," he said, wearily.

Cowperwood suffered intensely for him.  What a shame! His father!
He felt a great surge of sorrow sweep over him but a moment later
mastered it, and settled to his quick, defiant thinking.  As the
old man went out, Harper Steger was brought in.  They shook hands,
and at once started for Stener's office.  But Stener had sunk in
on himself like an empty gas-bag, and no efforts were sufficient
to inflate him.  They went out, finally, defeated.

"I tell you, Frank," said Steger, "I wouldn't worry.  We can tie
this thing up legally until election and after, and that will
give all this row a chance to die down.  Then you can get your
people together and talk sense to them.  They're not going to
give up good properties like this, even if Stener does go to jail."

Steger did not know of the sixty thousand dollars' worth of
hypothecated securities as yet.  Neither did he know of Aileen
Butler and her father's boundless rage.





Chapter XXX




There was one development in connection with all of this of which
Cowperwood was as yet unaware.  The same day that brought Edward
Butler the anonymous communication in regard to his daughter,
brought almost a duplicate of it to Mrs. Frank Algernon Cowperwood,
only in this case the name of Aileen Butler had curiously been
omitted.

  Perhaps you don't know that your husband is running with
  another woman.  If you don't believe it, watch the house at
  931 North Tenth Street.

Mrs. Cowperwood was in the conservatory watering some plants when
this letter was brought by her maid Monday morning.  She was most
placid in her thoughts, for she did not know what all the conferring
of the night before meant.  Frank was occasionally troubled by
financial storms, but they did not see to harm him.

"Lay it on the table in the library, Annie.  I'll get it."

She thought it was some social note.

In a little while (such was her deliberate way), she put down
her sprinkling-pot and went into the library.  There it was lying
on the green leather sheepskin which constituted a part of the
ornamentation of the large library table.  She picked it up,
glanced at it curiously because it was on cheap paper, and then
opened it.  Her face paled slightly as she read it; and then her
hand trembled--not much.  Hers was not a soul that ever loved
passionately, hence she could not suffer passionately.  She was
hurt, disgusted, enraged for the moment, and frightened; but she
was not broken in spirit entirely.  Thirteen years of life with
Frank Cowperwood had taught her a number of things.  He was selfish,
she knew now, self-centered, and not as much charmed by her as he
had been.  The fear she had originally felt as to the effect of
her preponderance of years had been to some extent justified by
the lapse of time.  Frank did not love her as he had--he had not
for some time; she had felt it.  What was it?--she had asked
herself at times--almost, who was it? Business was engrossing him
so.

Finance was his master.  Did this mean the end of her regime,
she queried.  Would he cast her off? Where would she go? What
would she do? She was not helpless, of course, for she had money
of her own which he was manipulating for her.  Who was this other
woman? Was she young, beautiful, of any social position? Was it--?
Suddenly she stopped.  Was it? Could it be, by any chance--her
mouth opened--Aileen Butler?

She stood still, staring at this letter, for she could scarcely
countenance her own thought.  She had observed often, in spite of
all their caution, how friendly Aileen had been to him and he to
her.  He liked her; he never lost a chance to defend her.  Lillian
had thought of them at times as being curiously suited to each
other temperamentally.  He liked young people.  But, of course, he
was married, and Aileen was infinitely beneath him socially, and
he had two children and herself.  And his social and financial
position was so fixed and stable that he did not dare trifle with
it.  Still she paused; for forty years and two children, and some
slight wrinkles, and the suspicion that we may be no longer loved
as we once were, is apt to make any woman pause, even in the face
of the most significant financial position.  Where would she go
if she left him? What would people think? What about the children?
Could she prove this liaison? Could she entrap him in a compromising
situation? Did she want to?

She saw now that she did not love him as some women love their
husbands.  She was not wild about him.  In a way she had been
taking him for granted all these years, had thought that he loved
her enough not to be unfaithful to her; at least fancied that he
was so engrossed with the more serious things of life that no
petty liaison such as this letter indicated would trouble him or
interrupt his great career.  Apparently this was not true.  What
should she do? What say? How act? Her none too brilliant mind
was not of much service in this crisis.  She did not know very
well how either to plan or to fight.

The conventional mind is at best a petty piece of machinery.  It
is oyster-like in its functioning, or, perhaps better, clam-like.
It has its little siphon of thought-processes forced up or down
into the mighty ocean of fact and circumstance; but it uses so
little, pumps so faintly, that the immediate contiguity of the
vast mass is not disturbed.  Nothing of the subtlety of life is
perceived.  No least inkling of its storms or terrors is ever
discovered except through accident.  When some crude, suggestive
fact, such as this letter proved to be, suddenly manifests itself
in the placid flow of events, there is great agony or disturbance
and clogging of the so-called normal processes.  The siphon does
not work right.  It sucks in fear and distress.  There is great
grinding of maladjusted parts--not unlike sand in a machine--and
life, as is so often the case, ceases or goes lamely ever after.

Mrs. Cowperwood was possessed of a conventional mind.  She really
knew nothing about life.  And life could not teach her.  Reaction
in her from salty thought-processes was not possible.  She was not
alive in the sense that Aileen Butler was, and yet she thought
that she was very much alive.  All illusion.  She wasn't.  She was
charming if you loved placidity.  If you did not, she was not.
She was not engaging, brilliant, or forceful.  Frank Cowperwood
might well have asked himself in the beginning why he married her.
He did not do so now because he did not believe it was wise to
question the past as to one's failures and errors.  It was,
according to him, most unwise to regret.  He kept his face and
thoughts to the future.

But Mrs. Cowperwood was truly distressed in her way, and she
went about the house thinking, feeling wretchedly.  She decided,
since the letter asked her to see for herself, to wait.  She must
think how she would watch this house, if at all.  Frank must not
know.  If it were Aileen Butler by any chance--but surely not--she
thought she would expose her to her parents.  Still, that meant
exposing herself.  She determined to conceal her mood as best she
could at dinner-time--but Cowperwood was not able to be there.
He was so rushed, so closeted with individuals, so closely in
conference with his father and others, that she scarcely saw him
this Monday night, nor the next day, nor for many days.

For on Tuesday afternoon at two-thirty he issued a call for a
meeting of his creditors, and at five-thirty he decided to go into
the hands of a receiver.  And yet, as he stood before his
principal creditors--a group of thirty men--in his office, he did
not feel that his life was ruined.  He was temporarily embarrassed.
Certainly things looked very black.  The city-treasurership deal
would make a great fuss.  Those hypothecated city loan certificates,
to the extent of sixty thousand, would make another, if Stener
chose.  Still, he did not feel that he was utterly destroyed.

"Gentlemen," he said, in closing his address of explanation at the
meeting, quite as erect, secure, defiant, convincing as he had
ever been, "you see how things are.  These securities are worth
just as much as they ever were.  There is nothing the matter with
the properties behind them.  If you will give me fifteen days or
twenty, I am satisfied that I can straighten the whole matter out.
I am almost the only one who can, for I know all about it.  The
market is bound to recover.  Business is going to be better than
ever.  It's time I want.  Time is the only significant factor in
this situation.  I want to know if you won't give me fifteen or
twenty days--a month, if you can.  That is all I want."

He stepped aside and out of the general room, where the blinds
were drawn, into his private office, in order to give his creditors
an opportunity to confer privately in regard to his situation.
He had friends in the meeting who were for him.  He waited one,
two, nearly three hours while they talked.  Finally Walter Leigh,
Judge Kitchen, Avery Stone, of Jay Cooke & Co., and several others
came in.  They were a committee appointed to gather further
information.

"Nothing more can be done to-day, Frank," Walter Leigh informed
him, quietly.  "The majority want the privilege of examining the
books.  There is some uncertainty about this entanglement with
the city treasurer which you say exists.  They feel that you'd
better announce a temporary suspension, anyhow; and if they want
to let you resume later they can do so."

"I'm sorry for that, gentlemen," replied Cowperwood, the least bit
depressed.  "I would rather do anything than suspend for one hour,
if I could help it, for I know just what it means.  You will find
assets here far exceeding the liabilities if you will take the
stocks at their normal market value; but that won't help any if
I close my doors.  The public won't believe in me.  I ought to keep
open."

"Sorry, Frank, old boy," observed Leigh, pressing his hand
affectionately.  "If it were left to me personally, you could have
all the time you want.  There's a crowd of old fogies out there
that won't listen to reason.  They're panic-struck.  I guess
they're pretty hard hit themselves.  You can scarcely blame them.
You'll come out all right, though I wish you didn't have to shut
up shop.  We can't do anything with them, however.  Why, damn it,
man, I don't see how you can fail, really.  In ten days these
stocks will be all right."

Judge Kitchen commiserated with him also; but what good did that
do? He was being compelled to suspend.  An expert accountant would
have to come in and go over his books.  Butler might spread the
news of this city-treasury connection.  Stener might complain of
this last city-loan transaction.  A half-dozen of his helpful
friends stayed with him until four o'clock in the morning; but he
had to suspend just the same.  And when he did that, he knew he
was seriously crippled if not ultimately defeated in his race for
wealth and fame.

When he was really and finally quite alone in his private bedroom
he stared at himself in the mirror.  His face was pale and tired,
he thought, but strong and effective.  "Pshaw!" he said to himself,
"I'm not whipped.  I'm still young.  I'll get out of this in some
way yet.  Certainly I will.  I'll find some way out."

And so, cogitating heavily, wearily, he began to undress.  Finally
he sank upon his bed, and in a little while, strange as it may seem,
with all the tangle of trouble around him, slept.  He could do
that--sleep and gurgle most peacefully, the while his father paced
the floor in his room, refusing to be comforted.  All was dark
before the older man--the future hopeless.  Before the younger man
was still hope.

And in her room Lillian Cowperwood turned and tossed in the face
of this new calamity.  For it had suddenly appeared from news from
her father and Frank and Anna and her mother-in-law that Frank was
about to fail, or would, or had--it was almost impossible to say
just how it was.  Frank was too busy to explain.  The Chicago fire
was to blame.  There was no mention as yet of the city treasurership.
Frank was caught in a trap, and was fighting for his life.

In this crisis, for the moment, she forgot about the note as to his
infidelity, or rather ignored it.  She was astonished, frightened,
dumbfounded, confused.  Her little, placid, beautiful world was
going around in a dizzy ring.  The charming, ornate ship of their
fortune was being blown most ruthlessly here and there.  She felt
it a sort of duty to stay in bed and try to sleep; but her eyes
were quite wide, and her brain hurt her.  Hours before Frank had
insisted that she should not bother about him, that she could do
nothing; and she had left him, wondering more than ever what and
where was the line of her duty.  To stick by her husband, convention
told her; and so she decided.  Yes, religion dictated that, also
custom.  There were the children.  They must not be injured.  Frank
must be reclaimed, if possible.  He would get over this.  But what
a blow!





Chapter XXXI




The suspension of the banking house of Frank A. Cowperwood & Co.
created a great stir on 'change and in Philadelphia generally.  It
was so unexpected, and the amount involved was comparatively so
large.  Actually he failed for one million two hundred and fifty
thousand dollars; and his assets, under the depressed condition of
stock values, barely totaled seven hundred and fifty thousand
dollars.  There had been considerable work done on the matter of
his balance-sheet before it was finally given to the public; but
when it was, stocks dropped an additional three points generally,
and the papers the next day devoted notable headlines to it.
Cowperwood had no idea of failing permanently; he merely wished
to suspend temporarily, and later, if possible, to persuade his
creditors to allow him to resume.  There were only two things which
stood in the way of this: the matter of the five hundred thousand
dollars borrowed from the city treasury at a ridiculously low rate
of interest, which showed plainer than words what had been going
on, and the other, the matter of the sixty-thousand-dollar check.
His financial wit had told him there were ways to assign his
holdings in favor of his largest creditors, which would tend to
help him later to resume; and he had been swift to act.  Indeed,
Harper Steger had drawn up documents which named Jay Cooke & Co.,
Edward Clark & Co., Drexel & Co., and others as preferred.  He
knew that even though dissatisfied holders of smaller shares in
his company brought suit and compelled readjustment or bankruptcy
later, the intention shown to prefer some of his most influential
aids was important.  They would like it, and might help him later
when all this was over.  Besides, suits in plenty are an excellent
way of tiding over a crisis of this kind until stocks and common
sense are restored, and he was for many suits.  Harper Steger
smiled once rather grimly, even in the whirl of the financial
chaos where smiles were few, as they were figuring it out.

"Frank," he said, "you're a wonder.  You'll have a network of
suits spread here shortly, which no one can break through.  They'll
all be suing each other."

Cowperwood smiled.

"I only want a little time, that's all," he replied.  Nevertheless,
for the first time in his life he was a little depressed; for now
this business, to which he had devoted years of active work and
thought, was ended.

The thing that was troubling him most in all of this was not the
five hundred thousand dollars which was owing the city treasury,
and which he knew would stir political and social life to the center
once it was generally known--that was a legal or semi-legal
transaction, at least--but rather the matter of the sixty thousand
dollars' worth of unrestored city loan certificates which he had
not been able to replace in the sinking-fund and could not now
even though the necessary money should fall from heaven.  The fact
of their absence was a matter of source.  He pondered over the
situation a good deal.  The thing to do, he thought, if he went to
Mollenhauer or Simpson, or both (he had never met either of them,
but in view of Butler's desertion they were his only recourse),
was to say that, although he could not at present return the five
hundred thousand dollars, if no action were taken against him now,
which would prevent his resuming his business on a normal scale a
little later, he would pledge his word that every dollar of the
involved five hundred thousand dollars would eventually be returned
to the treasury.  If they refused, and injury was done him, he
proposed to let them wait until he was "good and ready," which in
all probability would be never.  But, really, it was not quite
clear how action against him was to be prevented--even by them.
The money was down on his books as owing the city treasury, and
it was down on the city treasury's books as owing from him.  Besides,
there was a local organization known as the Citizens' Municipal
Reform Association which occasionally conducted investigations in
connection with public affairs.  His defalcation would be sure to
come to the ears of this body and a public investigation might
well follow.  Various private individuals knew of it already.  His
creditors, for instance, who were now examining his books.

This matter of seeing Mollenhauer or Simpson, or both, was important,
anyhow, he thought; but before doing so he decided to talk it all
over with Harper Steger.  So several days after he had closed his
doors, he sent for Steger and told him all about the transaction,
except that he did not make it clear that he had not intended to
put the certificates in the sinking-fund unless he survived quite
comfortably.

Harper Steger was a tall, thin, graceful, rather elegant man, of
gentle voice and perfect manners, who walked always as though he
were a cat, and a dog were prowling somewhere in the offing.  He
had a longish, thin face of a type that is rather attractive to
women.  His eyes were blue, his hair brown, with a suggestion of
sandy red in it.  He had a steady, inscrutable gaze which sometimes
came to you over a thin, delicate hand, which he laid meditatively
over his mouth.  He was cruel to the limit of the word, not
aggressively but indifferently; for he had no faith in anything.
He was not poor.  He had not even been born poor.  He was just
innately subtle, with the rather constructive thought, which was
about the only thing that compelled him to work, that he ought to
be richer than he was--more conspicuous.  Cowperwood was an excellent
avenue toward legal prosperity.  Besides, he was a fascinating
customer.  Of all his clients, Steger admired Cowperwood most.

"Let them proceed against you," he said on this occasion, his
brilliant legal mind taking in all the phases of the situation at
once.  "I don't see that there is anything more here than a
technical charge.  If it ever came to anything like that, which I
don't think it will, the charge would be embezzlement or perhaps
larceny as bailee.  In this instance, you were the bailee.  And the
only way out of that would be to swear that you had received the
check with Stener's knowledge and consent.  Then it would only be
a technical charge of irresponsibility on your part, as I see it,
and I don't believe any jury would convict you on the evidence of
how this relationship was conducted.  Still, it might; you never
can tell what a jury is going to do.  All this would have to come
out at a trial, however.  The whole thing, it seems to me, would
depend on which of you two--yourself or Stener--the jury would be
inclined to believe, and on how anxious this city crowd is to find
a scapegoat for Stener.  This coming election is the rub.  If this
panic had come at any other time--"

Cowperwood waved for silence.  He knew all about that.  "It all
depends on what the politicians decide to do.  I'm doubtful.  The
situation is too complicated.  It can't be hushed up."  They were
in his private office at his house.  "What will be will be," he
added.

"What would that mean, Harper, legally, if I were tried on a charge
of larceny as bailee, as you put it, and convicted? How many years
in the penitentiary at the outside?"

Steger thought a minute, rubbing his chin with his hand.  "Let me
see," he said, "that is a serious question, isn't it? The law says
one to five years at the outside; but the sentences usually average
from one to three years in embezzlement cases.  Of course, in this
case--"

"I know all about that," interrupted Cowperwood, irritably.  "My
case isn't any different from the others, and you know it.
Embezzlement is embezzlement if the politicians want to have it
so."  He fell to thinking, and Steger got up and strolled about
leisurely.  He was thinking also.

"And would I have to go to jail at any time during the proceedings--
before a final adjustment of the case by the higher courts?"
Cowperwood added, directly, grimly, after a time.

"Yes, there is one point in all legal procedure of the kind,"
replied Steger, cautiously, now rubbing his ear and trying to put
the matter as delicately as possible.  "You can avoid jail sentences
all through the earlier parts of a case like this; but if you are
once tried and convicted it's pretty hard to do anything--as a
matter of fact, it becomes absolutely necessary then to go to jail
for a few days, five or so, pending the motion for a new trial and
the obtaining of a certificate of reasonable doubt.  It usually
takes that long."

The young banker sat there staring out of the window, and Steger
observed, "It is a bit complicated, isn't it?"

"Well, I should say so," returned Frank, and he added to himself:
"Jail! Five days in prison!" That would be a terrific slap, all
things considered.  Five days in jail pending the obtaining of a
certificate of reasonable doubt, if one could be obtained! He must
avoid this! Jail! The penitentiary! His commercial reputation
would never survive that.





Chapter XXXII




The necessity of a final conferencee between Butler, Mollenhauer,
and Simpson was speedily reached, for this situation was hourly
growing more serious.  Rumors were floating about in Third Street
that in addition to having failed for so large an amount as to
have further unsettled the already panicky financial situation
induced by the Chicago fire, Cowperwood and Stener, or Stener
working with Cowperwood, or the other way round, had involved the
city treasury to the extent of five hundred thousand dollars.  And
the question was how was the matter to be kept quiet until after
election, which was still three weeks away.  Bankers and brokers
were communicating odd rumors to each other about a check that
had been taken from the city treasury after Cowperwood knew he
was to fail, and without Stener's consent.  Also that there was
danger that it would come to the ears of that very uncomfortable
political organization known as the Citizens' Municipal Reform
Association, of which a well-known iron-manufacturer of great
probity and moral rectitude, one Skelton C. Wheat, was president.
Wheat had for years been following on the trail of the dominant
Republican administration in a vain attempt to bring it to a sense
of some of its political iniquities.  He was a serious and austere
man---one of those solemn, self-righteous souls who see life through
a peculiar veil of duty, and who, undisturbed by notable animal
passions of any kind, go their way of upholding the theory of the
Ten Commandments over the order of things as they are.

The committee in question had originally been organized to protest
against some abuses in the tax department; but since then, from
election to election, it had been drifting from one subject to
another, finding an occasional evidence of its worthwhileness in
some newspaper comment and the frightened reformation of some minor
political official who ended, usually, by taking refuge behind the
skirts of some higher political power--in the last reaches, Messrs.
Butler, Mollenhauer, and Simpson.  Just now it was without important
fuel or ammunition; and this assignment of Cowperwood, with its
attendant crime, so far as the city treasury was concerned,
threatened, as some politicians and bankers saw it, to give it
just the club it was looking for.

However, the decisive conference took place between Cowperwood and
the reigning political powers some five days after Cowperwood's
failure, at the home of Senator Simpson, which was located in
Rittenhouse Square--a region central for the older order of wealth
in Philadelphia.  Simpson was a man of no little refinement
artistically, of Quaker extraction, and of great wealth-breeding
judgment which he used largely to satisfy his craving for political
predominance.  He was most liberal where money would bring him a
powerful or necessary political adherent.  He fairly showered
offices--commissionerships, trusteeships, judgeships, political
nominations, and executive positions generally--on those who did
his bidding faithfully and without question.  Compared with Butler
and Mollenhauer he was more powerful than either, for he represented
the State and the nation.  When the political authorities who were
trying to swing a national election were anxious to discover what
the State of Pennsylvania would do, so far as the Republican party
was concerned, it was to Senator Simpson that they appealed.  In
the literal sense of the word, he knew.  The Senator had long since
graduated from State to national politics, and was an interesting
figure in the United States Senate at Washington, where his voice
in all the conservative and moneyed councils of the nation was of
great weight.

The house that he occupied, of Venetian design, and four stories
in height, bore many architectural marks of distinction, such as
the floriated window, the door with the semipointed arch, and
medallions of colored marble set in the walls.  The Senator was a
great admirer of Venice.  He had been there often, as he had to
Athens and Rome, and had brought back many artistic objects
representative of the civilizations and refinements of older days.
He was fond, for one thing, of the stern, sculptured heads of the
Roman emperors, and the fragments of gods and goddesses which are
the best testimony of the artistic aspirations of Greece.  In the
entresol of this house was one of his finest treasures--a carved
and floriated base bearing a tapering monolith some four feet high,
crowned by the head of a peculiarly goatish Pan, by the side of
which were the problematic remains of a lovely nude nymph--just
the little feet broken off at the ankles.  The base on which the
feet of the nymph and the monolith stood was ornamented with carved
ox-skulls intertwined with roses.  In his reception hall were
replicas of Caligula, Nero, and other Roman emperors; and on his
stair-walls reliefs of dancing nymphs in procession, and priests
bearing offerings of sheep and swine to the sacrificial altars.
There was a clock in some corner of the house which chimed the
quarter, the half, the three-quarters, and the hour in strange,
euphonious, and pathetic notes.  On the walls of the rooms were
tapestries of Flemish origin, and in the reception-hall, the
library, the living-room, and the drawing-room, richly carved
furniture after the standards of the Italian Renaissance.  The
Senator's taste in the matter of paintings was inadequate, and he
mistrusted it; but such as he had were of distinguished origin and
authentic.  He cared more for his curio-cases filled with smaller
imported bronzes, Venetian glass, and Chinese jade.  He was not a
collector of these in any notable sense--merely a lover of a few
choice examples.  Handsome tiger and leopard skin rugs, the fur
of a musk-ox for his divan, and tanned and brown-stained goat and
kid skins for his tables, gave a sense of elegance and reserved
profusion.  In addition the Senator had a dining-room done after
the Jacobean idea of artistic excellence, and a wine-cellar which
the best of the local vintners looked after with extreme care.  He
was a man who loved to entertain lavishly; and when his residence
was thrown open for a dinner, a reception, or a ball, the best of
local society was to be found there.

The conference was in the Senator's library, and he received his
colleagues with the genial air of one who has much to gain and
little to lose.  There were whiskies, wines, cigars on the table,
and while Mollenhauer and Simpson exchanged the commonplaces of
the day awaiting the arrival of Butler, they lighted cigars and
kept their inmost thoughts to themselves.

It so happened that upon the previous afternoon Butler had learned
from Mr. David Pettie, the district attorney, of the
sixty-thousand-dollar-check transaction.  At the same time the
matter had been brought to Mollenhauer's attention by Stener himself.
It was Mollenhauer, not Butler who saw that by taking advantage of
Cowperwood's situation, he might save the local party from blame,
and at the same time most likely fleece Cowperwood out of his
street-railway shares without letting Butler or Simpson know
anything about it.  The thing to do was to terrorize him with a
private threat of prosecution.

Butler was not long in arriving, and apologized for the delay.
Concealing his recent grief behind as jaunty an air as possible,
he began with:

"It's a lively life I'm leadin', what with every bank in the city
wantin' to know how their loans are goin' to be taken care of."  He
took a cigar and struck a match.

"It does look a little threatening," said Senator Simpson, smiling.
"Sit down.  I have just been talking with Avery Stone, of Jay Cooke
& Company, and he tells me that the talk in Third Street about
Stener's connection with this Cowperwood failure is growing very
strong, and that the newspapers are bound to take up the matter
shortly, unless something is done about it.  I am sure that the
news will also reach Mr. Wheat, of the Citizens' Reform Association,
very shortly.  We ought to decide now, gentlemen, what we propose
to do.  One thing, I am sure, is to eliminate Stener from the
ticket as quietly as possible.  This really looks to me as if it
might become a very serious issue, and we ought to be doing what
we can now to offset its effect later."

Mollenhauer pulled a long breath through his cigar, and blew it
out in a rolling steel-blue cloud.  He studied the tapestry on the
opposite wall but said nothing.

"There is one thing sure," continued Senator Simpson, after a time,
seeing that no one else spoke, "and that is, if we do not begin a
prosecution on our own account within a reasonable time, some one
else is apt to; and that would put rather a bad face on the matter.
My own opinion would be that we wait until it is very plain that
prosecution is going to be undertaken by some one else--possibly
the Municipal Reform Association--but that we stand ready to step
in and act in such a way as to make it look as though we had been
planning to do it all the time.  The thing to do is to gain time;
and so I would suggest that it be made as difficult as possible
to get at the treasurer's books.  An investigation there, if it
begins at all--as I think is very likely--should be very slow in
producing the facts."

The Senator was not at all for mincing words with his important
confreres, when it came to vital issues.  He preferred, in his
grandiloquent way, to call a spade a spade.

"Now that sounds like very good sense to me," said Butler, sinking
a little lower in his chair for comfort's sake, and concealing his
true mood in regard to all this.  "The boys could easily make that
investigation last three weeks, I should think.  They're slow
enough with everything else, if me memory doesn't fail me."  At
the same time he was cogitating as to how to inject the personality
of Cowperwood and his speedy prosecution without appearing to be
neglecting the general welfare of the local party too much.

"Yes, that isn't a bad idea," said Mollenhauer, solemnly, blowing
a ring of smoke, and thinking how to keep Cowperwood's especial
offense from coming up at this conference and until after he had
seen him.

"We ought to map out our program very carefully," continued
Senator Simpson, "so that if we are compelled to act we can do so
very quickly.  I believe myself that this thing is certain to come
to an issue within a week, if not sooner, and we have no time to
lose.  If my advice were followed now, I should have the mayor
write the treasurer a letter asking for information, and the
treasurer write the mayor his answer, and also have the mayor,
with the authority of the common council, suspend the treasurer
for the time being--I think we have the authority to do that--or,
at least, take over his principal duties but without for the time
being, anyhow, making any of these transactions public--until we
have to, of course.  We ought to be ready with these letters to
show to the newspapers at once, in case this action is forced
upon us."

"I could have those letters prepared, if you gentlemen have no
objection," put in Mollenhauer, quietly, but quickly.

"Well, that strikes me as sinsible," said Butler, easily.  "It's
about the only thing we can do under the circumstances, unless we
could find some one else to blame it on, and I have a suggestion
to make in that direction.  Maybe we're not as helpless as we might
be, all things considered."

There was a slight gleam of triumph in his eye as he said this,
at the same time that there was a slight shadow of disappointment
in Mollenhauer's.  So Butler knew, and probably Simpson, too.

"Just what do you mean?" asked the Senator, looking at Butler
interestedly.  He knew nothing of the sixty-thousand-dollar check
transaction.  He had not followed the local treasury dealings very
closely, nor had he talked to either of his confreres since the
original conference between them.  "There haven't been any outside
parties mixed up with this, have there?"  His own shrewd, political
mind was working.

"No-o.  I wouldn't call him an outside party, exactly, Senator,"
went on Butler suavely.  "It's Cowperwood himself I'm thinkin' of.
There's somethin' that has come up since I saw you gentlemen last
that makes me think that perhaps that young man isn't as innocent
as he might be.  It looks to me as though he was the ringleader
in this business, as though he had been leadin' Stener on against
his will.  I've been lookin' into the matter on me own account,
and as far as I can make out this man Stener isn't as much to blame
as I thought.  From all I can learn, Cowperwood's been threatenin'
Stener with one thing and another if he didn't give him more money,
and only the other day he got a big sum on false pretinses, which
might make him equally guilty with Stener.  There's sixty-thousand
dollars of city loan certificates that has been paid for that aren't
in the sinking-fund.  And since the reputation of the party's in
danger this fall, I don't see that we need to have any particular
consideration for him."  He paused, strong in the conviction that
he had sent a most dangerous arrow flying in the direction of
Cowperwood, as indeed he had.  Yet at this moment, both the Senator
and Mollenhauer were not a little surprised, seeing at their last
meeting he had appeared rather friendly to the young banker, and
this recent discovery seemed scarcely any occasion for a vicious
attitude on his part.  Mollenhauer in particular was surprised,
for he had been looking on Butler's friendship for Cowperwood as
a possible stumbling block.

"Um-m, you don't tell me," observed Senator Simpson, thoughtfully,
stroking his mouth with his pale hand.

"Yes, I can confirm that," said Mollenhauer, quietly, seeing his
own little private plan of browbeating Cowperwood out of his
street-railway shares going glimmering.  "I had a talk with Stener
the other day about this very matter, and he told me that Cowperwood
had been trying to force him to give him three hundred thousand
dollars more, and that when he refused Cowperwood managed to get
sixty thousand dollars further without his knowledge or consent."

"How could he do that?" asked Senator Simpson, incredulously.
Mollenhauer explained the transaction.

Oh," said the Senator, when Mollenhauer had finished, "that
indicates a rather sharp person, doesn't it? And the certificates
are not in the sinking-fund, eh?"

"They're not," chimed in Butler, with considerable enthusiasm.

"Well, I must say," said Simpson, rather relieved in his manner,
"this looks like a rather good thing than not to me.  A scapegoat
possibly.  We need something like this.  I see no reason under
the circumstances for trying to protect Mr. Cowperwood.  We might
as well try to make a point of that, if we have to.  The newspapers
might just as well talk loud about that as anything else.  They
are bound to talk; and if we give them the right angle, I think
that the election might well come and go before the matter could
be reasonably cleared up, even though Mr. Wheat does interfere.
I will be glad to undertake to see what can be done with the papers."

"Well, that bein' the case," said Butler, "I don't see that there's
so much more we can do now; but I do think it will be a mistake
if Cowperwood isn't punished with the other one.  He's equally
guilty with Stener, if not more so, and I for one want to see
him get what he deserves.  He belongs in the penitentiary, and
that's where he'll go if I have my say."  Both Mollenhauer and
Simpson turned a reserved and inquiring eye on their usually
genial associate.  What could be the reason for his sudden
determination to have Cowperwood punished? Cowperwood, as Mollenhauer
and Simpson saw it, and as Butler would ordinarily have seen it,
was well within his human, if not his strictly legal rights.  They
did not blame him half as much for trying to do what he had done
as they blamed Stener for letting him do it.  But, since Butler
felt as he did, and there was an actual technical crime here,
they were perfectly willing that the party should have the advantage
of it, even if Cowperwood went to the penitentiary.

"You may be right," said Senator Simpson, cautiously.  "You might
have those letters prepared, Henry; and if we have to bring any
action at all against anybody before election, it would, perhaps,
be advisable to bring it against Cowperwood.  Include Stener if
you have to but not unless you have to.  I leave it to you two,
as I am compelled to start for Pittsburg next Friday; but I know
you will not overlook any point."

The Senator arose.  His time was always valuable.  Butler was
highly gratified by what he had accomplished.  He had succeeded
in putting the triumvirate on record against Cowperwood as the
first victim, in case of any public disturbance or demonstration
against the party.  All that was now necessary was for that
disturbance to manifest itself; and, from what he could see of
local conditions, it was not far off.  There was now the matter
of Cowperwood's disgruntled creditors to look into; and if by
buying in these he should succeed in preventing the financier from
resuming business, he would have him in a very precarious condition
indeed.  It was a sad day for Cowperwood, Butler thought--the day
he had first tried to lead Aileen astray--and the time was not
far off when he could prove it to him.





Chapter XXXIII




In the meantime Cowperwood, from what he could see and hear, was
becoming more and more certain that the politicians would try to
make a scapegoat of him, and that shortly.  For one thing, Stires
had called only a few days after he closed his doors and imparted
a significant bit of information.  Albert was still connected with
the city treasury, as was Stener, and engaged with Sengstack and
another personal appointee of Mollenhauer's in going over the
treasurer's books and explaining their financial significance.
Stires had come to Cowperwood primarily to get additional advice
in regard to the sixty-thousand-dollar check and his personal
connection with it.  Stener, it seemed, was now threatening to
have his chief clerk prosecuted, saying that he was responsible
for the loss of the money and that his bondsmen could be held
responsible.  Cowperwood had merely laughed and assured Stires
that there was nothing to this.

"Albert," he had said, smilingly, "I tell you positively, there's
nothing in it.  You're not responsible for delivering that check
to me.  I'll tell you what you do, now.  Go and consult my lawyer--
Steger.  It won't cost you a cent, and he'll tell you exactly what
to do.  Now go on back and don't worry any more about it.  I am
sorry this move of mine has caused you so much trouble, but it's
a hundred to one you couldn't have kept your place with a new city
treasurer, anyhow, and if I see any place where you can possibly
fit in later, I'll let you know."

Another thing that made Cowperwood pause and consider at this time
was a letter from Aileen, detailing a conversation which had taken
place at the Butler dinner table one evening when Butler, the elder,
was not at home.  She related how her brother Owen in effect had
stated that they--the politicians--her father, Mollenhauer, and
Simpson, were going to "get him yet" (meaning Cowperwood), for some
criminal financial manipulation of something--she could not explain
what--a check or something.  Aileen was frantic with worry.  Could
they mean the penitentiary, she asked in her letter? Her dear lover!
Her beloved Frank! Could anything like this really happen to him?

His brow clouded, and he set his teeth with rage when he read her
letter.  He would have to do something about this--see Mollenhauer
or Simpson, or both, and make some offer to the city.  He could
not promise them money for the present--only notes--but they might
take them.  Surely they could not be intending to make a scapegoat
of him over such a trivial and uncertain matter as this check
transaction! When there was the five hundred thousand advanced by
Stener, to say nothing of all the past shady transactions of former
city treasurers! How rotten! How political, but how real and
dangerous.

But Simpson was out of the city for a period of ten days, and
Mollenhauer, having in mind the suggestion made by Butler in regard
to utilizing Cowperwood's misdeed for the benefit of the party,
had already moved as they had planned.  The letters were ready and
waiting.  Indeed, since the conference, the smaller politicians,
taking their cue from the overlords, had been industriously
spreading the story of the sixty-thousand-dollar check, and insisting
that the burden of guilt for the treasury defalcation, if any, lay
on the banker.  The moment Mollenhauer laid eyes on Cowperwood he
realized, however, that he had a powerful personality to deal with.
Cowperwood gave no evidence of fright.  He merely stated, in his
bland way, that he had been in the habit of borrowing money from
the city treasury at a low rate of interest, and that this panic
had involved him so that he could not possibly return it at present.

"I have heard rumors, Mr. Mollenhauer," he said, "to the effect that
some charge is to be brought against me as a partner with Mr. Stener
in this matter; but I am hoping that the city will not do that, and
I thought I might enlist your influence to prevent it.  My affairs
are not in a bad way at all, if I had a little time to arrange
matters.  I am making all of my creditors an offer of fifty cents
on the dollar now, and giving notes at one, two, and three years;
but in this matter of the city treasury loans, if I could come to
terms, I would be glad to make it a hundred cents--only I would
want a little more time.  Stocks are bound to recover, as you know,
and, barring my losses at this time, I will be all right.  I
realize that the matter has gone pretty far already.  The newspapers
are likely to start talking at any time, unless they are stopped
by those who can control them."  (He looked at Mollenhauer in a
complimentary way.)  "But if I could be kept out of the general
proceedings as much as possible, my standing would not be injured,
and I would have a better chance of getting on my feet.  It would
be better for the city, for then I could certainly pay it what I
owe it."  He smiled his most winsome and engaging smile.  And
Mollenhauer seeing him for the first time, was not unimpressed.
Indeed he looked at this young financial David with an interested
eye.  If he could have seen a way to accept this proposition of
Cowperwood's, so that the money offered would have been eventually
payable to him, and if Cowperwood had had any reasonable prospect
of getting on his feet soon, he would have considered carefully
what he had to say.  For then Cowperwood could have assigned his
recovered property to him.  As it was, there was small likelihood
of this situation ever being straightened out.  The Citizens'
Municipal Reform Association, from all he could hear, was already
on the move--investigating, or about to, and once they had set
their hands to this, would unquestionably follow it closely to the
end.

"The trouble with this situation, Mr. Cowperwood," he said, affably,
"is that it has gone so far that it is practically out of my hands.
I really have very little to do with it.  I don't suppose, though,
really, it is this matter of the five-hundred-thousand-dollar loan
that is worrying you so much, as it is this other matter of the
sixty-thousand-dollar check you received the other day.  Mr. Stener
insists that you secured that illegally, and he is very much wrought
up about it.  The mayor and the other city officials know of it
now, and they may force some action.  I don't know."

Mollenhauer was obviously not frank in his attitude--a little bit
evasive in his sly reference to his official tool, the mayor; and
Cowperwood saw it.  It irritated him greatly, but he was tactful
enough to be quite suave and respectful.

"I did get a check for sixty thousand dollars, that's true," he
replied, with apparent frankness, "the day before I assigned.  It
was for certificates I had purchased, however, on Mr. Stener's
order, and was due me.  I needed the money, and asked for it.  I
don't see that there is anything illegal in that."

"Not if the transaction was completed in all its details," replied
Mollenhauer, blandly.  "As I understand it, the certificates were
bought for the sinking-fund, and they are not there.  How do you
explain that?"

"An oversight, merely," replied Cowperwood, innocently, and quite
as blandly as Mollenhauer.  "They would have been there if I had
not been compelled to assign so unexpectedly.  It was not possible
for me to attend to everything in person.  It has not been our
custom to deposit them at once.  Mr. Stener will tell you that,
if you ask him."

"You don't say," replied Mollenhauer.  "He did not give me that
impression.  However, they are not there, and I believe that that
makes some difference legally.  I have no interest in the matter
one way or the other, more than that of any other good Republican.
I don't see exactly what I can do for you.  What did you think I
could do?"

"I don't believe you can do anything for me, Mr. Mollenhauer,"
replied Cowperwood, a little tartly, "unless you are willing to
deal quite frankly with me.  I am not a beginner in politics in
Philadelphia.  I know something about the powers in command.  I
thought that you could stop any plan to prosecute me in this matter,
and give me time to get on my feet again.  I am not any more
criminally responsible for that sixty thousand dollars than I am
for the five hundred thousand dollars that I had as loan before
it--not as much so.  I did not create this panic.  I did not set
Chicago on fire.  Mr. Stener and his friends have been reaping some
profit out of dealing with me.  I certainly was entitled to make
some effort to save myself after all these years of service, and
I can't understand why I should not receive some courtesy at the
hands of the present city administration, after I have been so
useful to it.  I certainly have kept city loan at par; and as for
Mr. Stener's money, he has never wanted for his interest on that,
and more than his interest."

"Quite so," replied Mollenhauer, looking Cowperwood in the eye
steadily and estimating the force and accuracy of the man at their
real value.  "I understand exactly how it has all come about, Mr.
Cowperwood.  No doubt Mr. Stener owes you a debt of gratitude, as
does the remainder of the city administration.  I'm not saying
what the city administration ought or ought not do.  All I know is
that you find yourself wittingly or unwittingly in a dangerous
situation, and that public sentiment in some quarters is already
very strong against you.  I personally have no feeling one way or
the other, and if it were not for the situation itself, which looks
to be out of hand, would not be opposed to assisting you in any
reasonable way.  But how? The Republican party is in a very bad
position, so far as this election is concerned.  In a way, however
innocently, you have helped to put it there, Mr, Cowperwood.  Mr.
Butler, for some reason to which I am not a party, seems deeply
and personally incensed.  And Mr. Butler is a great power here--"
(Cowperwood began to wonder whether by any chance Butler had
indicated the nature of his social offense against himself, but
he could not bring himself to believe that.  It was not probable.)
"I sympathize with you greatly, Mr. Cowperwood, but what I suggest
is that you first See Mr. Butler and Mr. Simpson.  If they agree
to any program of aid, I will not be opposed to joining.  But apart
from that I do not know exactly what I can do.  I am only one of
those who have a slight say in the affairs of Philadelphia."

At this point, Mollenhauer rather expected Cowperwood to make an
offer of his own holdings, but he did not.  Instead he said, "I'm
very much obliged to you, Mr. Mollenhauer, for the courtesy of
this interview.  I believe you would help me if you could.  I shall
just have to fight it out the best way I can.  Good day."

And he bowed himself out.  He saw clearly how hopeless was his
quest.

In the meanwhile, finding that the rumors were growing in volume
and that no one appeared to be willing to take steps to straighten
the matter out, Mr. Skelton C. Wheat, President of the Citizens'
Municipal Reform Association, was, at last and that by no means
against his will, compelled to call together the committee of ten
estimable Philadelphians of which he was chairman, in a local
committee-hall on Market Street, and lay the matter of the Cowperwood
failure before it.

"It strikes me, gentlemen," he announced, "that this is an occasion
when this organization can render a signal service to the city and
the people of Philadelphia, and prove the significance and the
merit of the title originally selected for it, by making such a
thoroughgoing investigation as will bring to light all the facts
in this case, and then by standing vigorously behind them insist
that such nefarious practices as we are informed were indulged in
in this case shall cease.  I know it may prove to be a difficult
task.  The Republican party and its local and State interests are
certain to be against us.  Its leaders are unquestionably most
anxious to avoid comment and to have their ticket go through
undisturbed, and they will not contemplate with any equanimity our
opening activity in this matter; but if we persevere, great good
will surely come of it.  There is too much dishonesty in public
life as it is.  There is a standard of right in these matters which
cannot permanently be ignored, and which must eventually be fulfilled.
I leave this matter to your courteous consideration."

Mr. Wheat sat down, and the body before him immediately took the
matter which he proposed under advisement.  It was decided to
appoint a subcommittee "to investigate" (to quote the statement
eventually given to the public) "the peculiar rumors now affecting
one of the most important and distinguished offices of our municipal
government," and to report at the next meeting, which was set for
the following evening at nine o'clock.  The meeting adjourned, and
the following night at nine reassembled, four individuals of very
shrewd financial judgment having meantime been about the task
assigned them.  They drew up a very elaborate statement, not wholly
in accordance with the facts, but as nearly so as could be
ascertained in so short a space of time.

  "It appears [read the report, after a preamble which explained
  why the committee had been appointed] that it has been the custom
  of city treasurers for years, when loans have been authorized
  by councils, to place them in the hands of some favorite broker
  for sale, the broker accounting to the treasurer for the moneys
  received by such sales at short periods, generally the first of
  each month.  In the present case Frank A. Cowperwood has been
  acting as such broker for the city treasurer.  But even this
  vicious and unbusiness-like system appears not to have been
  adhered to in the case of Mr. Cowperwood.  The accident of the
  Chicago fire, the consequent depression of stock values, and the
  subsequent failure of Mr. Frank A. Cowperwood have so involved
  matters temporarily that the committee has not been able to
  ascertain with accuracy that regular accounts have been rendered;
  but from the manner in which Mr. Cowperwood has had possession
  of bonds (city loan) for hypothecation, etc., it would appear
  that he has been held to no responsibility in these matters, and
  that there have always been under his control several hundred
  thousand dollars of cash or securities belonging to the city,
  which he has manipulated for various purposes; but the details
  of the results of these transactions are not easily available.
  
  "Some of the operations consisted of hypothecation of large
  amounts of these loans before the certificates were issued, the
  lender seeing that the order for the hypothecated securities
  was duly made to him on the books of the treasurer.  Such
  methods appear to have been occurring for a long time, and it
  being incredible that the city treasurer could be unaware of
  the nature of the business, there is indication of a complicity
  between him and Mr. Cowperwood to benefit by the use of the city
  credit, in violation of the law.

  "Furthermore, at the very time these hypothecations were being
  made, and the city paying interest upon such loans, the money
  representing them was in the hands of the treasurer's broker
  and bearing no interest to the city.  The payment of municipal
  warrants was postponed, and they were being purchased at a
  discount in large amounts by Mr. Cowperwood with the very money
  that should have been in the city treasury.  The bona fide
  holders of the orders for certificates of loans are now unable
  to obtain them, and thus the city's credit is injured to a
  greater extent than the present defalcation, which amounts to
  over five hundred thousand dollars.  An accountant is now at
  work on the treasurer's books, and a few days should make clear
  the whole modus operandi.  It is hoped that the publicity thus
  obtained will break up such vicious practices."

There was appended to this report a quotation from the law governing
the abuse of a public trust; and the committee went on to say that,
unless some taxpayer chose to initiate proceedings for the
prosecution of those concerned, the committee itself would be called
upon to do so, although such action hardly came within the object
for which it was formed.

This report was immediately given to the papers.  Though some sort
of a public announcement had been anticipated by Cowperwood and
the politicians, this was, nevertheless, a severe blow.  Stener
was beside himself with fear.  He broke into a cold sweat when he
saw the announcement which was conservatively headed, "Meeting of
the Municipal Reform Association."  All of the papers were so closely
identified with the political and financial powers of the city that
they did not dare to come out openly and say what they thought.
The chief facts had already been in the hands of the various
editors and publishers for a week and more, but word had gone
around from Mollenhauer, Simpson, and Butler to use the soft pedal
for the present.  It was not good for Philadelphia, for local
commerce, etc., to make a row.  The fair name of the city would
be smirched.  It was the old story.

 At once the question was raised as to who was really guilty, the
city treasurer or the broker, or both.  How much money had actually
been lost? Where had it gone? Who was Frank Algernon Cowperwood,
anyway? Why was he not arrested? How did he come to be identified
so closely with the financial administration of the city? And
though the day of what later was termed "yellow journalism" had
not arrived, and the local papers were not given to such vital
personal comment as followed later, it was not possible, even bound
as they were, hand and foot, by the local political and social
magnates, to avoid comment of some sort.  Editorials had to be
written.  Some solemn, conservative references to the shame and
disgrace which one single individual could bring to a great city
and a noble political party had to be ventured upon.

That desperate scheme to cast the blame on Cowperwood temporarily,
which had been concocted by Mollenhauer, Butler, and Simpson, to
get the odium of the crime outside the party lines for the time
being, was now lugged forth and put in operation.  It was interesting
and strange to note how quickly the newspapers, and even the
Citizens' Municipal Reform Association, adopted the argument that
Cowperwood was largely, if not solely, to blame.  Stener had loaned
him the money, it is true--had put bond issues in his hands for
sale, it is true, but somehow every one seemed to gain the impression
that Cowperwood had desperately misused the treasurer.  The fact
that he had taken a sixty-thousand-dollar check for certificates
which were not in the sinking-fund was hinted at, though until
they could actually confirm this for themselves both the newspapers
and the committee were too fearful of the State libel laws to say
so.

In due time there were brought forth several noble municipal
letters, purporting to be a stern call on the part of the mayor,
Mr. Jacob Borchardt, on Mr. George W. Stener for an immediate
explanation of his conduct, and the latter's reply, which were at
once given to the newspapers and the Citizens' Municipal Reform
Association.  These letters were enough to show, so the politicians
figured, that the Republican party was anxious to purge itself of
any miscreant within its ranks, and they also helped to pass the
time until after election.

         OFFICE OF THE MAYOR OF THE CITY OF PHILADELPHIA

  GEORGE W. STENER, ESQ.,                      October 18, 1871.
      City Treasurer.
    DEAR SIR,--Information has been given me that certificates of
  city loan to a large amount, issued by you for sale on account of
  the city, and, I presume, after the usual requisition from the
  mayor of the city, have passed out of your custody, and that the
  proceeds of the sale of said certificates have not been paid
  into the city treasury.

  I have also been informed that a large amount of the city's
  money has been permitted to pass into the hands of some one or
  more brokers or bankers doing business on Third Street, and that
  said brokers or bankers have since met with financial difficulties,
  whereby, and by reason of the above generally, the interests of
  the city are likely to be very seriously affected.

  I have therefore to request that you will promptly advise me of
  the truth or falsity of these statements, so that such duties as
  devolve upon me as the chief magistrate of the city, in view of
  such facts, if they exist, may be intelligently discharged.
                       Yours respectfully,

                                               JACOB BORCHARDT,
                                             Mayor of Philadelphia.


          OFFICE OF THE TREASURER OF THE CITY OF PHILADELPHIA

  HON. JACOB BORCHARDT.                          October 19, 1871.
    DEAR SIR,--I have to acknowledge the receipt of your
  communication of the 21st instant, and to express my regret that I
  cannot at this time give you the information you ask.  There is
  undoubtedly an embarrassment in the city treasury, owing to the
  delinquency of the broker who for several years past has negotiated
  the city loans, and I have been, since the discovery of this fact,
  and still am occupied in endeavoring to avert or lessen the loss
  with which the city is threatened.
                      I am, very respectfully,
                                                GEORGE W. STENER.


            OFFICE OF THE MAYOR OF THE CITY OF PHILADELPHIA

  GEORGE W. STENER, ESQ.,                      October 21, 1871.
         City Treasurer.
    DEAR SIR--Under the existing circumstances you will consider
  this as a notice of withdrawal and revocation of any requisition
  or authority by me for the sale of loan, so far as the same
  has not been fulfilled.  Applications for loans may for the
  present be made at this office.
                         Very respectfully,

                                               JACOB BORCHARDT,
                                            Mayor of Philadelphia.


And did Mr. Jacob Borchardt write the letters to which his name
was attached? He did not.  Mr. Abner Sengstack wrote them in Mr.
Mollenhauer's office, and Mr. Mollenhauer's comment when he saw
them was that he thought they would do--that they were very good,
in fact.  And did Mr. George W. Stener, city treasurer of Philadelphia,
write that very politic reply? He did not.  Mr. Stener was in a
state of complete collapse, even crying at one time at home in his
bathtub.  Mr. Abner Sengstack wrote that also, and had Mr. Stener
sign it.  And Mr. Mollenhauer's comment on that, before it was sent,
was that he thought it was "all right."  It was a time when all the
little rats and mice were scurrying to cover because of the presence
of a great, fiery-eyed public cat somewhere in the dark, and only
the older and wiser rats were able to act.

Indeed, at this very time and for some days past now, Messrs.
Mollenhauer, Butler, and Simpson were, and had been, considering
with Mr. Pettie, the district attorney, just what could be done
about Cowperwood, if anything, and in order to further emphasize
the blame in that direction, and just what defense, if any, could
be made for Stener.  Butler, of course, was strong for Cowperwood's
prosecution.  Pettie did not see that any defense could be made
for Stener, since various records of street-car stocks purchased
for him were spread upon Cowperwood's books; but for Cowperwood--
"Let me see," he said.  They were speculating, first of all, as
to whether it might not be good policy to arrest Cowperwood, and
if necessary try him, since his mere arrest would seem to the
general public, at least, positive proof of his greater guilt, to
say nothing of the virtuous indignation of the administration, and
in consequence might tend to divert attention from the evil nature
of the party until after election.

So finally, on the afternoon of October 26, 1871, Edward Strobik,
president of the common council of Philadelphia, appeared before
the mayor, as finally ordered by Mollenhauer, and charged by
affidavit that Frank A. Cowperwood, as broker, employed by the
treasurer to sell the bonds of the city, had committed embezzlement
and larceny as bailee.  It did not matter that he charged George
W. Stener with embezzlement at the same time.  Cowperwood was the
scapegoat they were after.





Chapter XXXIV




The contrasting pictures presented by Cowperwood and Stener at this
time are well worth a moment's consideration.  Stener's face was
grayish-white, his lips blue.  Cowperwood, despite various solemn
thoughts concerning a possible period of incarceration which this
hue and cry now suggested, and what that meant to his parents,
his wife and children, his business associates, and his friends,
was as calm and collected as one might assume his great mental
resources would permit him to be.  During all this whirl of disaster
he had never once lost his head or his courage.  That thing
conscience, which obsesses and rides some people to destruction,
did not trouble him at all.  He had no consciousness of what is
currently known as sin.  There were just two faces to the shield
of life from the point of view of his peculiar mind-strength and
weakness.  Right and wrong? He did not know about those.  They were
bound up in metaphysical abstrusities about which he did not care
to bother.  Good and evil? Those were toys of clerics, by which
they made money.  And as for social favor or social ostracism which,
on occasion, so quickly followed upon the heels of disaster of any
kind, well, what was social ostracism? Had either he or his parents
been of the best society as yet? And since not, and despite this
present mix-up, might not the future hold social restoration and
position for him? It might.  Morality and immorality? He never
considered them.  But strength and weakness--oh, yes! If you had
strength you could protect yourself always and be something.  If
you were weak--pass quickly to the rear and get out of the range
of the guns.  He was strong, and he knew it, and somehow he always
believed in his star.  Something--he could not say what--it was
the only metaphysics he bothered about--was doing something for
him.  It had always helped him.  It made things come out right at
times.  It put excellent opportunities in his way.  Why had he
been given so fine a mind? Why always favored financially,
personally? He had not deserved it--earned it.  Accident, perhaps,
but somehow the thought that he would always be protected--these
intuitions, the "hunches" to act which he frequently had--could
not be so easily explained.  Life was a dark, insoluble mystery,
but whatever it was, strength and weakness were its two constituents.
Strength would win--weakness lose.  He must rely on swiftness of
thought, accuracy, his judgment, and on nothing else.  He was really
a brilliant picture of courage and energy--moving about briskly in
a jaunty, dapper way, his mustaches curled, his clothes pressed,
his nails manicured, his face clean-shaven and tinted with health.

In the meantime, Cowperwood had gone personally to Skelton C. Wheat
and tried to explain his side of the situation, alleging that he
had done no differently from many others before him, but Wheat was
dubious.  He did not see how it was that the sixty thousand dollars'
worth of certificates were not in the sinking-fund.  Cowperwood's
explanation of custom did not avail.  Nevertheless, Mr. Wheat saw
that others in politics had been profiting quite as much as
Cowperwood in other ways and he advised Cowperwood to turn state's
evidence.  This, however, he promptly refused to do--he was no
"squealer," and indicated as much to Mr. Wheat, who only smiled
wryly.

Butler, Sr., was delighted (concerned though he was about party
success at the polls), for now he had this villain in the toils
and he would have a fine time getting out of this.  The incoming
district attorney to succeed David Pettie if the Republican party
won would be, as was now planned, an appointee of Butler's--a young
Irishman who had done considerable legal work for him--one Dennis
Shannon.  The other two party leaders had already promised Butler
that.  Shannon was a smart, athletic, good-looking fellow, all of
five feet ten inches in height, sandy-haired, pink-cheeked, blue-eyed,
considerable of an orator and a fine legal fighter.  He was very
proud to be in the old man's favor--to be promised a place on the
ticket by him--and would, he said, if elected, do his bidding to
the best of his knowledge and ability.

There was only one fly in the ointment, so far as some of the
politicians were concerned, and that was that if Cowperwood were
convicted, Stener must needs be also.  There was no escape in so
far as any one could see for the city treasurer.  If Cowperwood
was guilty of securing by trickery sixty thousand dollars' worth
of the city money, Stener was guilty of securing five hundred
thousand dollars.  The prison term for this was five years.  He
might plead not guilty, and by submitting as evidence that what
he did was due to custom save himself from the odious necessity
of pleading guilty; but he would be convicted nevertheless.  No
jury could get by the fact in regard to him.  In spite of public
opinion, when it came to a trial there might be considerable doubt
in Cowperwood's case.  There was none in Stener's.

The practical manner in which the situation was furthered, after
Cowperwood and Stener were formally charged may be quickly noted.
Steger, Cowperwood's lawyer, learned privately beforehand that
Cowperwood was to be prosecuted.  He arranged at once to have his
client appear before any warrant could be served, and to forestall
the newspaper palaver which would follow it if he had to be searched
for.

The mayor issued a warrant for Cowperwood's arrest, and, in
accordance with Steger's plan, Cowperwood immediately appeared
before Borchardt in company with his lawyer and gave bail in twenty
thousand dollars (W. C. Davison, president of the Girard National
Bank, being his surety), for his appearance at the central police
station on the following Saturday for a hearing.  Marcus Oldslaw,
a lawyer, had been employed by Strobik as president of the common
council, to represent him in prosecuting the case for the city.
The mayor looked at Cowperwood curiously, for he, being comparatively
new to the political world of Philadelphia, was not so familiar
with him as others were; and Cowperwood returned the look pleasantly
enough.

"This is a great dumb show, Mr. Mayor," he observed once to Borchardt,
quietly, and the latter replied, with a smile and a kindly eye,
that as far as he was concerned, it was a form of procedure which
was absolutely unavoidable at this time.

"You know how it is, Mr. Cowperwood," he observed.  The latter
smiled.  "I do, indeed," he said.

Later there followed several more or less perfunctory appearances
in a local police court, known as the Central Court, where when
arraigned he pleaded not guilty, and finally his appearance before
the November grand jury, where, owing to the complicated nature
of the charge drawn up against him by Pettie, he thought it wise
to appear.  He was properly indicted by the latter body (Shannon,
the newly elected district attorney, making a demonstration in
force), and his trial ordered for December 5th before a certain
Judge Payderson in Part I of Quarter Sessions, which was the local
branch of the State courts dealing with crimes of this character.
His indictment did not occur, however, before the coming and going
of the much-mooted fall election, which resulted, thanks to the
clever political manipulations of Mollenhauer and Simpson (ballot-box
stuffing and personal violence at the polls not barred), in another
victory, by, however, a greatly reduced majority.  The Citizens'
Municipal Reform Association, in spite of a resounding defeat at
the polls, which could not have happened except by fraud, continued
to fire courageously away at those whom it considered to be the
chief malefactors.

Aileen Butler, during all this time, was following the trend of
Cowperwood's outward vicissitudes as heralded by the newspapers
and the local gossip with as much interest and bias and enthusiasm
for him as her powerful physical and affectional nature would permit.
She was no great reasoner where affection entered in, but shrewd
enough without it; and, although she saw him often and he told her
much--as much as his natural caution would permit--she yet gathered
from the newspapers and private conversation, at her own family's
table and elsewhere, that, as bad as they said he was, he was not
as bad as he might be.  One item only, clipped from the Philadelphia
Public Ledger soon after Cowperwood had been publicly accused of
embezzlement, comforted and consoled her.  She cut it out and
carried it in her bosom; for, somehow, it seemed to show that her
adored Frank was far more sinned against than sinning.  It was a
part of one of those very numerous pronunciamientos or reports
issued by the Citizens' Municipal Reform Association, and it ran:

  "The aspects of the case are graver than have yet been allowed
  to reach the public.  Five hundred thousand dollars of the
  deficiency arises not from city bonds sold and not accounted
  for, but from loans made by the treasurer to his broker.  The
  committee is also informed, on what it believes to be good
  authority, that the loans sold by the broker were accounted
  for in the monthly settlements at the lowest prices current
  during the month, and that the difference between this rate
  and that actually realized was divided between the treasurer
  and the broker, thus making it to the interest of both parties
  to 'bear' the market at some time during the month, so as to
  obtain a low quotation for settlement.  Nevertheless, the
  committee can only regard the prosecution instituted against
  the broker, Mr. Cowperwood, as an effort to divert public
  attention from more guilty parties while those concerned may
  be able to 'fix' matters to suit themselves."

"There," thought Aileen, when she read it, "there you have it."
These politicians--her father among them as she gathered after
his conversation with her--were trying to put the blame of their
own evil deeds on her Frank.  He was not nearly as bad as he was
painted.  The report said so.  She gloated over the words "an
effort to divert public attention from more guilty parties."  That
was just what her Frank had been telling her in those happy,
private hours when they had been together recently in one place
and another, particularly the new rendezvous in South Sixth Street
which he had established, since the old one had to be abandoned.
He had stroked her rich hair, caressed her body, and told her it
was all a prearranged political scheme to cast the blame as much
as possible on him and make it as light as possible for Stener and
the party generally.  He would come out of it all right, he said,
but he cautioned her not to talk.  He did not deny his long and
profitable relations with Stener.  He told her exactly how it was.
She understood, or thought she did.  Anyhow, her Frank was telling
her, and that was enough.

As for the two Cowperwood households, so recently and pretentiously
joined in success, now so gloomily tied in failure, the life was
going out of them.  Frank Algernon was that life.  He was the
courage and force of his father: the spirit and opportunity of his
brothers, the hope of his children, the estate of his wife, the
dignity and significance of the Cowperwood name.  All that meant
opportunity, force, emolument, dignity, and happiness to those
connected with him, he was.  And his marvelous sun was waning
apparently to a black eclipse.

Since the fatal morning, for instance, when Lillian Cowperwood had
received that utterly destructive note, like a cannonball ripping
through her domestic affairs, she had been walking like one in a
trance.  Each day now for weeks she had been going about her duties
placidly enough to all outward seeming, but inwardly she was
running with a troubled tide of thought.  She was so utterly unhappy.
Her fortieth year had come for her at a time when life ought
naturally to stand fixed and firm on a solid base, and here she was
about to be torn bodily from the domestic soil in which she was
growing and blooming, and thrown out indifferently to wither in
the blistering noonday sun of circumstance.

As for Cowperwood, Senior, his situation at his bank and elsewhere
was rapidly nearing a climax.  As has been said, he had had
tremendous faith in his son; but he could not help seeing that
an error had been committed, as he thought, and that Frank was
suffering greatly for it now.  He considered, of course, that Frank
had been entitled to try to save himself as he had; but he so
regretted that his son should have put his foot into the trap of
any situation which could stir up discussion of the sort that was
now being aroused.  Frank was wonderfully brilliant.  He need never
have taken up with the city treasurer or the politicians to have
succeeded marvelously.  Local street-railways and speculative
politicians were his undoing.  The old man walked the floor all
of the days, realizing that his sun was setting, that with Frank's
failure he failed, and that this disgrace--these public charges--
meant his own undoing.  His hair had grown very gray in but a few
weeks, his step slow, his face pallid, his eyes sunken.  His rather
showy side-whiskers seemed now like flags or ornaments of a better
day that was gone.  His only consolation through it all was that
Frank had actually got out of his relationship with the Third
National Bank without owing it a single dollar.  Still as he knew
the directors of that institution could not possibly tolerate the
presence of a man whose son had helped loot the city treasury,
and whose name was now in the public prints in this connection.
Besides, Cowperwood, Sr., was too old.  He ought to retire.

The crisis for him therefore came on the day when Frank was arrested
on the embezzlement charge.  The old man, through Frank, who had it
from Steger, knew it was coming, still had the courage to go to
the bank but it was like struggling under the weight of a heavy
stone to do it.  But before going, and after a sleepless night,
he wrote his resignation to Frewen Kasson, the chairman of the
board of directors, in order that he should be prepared to hand
it to him, at once.  Kasson, a stocky, well-built, magnetic man of
fifty, breathed an inward sigh of relief at the sight of it.

"I know it's hard, Mr. Cowperwood," he said, sympathetically.
"We--and I can speak for the other members of the board--we feel
keenly the unfortunate nature of your position.  We know exactly
how it is that your son has become involved in this matter.  He
is not the only banker who has been involved in the city's affairs.
By no means.  It is an old system.  We appreciate, all of us,
keenly, the services you have rendered this institution during the
past thirty-five years.  If there were any possible way in which
we could help to tide you over the difficulties at this time, we
would be glad to do so, but as a banker yourself you must realize
just how impossible that would be.  Everything is in a turmoil.
If things were settled--if we knew how soon this would blow over--"
He paused, for he felt that he could not go on and say that he or
the bank was sorry to be forced to lose Mr. Cowperwood in this way
at present.  Mr. Cowperwood himself would have to speak.

During all this Cowperwood, Sr., had been doing his best to pull
himself together in order to be able to speak at all.  He had
gotten out a large white linen handkerchief and blown his nose,
and had straightened himself in his chair, and laid his hands
rather peacefully on his desk.  Still he was intensely wrought up.

"I can't stand this!" he suddenly exclaimed.  "I wish you would
leave me alone now."

Kasson, very carefully dressed and manicured, arose and walked
out of the room for a few moments.  He appreciated keenly the
intensity of the strain he had just witnessed.  The moment the
door was closed Cowperwood put his head in his hands and shook
convulsively.  "I never thought I'd come to this," he muttered.
"I never thought it."  Then he wiped away his salty hot tears,
and went to the window to look out and to think of what else to
do from now on.





Chapter XXXV




As time went on Butler grew more and more puzzled and restive as
to his duty in regard to his daughter.  He was sure by her furtive
manner and her apparent desire to avoid him, that she was still
in touch with Cowperwood in some way, and that this would bring
about a social disaster of some kind.  He thought once of going
to Mrs. Cowperwood and having her bring pressure to bear on her
husband, but afterwards he decided that that would not do.  He
was not really positive as yet that Aileen was secretly meeting
Cowperwood, and, besides, Mrs. Cowperwood might not know of her
husband's duplicity.  He thought also of going to Cowperwood
personally and threatening him, but that would be a severe measure,
and again, as in the other case, he lacked proof.  He hesitated
to appeal to a detective agency, and he did not care to take the
other members of the family into his confidence.  He did go out
and scan the neighborhood of 931 North Tenth Street once, looking
at the house; but that helped him little.  The place was for rent,
Cowperwood having already abandoned his connection with it.

Finally he hit upon the plan of having Aileen invited to go somewhere
some distance off--Boston or New Orleans, where a sister of his
wife lived.  It was a delicate matter to engineer, and in such
matters he was not exactly the soul of tact; but he undertook it.
He wrote personally to his wife's sister at New Orleans, and asked
her if she would, without indicating in any way that she had heard
from him, write his wife and ask if she would not permit Aileen
to come and visit her, writing Aileen an invitation at the same
time; but he tore the letter up.  A little later he learned
accidentally that Mrs. Mollenhauer and her three daughters, Caroline,
Felicia, and Alta, were going to Europe early in December to visit
Paris, the Riviera, and Rome; and he decided to ask Mollenhauer
to persuade his wife to invite Norah and Aileen, or Aileen only,
to go along, giving as an excuse that his own wife would not leave
him, and that the girls ought to go.  It would be a fine way of
disposing of Aileen for the present.  The party was to be gone
six months.  Mollenhauer was glad to do so, of course.  The two
families were fairly intimate.  Mrs. Mollenhauer was willing--
delighted from a politic point of view--and the invitation was
extended.  Norah was overjoyed.  She wanted to see something of
Europe, and had always been hoping for some such opportunity.
Aileen was pleased from the point of view that Mrs. Mollenhauer
should invite her.  Years before she would have accepted in a
flash.  But now she felt that it only came as a puzzling
interruption, one more of the minor difficulties that were tending
to interrupt her relations with Cowperwood.  She immediately threw
cold water on the proposition, which was made one evening at dinner
by Mrs. Butler, who did not know of her husband's share in the
matter, but had received a call that afternoon from Mrs. Mollenhauer,
when the invitation had been extended.

"She's very anxious to have you two come along, if your father
don't mind," volunteered the mother, "and I should think ye'd have
a fine time.  They're going to Paris and the Riveera."

"Oh, fine!" exclaimed Norah.  "I've always wanted to go to Paris.
Haven't you, Ai? Oh, wouldn't that be fine?"

"I don't know that I want to go," replied Aileen.  She did not care
to compromise herself by showing any interest at the start.  "It's
coming on winter, and I haven't any clothes.  I'd rather wait and
go some other time."

"Oh, Aileen Butler!" exclaimed Norah.  "How you talk! I've heard
you say a dozen times you'd like to go abroad some winter.  Now
when the chance comes--besides you can get your clothes made over
there."

"Couldn't you get somethin' over there?" inquired Mrs. Butler.
"Besides, you've got two or three weeks here yet."

"They wouldn't want a man around as a sort of guide and adviser,
would they, mother?" put in Callum.

"I might offer my services in that capacity myself," observed
Owen, reservedly.

"I'm sure I don't know," returned Mrs. Butler, smiling, and at
the same time chewing a lusty mouthful.  "You'll have to ast 'em,
my sons."

Aileen still persisted.  She did not want to go.  It was too sudden.
It was this.  It was that.  Just then old Butler came in and took
his seat at the head of the table.  Knowing all about it, he was
most anxious to appear not to.

"You wouldn't object, Edward, would you?" queried his wife, explaining
the proposition in general.

"Object!" he echoed, with a well simulated but rough attempt at
gayety.  "A fine thing I'd be doing for meself--objectin'.  I'd
be glad if I could get shut of the whole pack of ye for a time."

"What talk ye have!" said his wife.  "A fine mess you'd make of
it livin' alone."

"I'd not be alone, belave me," replied Butler.  "There's many a
place I'd be welcome in this town--no thanks to ye."

"And there's many a place ye wouldn't have been if it hadn't been
for me.  I'm tellin' ye that," retorted Mrs. Butler, genially.

"And that's not stretchin' the troot much, aither," he answered,
fondly.

Aileen was adamant.  No amount of argument both on the part of
Norah and her mother had any effect whatever.  Butler witnessed
the failure of his plan with considerable dissatisfaction, but
he was not through.  When he was finally convinced that there was
no hope of persuading her to accept the Mollenhauer proposition,
he decided, after a while, to employ a detective.

At that time, the reputation of William A. Pinkerton, of detective
fame, and of his agency was great.  The man had come up from poverty
through a series of vicissitudes to a high standing in his peculiar
and, to many, distasteful profession; but to any one in need of
such in themselves calamitous services, his very famous and decidedly
patriotic connection with the Civil War and Abraham Lincoln was a
recommendation.  He, or rather his service, had guarded the latter
all his stormy incumbency at the executive mansion.  There were
offices for the management of the company's business in Philadelphia,
Washington, and New York, to say nothing of other places.  Butler
was familiar with the Philadelphia sign, but did not care to go
to the office there.  He decided, once his mind was made up on
this score, that he would go over to New York, where he was told
the principal offices were.

He made the simple excuse one day of business, which was common
enough in his case, and journeyed to New York--nearly five hours
away as the trains ran then--arriving at two o'clock.  At the
offices on lower Broadway, he asked to see the manager, whom he
found to be a large, gross-featured, heavy-bodied man of fifty,
gray-eyed, gray-haired, puffily outlined as to countenance, but
keen and shrewd, and with short, fat-fingered hands, which drummed
idly on his desk as he talked.  He was dressed in a suit of
dark-brown wool cloth, which struck Butler as peculiarly showy,
and wore a large horseshoe diamond pin.  The old man himself
invariably wore conservative gray.

"How do you do?" said Butler, when a boy ushered him into the
presence of this worthy, whose name was Martinson--Gilbert Martinson,
of American and Irish extraction.  The latter nodded and looked
at Butler shrewdly, recognizing him at once as a man of force and
probably of position.  He therefore rose and offered him a chair.

"Sit down," he said, studying the old Irishman from under thick,
bushy eyebrows.  "What can I do for you?"

"You're the manager, are you?" asked Butler, solemnly, eyeing the
man with a shrewd, inquiring eye.

"Yes, sir," replied Martinson, simply.  "That's my position here."

"This Mr. Pinkerton that runs this agency--he wouldn't be about
this place, now, would he?" asked Butler, carefully.  "I'd like to
talk to him personally, if I might, meaning no offense to you."

"Mr. Pinkerton is in Chicago at present," replied Mr. Martinson.
"I don't expect him back for a week or ten days.  You can talk to
me, though, with the same confidence that you could to him.  I'm
the responsible head here.  However, you're the best judge of that."

Butler debated with himself in silence for a few moments, estimating
the man before him.  "Are you a family man yourself?" he asked,
oddly.

"Yes, sir, I'm married," replied Martinson, solemnly.  "I have a
wife and two children."

Martinson, from long experience conceived that this must be a
matter of family misconduct--a son, daughter, wife.  Such cases
were not infrequent.

"I thought I would like to talk to Mr. Pinkerton himself, but if
you're the responsible head--" Butler paused.

"I am," replied Martinson.  "You can talk to me with the same
freedom that you could to Mr. Pinkerton.  Won't you come into my
private office? We can talk more at ease in there."

He led the way into an adjoining room which had two windows looking
down into Broadway; an oblong table, heavy, brown, smoothly polished;
four leather-backed chairs; and some pictures of the Civil War
battles in which the North had been victorious.  Butler followed
doubtfully.  He hated very much to take any one into his confidence
in regard to Aileen.  He was not sure that he would, even now.
He wanted to "look these fellys over," as he said in his mind.  He
would decide then what he wanted to do.  He went to one of the
windows and looked down into the street, where there was a perfect
swirl of omnibuses and vehicles of all sorts.  Mr. Martinson quietly
closed the door.

"Now then, if there's anything I can do for you," Mr. Martinson
paused.  He thought by this little trick to elicit Buder's real
name--it often "worked"-- but in this instance the name was not
forthcoming.  Butler was too shrewd.

"I'm not so sure that I want to go into this," said the old man
solemnly.  "Certainly not if there's any risk of the thing not
being handled in the right way.  There's somethin' I want to find
out about--somethin' that I ought to know; but it's a very private
matter with me, and--" He paused to think and conjecture, looking
at Mr. Martinson the while.  The latter understood his peculiar
state of mind.  He had seen many such cases.

"Let me say right here, to begin with, Mr.--"

"Scanlon," interpolated Butler, easily; "that's as good a name as
any if you want to use one.  I'm keepin' me own to meself for the
present."

"Scanlon," continued Martinson, easily.  "I really don't care whether
it's your right name or not.  I was just going to say that it might
not be necessary to have your right name under any circumstances--
it all depends upon what you want to know.  But, so far as your
private affairs are concerned, they are as safe with us, as if you
had never told them to any one.  Our business is built upon confidence,
and we never betray it.  We wouldn't dare.  We have men and women
who have been in our employ for over thirty years, and we never
retire any one except for cause, and we don't pick people who are
likely to need to be retired for cause.  Mr. Pinkerton is a good
judge of men.  There are others here who consider that they are.
We handle over ten thousand separate cases in all parts of the
United States every year.  We work on a case only so long as we
are wanted.  We try to find out only such things as our customers
want.  We do not pry unnecessarily into anybody's affairs.  If we
decide that we cannot find out what you want to know, we are the
first to say so.  Many cases are rejected right here in this office
before we ever begin.  Yours might be such a one.  We don't want
cases merely for the sake of having them, and we are frank to say
so.  Some matters that involve public policy, or some form of small
persecution, we don't touch at all--we won't be a party to them.
You can see how that is.  You look to me to be a man of the world.
I hope I am one.  Does it strike you that an organization like ours
would be likely to betray any one's confidence?" He paused and
looked at Butler for confirmation of what he had just said.

"It wouldn't seem likely," said the latter; "that's the truth.
It's not aisy to bring your private affairs into the light of day,
though," added the old man, sadly.

They both rested.

"Well," said Butler, finally, "you look to me to be all right, and
I'd like some advice.  Mind ye, I'm willing to pay for it well
enough; and it isn't anything that'll be very hard to find out.  I
want to know whether a certain man where I live is goin' with a
certain woman, and where.  You could find that out aisy enough, I
belave--couldn't you?"

"Nothing easier," replied Martinson.  "We are doing it all the
time.  Let me see if I can help you just a moment, Mr. Scanlon,
in order to make it easier for you.  It is very plain to me that
you don't care to tell any more than you can help, and we don't
care to have you tell any more than we absolutely need.  We will
have to have the name of the city, of course, and the name of either
the man or the woman; but not necessarily both of them, unless you
want to help us in that way.  Sometimes if you give us the name of
one party--say the man, for illustration--and the description of
the woman--an accurate one--or a photograph, we can tell you after
a little while exactly what you want to know.  Of course, it's
always better if we have full information.  You suit yourself about
that.  Tell me as much or as little as you please, and I'll guarantee
that we will do our best to serve you, and that you will be satisfied
afterward."

He smiled genially.

"Well, that bein' the case," said Butler, finally taking the leap,
with many mental reservations, however, "I'll be plain with you.
My name's not Scanlon.  It's Butler.  I live in Philadelphy.  There's
a man there, a banker by the name of Cowperwood--Frank A. Cowperwood--"

"Wait a moment," said Martinson, drawing an ample pad out of his
pocket and producing a lead-pencil; "I want to get that.  How do
you spell it?"

Butler told him.

"Yes; now go on."

"He has a place in Third Street--Frank A. Cowperwood--any one can
show you where it is.  He's just failed there recently."

"Oh, that's the man," interpolated Martinson.  "I've heard of him.
He's mixed up in some city embezzlement case over there.  I suppose
the reason you didn't go to our Philadelphia office is because you
didn't want our local men over there to know anything about it.
Isn't that it?"

"That's the man, and that's the reason," said Butler.  "I don't care
to have anything of this known in Philadelphy.  That's why I'm here.
This man has a house on Girard Avenue--Nineteen-thirty-seven.  You
can find that out, too, when you get over there."

"Yes," agreed Mr. Martinson.

"Well, it's him that I want to know about--him--and a certain woman,
or girl, rather."  The old man paused and winced at this necessity
of introducing Aileen into the case.  He could scarcely think of
it--he was so fond of her.  He had been so proud of Aileen.  A dark,
smoldering rage burned in his heart against Cowperwood.

"A relative of yours--possibly, I suppose," remarked Martinson,
tactfully.  "You needn't tell me any more--just give me a description
if you wish.  We may be able to work from that."  He saw quite
clearly what a fine old citizen in his way he was dealing with here,
and also that the man was greatly troubled.  Butler's heavy,
meditative face showed it.  "You can be quite frank with me, Mr.
Butler," he added; "I think I understand.  We only want such
information as we must have to help you, nothing more."

"Yes," said the old man, dourly.  "She is a relative.  She's me
daughter, in fact.  You look to me like a sensible, honest man.
I'm her father, and I wouldn't do anything for the world to harm
her.  It's tryin' to save her I am.  It's him I want."  He suddenly
closed one big fist forcefully.

Martinson, who had two daughters of his own, observed the suggestive
movement.

"I understand how you feel, Mr. Butler," he observed.  "I am a
father myself.  We'll do all we can for you.  If you can give me
an accurate description of her, or let one of my men see her at
your house or office, accidentally, of course, I think we can tell
you in no time at all if they are meeting with any regularity.
That's all you want to know, is it--just that?"

"That's all," said Butler, solemnly.

"Well, that oughtn't to take any time at all, Mr. Butler--three
or four days possibly, if we have any luck--a week, ten days, two
weeks.  It depends on how long you want us to shadow him in case
there is no evidence the first few days."

"I want to know, however long it takes," replied Butler, bitterly.
"I want to know, if it takes a month or two months or three to find
out.  I want to know."  The old man got up as he said this, very
positive, very rugged.  "And don't send me men that haven't sinse--
lots of it, plase.  I want men that are fathers, if you've got
'em--and that have sinse enough to hold their tongues--not b'ys."

"I understand, Mr. Butler," Martinson replied.  "Depend on it,
you'll have the best we have, and you can trust them.  They'll
be discreet.  You can depend on that.  The way I'll do will be
to assign just one man to the case at first, some one you can see
for yourself whether you like or not.  I'll not tell him anything.
You can talk to him.  If you like him, tell him, and he'll do the
rest.  Then, if he needs any more help, he can get it.  What is
your address?"

Butler gave it to him.

"And there'll be no talk about this?"

"None whatever--I assure you."

"And when'll he be comin' along?"

"To-morrow, if you wish.  I have a man I could send to-night.  He
isn't here now or I'd have him talk with you.  I'll talk to him,
though, and make everything clear.  You needn't worry about anything.
Your daughter's reputation will be safe in his hands."

"Thank you kindly," commented Butler, softening the least bit in
a gingerly way.  "I'm much obliged to you.  I'll take it as a great
favor, and pay you well."

"Never mind about that, Mr.  Butler," replied Martinson.  "You're
welcome to anything this concern can do for you at its ordinary rates."

He showed Butler to the door, and the old man went out.  He was
feeling very depressed over this--very shabby.  To think he should
have to put detectives on the track of his Aileen, his daughter!





Chapter XXXVI




The very next day there called at Butler's office a long,
preternaturally solemn man of noticeable height and angularity,
dark-haired, dark-eyed, sallow, with a face that was long and
leathery, and particularly hawk-like, who talked with Butler for
over an hour and then departed.  That evening he came to the
Butler house around dinner-time, and, being shown into Butler's
room, was given a look at Aileen by a ruse.  Butler sent for her,
standing in the doorway just far enough to one side to yield a
good view of her.  The detective stood behind one of the heavy
curtains which had already been put up for the winter, pretending
to look out into the street.

"Did any one drive Sissy this mornin'?" asked Butler of Aileen,
inquiring after a favorite family horse.  Butler's plan, in case
the detective was seen, was to give the impression that he was a
horseman who had come either to buy or to sell.  His name was Jonas
Alderson, and be looked sufficiently like a horsetrader to be one.

"I don't think so, father," replied Aileen.  "I didn't.  I'll find
out."

"Never mind.  What I want to know is did you intend using her
to-morrow?"

"No, not if you want her.  Jerry suits me just as well."

"Very well, then.  Leave her in the stable."  Butler quietly closed
the door.  Aileen concluded at once that it was a horse conference.
She knew he would not dispose of any horse in which she was interested
without first consulting her, and so she thought no more about it.

After she was gone Alderson stepped out and declared that he was
satisfied.  "That's all I need to know," he said.  "I'll let you
know in a few days if I find out anything."

He departed, and within thirty-six hours the house and office of
Cowperwood, the house of Butler, the office of Harper Steger,
Cowperwood's lawyer, and Cowperwood and Aileen separately and
personally were under complete surveillance.  It took six men to
do it at first, and eventually a seventh, when the second
meeting-place, which was located in South Sixth Street, was
discovered.  All the detectives were from New York.  In a week all
was known to Alderson.  It bad been agreed between him and Butler
that if Aileen and Cowperwood were discovered to have any particular
rendezvous Butler was to be notified some time when she was there,
so that he might go immediately and confront her in person, if he
wished.  He did not intend to kill Cowperwood--and Alderson would
have seen to it that he did not in his presence at least, but he
would give him a good tongue-lashing, fell him to the floor, in all
likelihood, and march Aileen away.  There would be no more lying
on her part as to whether she was or was not going with Cowperwood.
She would not be able to say after that what she would or would not
do.  Butler would lay down the law to her.  She would reform, or
he would send her to a reformatory.  Think of her influence on her
sister, or on any good girl--knowing what she knew, or doing what
she was doing! She would go to Europe after this, or any place he
chose to send her.

In working out his plan of action it was necessary for Butler to
take Alderson into his confidence and the detective made plain
his determination to safeguard Cowperwood's person.

"We couldn't allow you to strike any blows or do any violence,"
Alderson told Butler, when they first talked about it.  "It's
against the rules.  You can go in there on a search-warrant, if
we have to have one.  I can get that for you without anybody's
knowing anything about your connection with the case.  We can say
it's for a girl from New York.  But you'll have to go in in the
presence of my men.  They won't permit any trouble.  You can get
your daughter all right--we'll bring her away, and him, too, if
you say so; but you'll have to make some charge against him, if
we do.  Then there's the danger of the neighbors seeing.  You
can't always guarantee you won't collect a crowd that way."  Butler
had many misgivings about the matter.  It was fraught with great
danger of publicity.  Still he wanted to know.  He wanted to terrify
Aileen if he could--to reform her drastically.


Within a week Alderson learned that Aileen and Cowperwood were
visiting an apparently private residence, which was anything but
that.  The house on South Sixth Street was one of assignation purely;
but in its way it was superior to the average establishment of its
kind--of red brick, white-stone trimmings, four stories high, and
all the rooms, some eighteen in number, furnished in a showy but
cleanly way.  It's patronage was highly exclusive, only those being
admitted who were known to the mistress, having been introduced
by others.  This guaranteed that privacy which the illicit affairs
of this world so greatly required.  The mere phrase, "I have an
appointment," was sufficient, where either of the parties was known,
to cause them to be shown to a private suite.  Cowperwood had known
of the place from previous experiences, and when it became necessary
to abandon the North Tenth Street house, he had directed Aileen
to meet him here.

The matter of entering a place of this kind and trying to find any
one was, as Alderson informed Butler on hearing of its character,
exceedingly difficult.  It involved the right of search, which
was difficult to get.  To enter by sheer force was easy enough in
most instances where the business conducted was in contradistinction
to the moral sentiment of the community; but sometimes one
encountered violent opposition from the tenants themselves.  It
might be so in this case.  The only sure way of avoiding such
opposition would be to take the woman who ran the place into one's
confidence, and by paying her sufficiently insure silence.  "But I
do not advise that in this instance," Alderson had told Butler,
"for I believe this woman is particularly friendly to your man.
It might be better, in spite of the risk, to take it by surprise."
To do that, he explained, it would be necessary to have at least
three men in addition to the leader--perhaps four, who, once one
man had been able to make his entrance into the hallway, on the
door being opened in response to a ring, would appear quickly and
enter with and sustain him.  Quickness of search was the next thing--
the prompt opening of all doors.  The servants, if any, would have
to be overpowered and silenced in some way.  Money sometimes did
this; force accomplished it at other times.  Then one of the
detectives simulating a servant could tap gently at the different
doors--Butler and the others standing by--and in case a face
appeared identify it or not, as the case might be.  If the door
was not opened and the room was not empty, it could eventually be
forced.  The house was one of a solid block, so that there was no
chance of escape save by the front and rear doors, which were to
be safe-guarded.  It was a daringly conceived scheme.  In spite of
all this, secrecy in the matter of removing Aileen was to be
preserved.

When Butler heard of this he was nervous about the whole terrible
procedure.  He thought once that without going to the house he
would merely talk to his daughter declaring that he knew and that
she could not possibly deny it.  He would then give her her choice
between going to Europe or going to a reformatory.  But a sense of
the raw brutality of Aileen's disposition, and something essentially
coarse in himself, made him eventually adopt the other method.  He
ordered Alderson to perfect his plan, and once he found Aileen or
Cowperwood entering the house to inform him quickly.  He would then
drive there, and with the assistance of these men confront her.

It was a foolish scheme, a brutalizing thing to do, both from the
point of view of affection and any corrective theory he might have
had.  No good ever springs from violence.  But Butler did not see
that.  He wanted to frighten Aileen, to bring her by shock to a
realization of the enormity of the offense she was committing.  He
waited fully a week after his word had been given; and then, one
afternoon, when his nerves were worn almost thin from fretting,
the climax came.  Cowperwood had already been indicted, and was
now awaiting trial.  Aileen had been bringing him news, from time
to time, of just how she thought her father was feeling toward him.
She did not get this evidence direct from Butler, of course--he
was too secretive, in so far as she was concerned, to let her know
how relentlessly he was engineering Cowperwood's final downfall--
but from odd bits confided to Owen, who confided them to Callum,
who in turn, innocently enough, confided them to Aileen.  For one
thing, she had learned in this way of the new district attorney
elect--his probable attitude--for he was a constant caller at the
Butler house or office.  Owen had told Callum that he thought Shannon
was going to do his best to send Cowperwood "up"--that the old man
thought he deserved it.

In the next place she had learned that her father did not want
Cowperwood to resume business--did not feel he deserved to be allowed
to.  "It would be a God's blessing if the community were shut of
him," he had said to Owen one morning, apropos of a notice in the
papers of Cowperwood's legal struggles; and Owen had asked Callum
why he thought the old man was so bitter.  The two sons could not
understand it.  Cowperwood heard all this from her, and more--bits
about Judge Payderson, the judge who was to try him, who was a
friend of Butler's--also about the fact that Stener might be sent
up for the full term of his crime, but that be would be pardoned
soon afterward.

Apparently Cowperwood was not very much frightened.  He told her
that he had powerful financial friends who would appeal to the
governor to pardon him in case he was convicted; and, anyhow, that
he did not think that the evidence was strong enough to convict
him.  He was merely a political scapegoat through public clamor
and her father's influence; since the latter's receipt of the
letter about them he had been the victim of Butler's enmity, and
nothing more.  "If it weren't for your father, honey," he declared,
"I could have this indictment quashed in no time.  Neither
Mollenhauer nor Simpson has anything against me personally, I am
sure.  They want me to get out of the street-railway business here
in Philadelphia, and, of course, they wanted to make things look
better for Stener at first; but depend upon it, if your father
hadn't been against me they wouldn't have gone to any such length
in making me the victim.  Your father has this fellow Shannon and
these minor politicians just where he wants them, too.  That's
where the trouble lies.  They have to go on."

"Oh, I know," replied Aileen.  "It's me, just me, that's all.  If
it weren't for me and what he suspects he'd help you in a minute.
Sometimes, you know, I think I've been very bad for you.  I don't
know what I ought to do.  If I thought it would help you any I'd
not see you any more for a while, though I don't see what good that
would do now.  Oh, I love you, love you, Frank! I would do anything
for you.  I don't care what people think or say.  I love you."

"Oh, you just think you do," he replied, jestingly.  "You'll get
over it.  There are others."

"Others!" echoed Aileen, resentfully and contemptuously.  "After
you there aren't any others.  I just want one man, my Frank.  If
you ever desert me, I'll go to hell.  You'll see."

"Don't talk like that, Aileen," he replied, almost irritated.  "I
don't like to hear you.  You wouldn't do anything of the sort.  I
love you.  You know I'm not going to desert you.  It would pay you
to desert me just now."

"Oh, how you talk!" she exclaimed.  "Desert you! It's likely, isn't
it? But if ever you desert me, I'll do just what I say.  I swear
it."

"Don't talk like that.  Don't talk nonsense."

"I swear it.  I swear by my love.  I swear by your success--my
own happiness.  I'll do just what I say.  I'll go to hell."

Cowperwood got up.  He was a little afraid now of this deep-seated
passion he had aroused.  It was dangerous.  He could not tell where
it would lead.

It was a cheerless afternoon in November, when Alderson, duly
informed of the presence of Aileen and Cowperwood in the South
Sixth Street house by the detective on guard drove rapidly up to
Butler's office and invited him to come with him.  Yet even now
Butler could scarcely believe that he was to find his daughter
there.  The shame of it.  The horror.  What would he say to her?
How reproach her? What would he do to Cowperwood? His large hands
shook as he thought.  They drove rapidly to within a few doors of
the place, where a second detective on guard across the street
approached.  Butler and Alderson descended from the vehicle, and
together they approached the door.  It was now almost four-thirty
in the afternoon.  In a room within the house, Cowperwood, his
coat and vest off, was listening to Aileen's account of her troubles.

The room in which they were sitting at the time was typical of the
rather commonplace idea of luxury which then prevailed.  Most of
the "sets" of furniture put on the market for general sale by the
furniture companies were, when they approached in any way the correct
idea of luxury, imitations of one of the Louis periods.  The curtains
were always heavy, frequently brocaded, and not infrequently red.
The carpets were richly flowered in high colors with a thick, velvet
nap.  The furniture, of whatever wood it might be made, was almost
invariably heavy, floriated, and cumbersome.  This room contained
a heavily constructed bed of walnut, with washstand, bureau, and
wardrobe to match.  A large, square mirror in a gold frame was
hung over the washstand.  Some poor engravings of landscapes and
several nude figures were hung in gold frames on the wall.  The
gilt-framed chairs were upholstered in pink-and-white-flowered
brocade, with polished brass tacks.  The carpet was of thick
Brussels, pale cream and pink in hue, with large blue jardinieres
containing flowers woven in as ornaments.  The general effect
was light, rich, and a little stuffy.

"You know I get desperately frightened, sometimes," said Aileen.
"Father might be watching us, you know.  I've often wondered what
I'd do if he caught us.  I couldn't lie out of this, could I?"

"You certainly couldn't," said Cowperwood, who never failed to
respond to the incitement of her charms.  She had such lovely smooth
arms, a full, luxuriously tapering throat and neck; her golden-red
hair floated like an aureole about her head, and her large eyes
sparkled.  The wondrous vigor of a full womanhood was hers--errant,
ill-balanced, romantic, but exquisite, "but you might as well not
cross that bridge until you come to it," he continued.  "I myself
have been thinking that we had better not go on with this for the
present.  That letter ought to have been enough to stop us for
the time."

He came over to where she stood by the dressing-table, adjusting
her hair.

"You're such a pretty minx," he said.  He slipped his arm about
her and kissed her pretty mouth.  "Nothing sweeter than you this
side of Paradise," he whispered in her ear.

While this was enacting, Butler and the extra detective had stepped
out of sight, to one side of the front door of the house, while
Alderson, taking the lead, rang the bell.  A negro servant appeared.

"Is Mrs. Davis in?" he asked, genially, using the name of the woman
in control.  "I'd like to see her."

"Just come in," said the maid, unsuspectingly, and indicated a
reception-room on the right.  Alderson took off his soft, wide-brimmed
hat and entered.  When the maid went up-stairs he immediately
returned to the door and let in Butler and two detectives.  The
four stepped into the reception-room unseen.  In a few moments the
"madam" as the current word characterized this type of woman,
appeared.  She was tall, fair, rugged, and not at all unpleasant
to look upon.  She had light-blue eyes and a genial smile.  Long
contact with the police and the brutalities of sex in her early
life had made her wary, a little afraid of how the world would use
her.  This particular method of making a living being illicit, and
she having no other practical knowledge at her command, she was
as anxious to get along peacefully with the police and the public
generally as any struggling tradesman in any walk of life might
have been.  She had on a loose, blue-flowered peignoir, or
dressing-gown, open at the front, tied with blue ribbons and
showing a little of her expensive underwear beneath.  A large opal
ring graced her left middle finger, and turquoises of vivid blue
were pendent from her ears.  She wore yellow silk slippers with
bronze buckles; and altogether her appearance was not out of
keeping with the character of the reception-room itself, which
was a composite of gold-flowered wall-paper, blue and cream-colored
Brussels carpet, heavily gold-framed engravings of reclining nudes,
and a gilt-framed pier-glass, which rose from the floor to the
ceiling.  Needless to say, Butler was shocked to the soul of him
by this suggestive atmosphere which was supposed to include his
daughter in its destructive reaches.

Alderson motioned one of his detectives to get behind the woman--
between her and the door--which he did.

"Sorry to trouble you, Mrs. Davis," he said, "but we are looking
for a couple who are in your house here.  We're after a runaway
girl.  We don't want to make any disturbance--merely to get her
and take her away."  Mrs. Davis paled and opened her mouth.  "Now
don't make any noise or try to scream, or we'll have to stop you.
My men are all around the house.  Nobody can get out.  Do you know
anybody by the name of Cowperwood?"

Mrs. Davis, fortunately from one point of view, was not of a
particularly nervous nor yet contentious type.  She was more or
less philosophic.  She was not in touch with the police here in
Philadelphia, hence subject to exposure.  What good would it do
to cry out? she thought.  The place was surrounded.  There was
no one in the house at the time to save Cowperwood and Aileen.
She did not know Cowperwood by his name, nor Aileen by hers.  They
were a Mr. and Mrs. Montague to her.

"I don't know anybody by that name," she replied nervously.

"Isn't there a girl here with red hair?"  asked one of Alderson's
assistants.  "And a man with a gray suit and a light-brown mustache?
They came in here half an hour ago.  You remember them, don't you?"

"There's just one couple in the house, but I'm not sure whether
they're the ones you want.  I'll ask them to come down if you wish.
Oh, I wish you wouldn't make any disturbance.  This is terrible."

"We'll not make any disturbance," replied Alderson, "if you don't.
Just you be quiet.  We merely want to see the girl and take her
away.  Now, you stay where you are.  What room are they in?"

"In the second one in the rear up-stairs.  Won't you let me go,
though? It will be so much better.  I'll just tap and ask them to
come out."

"No.  We'll tend to that.  You stay where you are.  You're not
going to get into any trouble.  You just stay where you are,"
insisted Alderson.

He motioned to Butler, who, however, now that he had embarked on
his grim task, was thinking that he had made a mistake.  What good
would it do him to force his way in and make her come out, unless
he intended to kill Cowperwood? If she were made to come down here,
that would be enough.  She would then know that he knew all.  He
did not care to quarrel with Cowperwood, in any public way, he now
decided.  He was afraid to.  He was afraid of himself.

"Let her go," he said grimly, doggedly referring to Mrs. Davis,
"But watch her.  Tell the girl to come down-stairs to me."

Mrs. Davis, realizing on the moment that this was some family
tragedy, and hoping in an agonized way that she could slip out of
it peacefully, started upstairs at once with Alderson and his
assistants who were close at his heels.  Reaching the door of
the room occupied by Cowperwood and Aileen, she tapped lightly.
At the time Aileen and Cowperwood were sitting in a big arm-chair.
At the first knock Aileen blanched and leaped to her feet.  Usually
not nervous, to-day, for some reason, she anticipated trouble.
Cowperwood's eyes instantly hardened.

"Don't be nervous," he said, "no doubt it's only the servant.
I'll go."

He started, but Aileen interfered.  "Wait," she said.  Somewhat
reassured, she went to the closet, and taking down a dressing-gown,
slipped it on.  Meanwhile the tap came again.  Then she went to
the door and opened it the least bit.

"Mrs. Montague," exclaimed Mrs. Davis, in an obviously nervous,
forced voice, "there's a gentleman downstairs who wishes to see
you."

"A gentleman to see me!" exclaimed Aileen, astonished and paling.
"Are you sure?"

"Yes; he says he wants to see you.  There are several other men
with him.  I think it's some one who belongs to you, maybe."

Aileen realized on the instant, as did Cowperwood, what had in all
likelihood happened.  Butler or Mrs. Cowperwood had trailed them--
in all probability her father.  He wondered now what he should do
to protect her, not himself.  He was in no way deeply concerned for
himself, even here.  Where any woman was concerned he was too
chivalrous to permit fear.  It was not at all improbable that Butler
might want to kill him; but that did not disturb him.  He really
did not pay any attention to that thought, and he was not armed.

"I'll dress and go down," he said, when he saw Aileen's pale face.
"You stay here.  And don't you worry in any way for I'll get you
out of this--now, don't worry.  This is my affair.  I got you in
it and I'll get you out of it."  He went for his hat and coat and
added, as he did so, "You go ahead and dress; but let me go first."

Aileen, the moment the door closed, had begun to put on her clothes
swiftly and nervously.  Her mind was working like a rapidly moving
machine.  She was wondering whether this really could be her father.
Perhaps it was not.  Might there be some other Mrs. Montague--a
real one? Supposing it was her father--he had been so nice to her
in not telling the family, in keeping her secret thus far.  He
loved her--she knew that.  It makes all the difference in the world
in a child's attitude on an occasion like this whether she has
been loved and petted and spoiled, or the reverse.  Aileen had been
loved and petted and spoiled.  She could not think of her father
doing anything terrible physically to her or to any one else.  But
it was so hard to confront him--to look into his eyes.  When she
had attained a proper memory of him, her fluttering wits told her
what to do.

"No, Frank," she whispered, excitedly; "if it's father, you'd
better let me go.  I know how to talk to him.  He won't say anything
to me.  You stay here.  I'm not afraid--really, I'm not.  If I
want you, I'll call you."

He had come over and taken her pretty chin in his hands, and was
looking solemnly into her eyes.

"You mustn't be afraid," he said.  "I'll go down.  If it's your
father, you can go away with him.  I don't think he'll do anything
either to you or to me.  If it is he, write me something at the
office.  I'll be there.  If I can help you in any way, I will.
We can fix up something.  There's no use trying to explain this.
Say nothing at all."

He had on his coat and overcoat, and was standing with his hat in
his hand.  Aileen was nearly dressed, struggling with the row of
red current-colored buttons which fastened her dress in the back.
Cowperwood helped her.  When she was ready--hat, gloves, and all--
he said:

"Now let me go first.  I want to see."

"No; please, Frank," she begged, courageously.  "Let me, I know
it's father.  Who else could it be?" She wondered at the moment
whether her father had brought her two brothers but would not now
believe it.  He would not do that, she knew.  "You can come if I
call."  She went on.  "Nothing's going to happen, though.  I
understand him.  He won't do anything to me.  If you go it will
only make him angry.  Let me go.  You stand in the door here.  If
I don't call, it's all right.  Will you?"

She put her two pretty hands on his shoulders, and he weighed the
matter very carefully.  "Very well," he said, "only I'll go to
the foot of the stairs with you."

They went to the door and he opened it.  Outside were Alderson
with two other detectives and Mrs. Davis, standing perhaps five
feet away.

"Well," said Cowperwood, commandingly, looking at Alderson.

"There's a gentleman down-stairs wishes to see the lady," said
Alderson.  "It's her father, I think," he added quietly.

Cowperwood made way for Aileen, who swept by, furious at the
presence of men and this exposure.  Her courage had entirely returned.
She was angry now to think her father would make a public spectacle
of her.  Cowperwood started to follow.

"I'd advise you not to go down there right away," cautioned Alderson,
sagely.  "That's her father.  Butler's her name, isn't it?  He don't
want you so much as he wants her."

Cowperwood nevertheless walked slowly toward the head of the stairs,
listening.

"What made you come here, father?" he heard Aileen ask.

Butler's reply he could not hear, but he was now at ease for he
knew how much Butler loved his daughter.

Confronted by her father, Aileen was now attempting to stare
defiantly, to look reproachful, but Butler's deep gray eyes beneath
their shaggy brows revealed such a weight of weariness and despair
as even she, in her anger and defiance, could not openly flaunt.
It was all too sad.

"I never expected to find you in a place like this, daughter," he
said.  "I should have thought you would have thought better of
yourself."  His voice choked and he stopped.

"I know who you're here with," he continued, shaking his head
sadly.  "The dog! I'll get him yet.  I've had men watchin' you
all the time.  Oh, the shame of this day! The shame of this day!
You'll be comin' home with me now."

"That's just it, father," began Aileen.  "You've had men watching
me.  I should have thought--" She stopped, because he put up his
hand in a strange, agonized, and yet dominating way.

"None of that! none of that!" he said, glowering under his strange,
sad, gray brows.  "I can't stand it! Don't tempt me! We're not out
of this place yet.  He's not! You'll come home with me now."

Aileen understood.  It was Cowperwood he was referring to.  That
frightened her.

"I'm ready," she replied, nervously.

The old man led the way broken-heartedly.  He felt he would never
live to forget the agony of this hour.





Chapter XXXVII




In spite of Butler's rage and his determination to do many things
to the financier, if he could, he was so wrought up and shocked by
the attitude of Aileen that he could scarcely believe he was the
same man he had been twenty-four hours before.  She was so
nonchalant, so defiant.  He had expected to see her wilt completely
when confronted with her guilt.  Instead, he found, to his despair,
after they were once safely out of the house, that he had aroused
a fighting quality in the girl which was not incomparable to his
own.  She had some of his own and Owen's grit.  She sat beside him
in the little runabout--not his own--in which he was driving her
home, her face coloring and blanching by turns, as different waves
of thought swept over her, determined to stand her ground now that
her father had so plainly trapped her, to declare for Cowperwood
and her love and her position in general.  What did she care, she
asked herself, what her father thought now? She was in this thing.
She loved Cowperwood; she was permanently disgraced in her father's
eyes.  What difference could it all make now? He had fallen so low
in his parental feeling as to spy on her and expose her before
other men--strangers, detectives, Cowperwood.  What real affection
could she have for him after this? He had made a mistake, according
to her.  He had done a foolish and a contemptible thing, which was
not warranted however bad her actions might have been.  What could
he hope to accomplish by rushing in on her in this way and ripping
the veil from her very soul before these other men--these crude
detectives? Oh, the agony of that walk from the bedroom to the
reception-room! She would never forgive her father for this--never,
never, never! He had now killed her love for him--that was what
she felt.  It was to be a battle royal between them from now on.
As they rode--in complete silence for a while--her hands clasped
and unclasped defiantly, her nails cutting her palms, and her
mouth hardened. 

It is an open question whether raw opposition ever accomplishes
anything of value in this world.  It seems so inherent in this
mortal scheme of things that it appears to have a vast validity.
It is more than likely that we owe this spectacle called life to
it, and that this can be demonstrated scientifically; but when
that is said and done, what is the value? What is the value of
the spectacle? And what the value of a scene such as this enacted
between Aileen and her father?

The old man saw nothing for it, as they rode on, save a grim contest
between them which could end in what? What could he do with her?
They were riding away fresh from this awful catastrophe, and she
was not saying a word! She had even asked him why he had come there!
How was he to subdue her, when the very act of trapping her had
failed to do so? His ruse, while so successful materially, had
failed so utterly spiritually.  They reached the house, and Aileen
got out.  The old man, too nonplussed to wish to go further at this
time, drove back to his office.  He then went out and walked--a
peculiar thing for him to do; he had done nothing like that in
years and years--walking to think.  Coming to an open Catholic
church, he went in and prayed for enlightenment, the growing dusk
of the interior, the single everlasting lamp before the repository
of the chalice, and the high, white altar set with candles soothing
his troubled feelings. 

He came out of the church after a time and returned home.  Aileen
did not appear at dinner, and he could not eat.  He went into his
private room and shut the door--thinking, thinking, thinking.  The
dreadful spectacle of Aileen in a house of ill repute burned in
his brain.  To think that Cowperwood should have taken her to such
a place--his Aileen, his and his wife's pet.  In spite of his
prayers, his uncertainty, her opposition, the puzzling nature of
the situation, she must be got out of this.  She must go away for
a while, give the man up, and then the law should run its course
with him.  In all likelihood Cowperwood would go to the penitentiary--
if ever a man richly deserved to go, it was he.  Butler would see
that no stone was left unturned.  He would make it a personal issue,
if necessary.  All he had to do was to let it be known in judicial
circles that he wanted it so.  He could not suborn a jury, that
would be criminal; but he could see that the case was properly and
forcefully presented; and if Cowperwood were convicted, Heaven help
him.  The appeal of his financial friends would not save him.  The
judges of the lower and superior courts knew on which side their
bread was buttered.  They would strain a point in favor of the
highest political opinion of the day, and he certainly could
influence that.  Aileen meanwhile was contemplating the peculiar
nature of her situation.  In spite of their silence on the way
home, she knew that a conversation was coming with her father.
It had to be.  He would want her to go somewhere.  Most likely he
would revive the European trip in some form--she now suspected the
invitation of Mrs. Mollenhauer as a trick; and she had to decide
whether she would go.  Would she leave Cowperwood just when he was
about to be tried? She was determined she would not.  She wanted
to see what was going to happen to him.  She would leave home
first--run to some relative, some friend, some stranger, if
necessary, and ask to be taken in.  She had some money--a little.
Her father had always been very liberal with her.  She could take
a few clothes and disappear.  They would be glad enough to send
for her after she had been gone awhile.  Her mother would be
frantic; Norah and Callum and Owen would be beside themselves with
wonder and worry; her father--she could see him.  Maybe that would
bring him to his senses.  In spite of all her emotional vagaries,
she was the pride and interest of this home, and she knew it. 

It was in this direction that her mind was running when her father,
a few days after the dreadful exposure in the Sixth Street house,
sent for her to come to him in his room.  He had come home from
his office very early in the afternoon, hoping to find Aileen there,
in order that he might have a private interview with her, and by
good luck found her in.  She had had no desire to go out into the
world these last few days--she was too expectant of trouble to come.
She had just written Cowperwood asking for a rendezvous out on
the Wissahickon the following afternoon, in spite of the detectives.
She must see him.  Her father, she said, had done nothing; but
she was sure he would attempt to do something.  She wanted to talk
to Cowperwood about that. 

"I've been thinkin' about ye, Aileen, and what ought to be done
in this case," began her father without preliminaries of any kind
once they were in his "office room" in the house together.  "You're
on the road to ruin if any one ever was.  I tremble when I think
of your immortal soul.  I want to do somethin' for ye, my child,
before it's too late.  I've been reproachin' myself for the last
month and more, thinkin', perhaps, it was somethin' I had done,
or maybe had failed to do, aither me or your mother, that has
brought ye to the place where ye are to-day.  Needless to say,
it's on me conscience, me child.  It's a heartbroken man you're
lookin' at this day.  I'll never be able to hold me head up again.
Oh, the shame--the shame! That I should have lived to see it!"

"But father," protested Aileen, who was a little distraught at
the thought of having to listen to a long preachment which would
relate to her duty to God and the Church and her family and her
mother and him.  She realized that all these were important in
their way; but Cowperwood and his point of view had given her
another outlook on life.  They had discussed this matter of
families--parents, children, husbands, wives, brothers, sisters--
from almost every point of view.  Cowperwood's laissez-faire
attitude had permeated and colored her mind completely.  She saw
things through his cold, direct "I satisfy myself" attitude.  He
was sorry for all the little differences of personality that sprang
up between people, causing quarrels, bickerings, oppositions, and
separation; but they could not be helped.  People outgrew each
other.  Their points of view altered at varying ratios--hence
changes.  Morals--those who had them had them; those who hadn't,
hadn't.  There was no explaining.  As for him, he saw nothing
wrong in the sex relationship.  Between those who were mutually
compatible it was innocent and delicious.  Aileen in his arms,
unmarried, but loved by him, and he by her, was as good and pure
as any living woman--a great deal purer than most.  One found
oneself in a given social order, theory, or scheme of things.  For
purposes of social success, in order not to offend, to smooth one's
path, make things easy, avoid useless criticism, and the like, it
was necessary to create an outward seeming--ostensibly conform.
Beyond that it was not necessary to do anything.  Never fail, never
get caught.  If you did, fight your way out silently and say
nothing.  That was what he was doing in connection with his present
financial troubles; that was what he had been ready to do the other
day when they were caught.  It was something of all this that was
coloring Aileen's mood as she listened at present. 

"But father," she protested, "I love Mr.  Cowperwood.  It's almost
the same as if I were married to him.  He will marry me some day
when he gets a divorce from Mrs. Cowperwood.  You don't understand
how it is.  He's very fond of me, and I love him.  He needs me."

Butler looked at her with strange, non-understanding eyes.  "Divorce,
did you say," he began, thinking of the Catholic Church and its
dogma in regard to that.  "He'll divorce his own wife and children--
and for you, will he? He needs you, does he?" he added, sarcastically.
"What about his wife and children? I don't suppose they need him,
do they? What talk have ye?"

Aileen flung her head back defiantly.  "It's true, nevertheless,"
she reiterated.  "You just don't understand."

Butler could scarcely believe his ears.  He had never heard such
talk before in his life from any one.  It amazed and shocked him.
He was quite aware of all the subtleties of politics and business,
but these of romance were too much for him.  He knew nothing about
them.  To think a daughter of his should be talking like this, and
she a Catholic! He could not understand where she got such notions
unless it was from the Machiavellian, corrupting brain of Cowperwood
himself. 

"How long have ye had these notions, my child?" he suddenly asked,
calmly and soberly.  "Where did ye get them? Ye certainly never
heard anything like that in this house, I warrant.  Ye talk as
though ye had gone out of yer mind."

"Oh, don't talk nonsense, father," flared Aileen, angrily, thinking
how hopeless it was to talk to her father about such things anyhow.
"I'm not a child any more.  I'm twenty-four years of age.  You just
don't understand.  Mr. Cowperwood doesn't like his wife.  He's
going to get a divorce when he can, and will marry me.  I love him,
and he loves me, and that's all there is to it."

"Is it, though?" asked Butler, grimly determined by hook or by
crook, to bring this girl to her senses.  "Ye'll be takin' no
thought of his wife and children then? The fact that he's goin'
to jail, besides, is nawthin' to ye, I suppose.  Ye'd love him
just as much in convict stripes, I suppose--more, maybe."  (The old
man was at his best, humanly speaking, when he was a little
sarcastic.)  "Ye'll have him that way, likely, if at all."

Aileen blazed at once to a furious heat.  "Yes, I know," she sneered.
"That's what you would like.  I know what you've been doing.  Frank
does, too.  You're trying to railroad him to prison for something
he didn't do--and all on account of me.  Oh, I know.  But you won't
hurt him.  You can't! He's bigger and finer than you think he is
and you won't hurt him in the long run.  He'll get out again.  You
want to punish him on my account; but he doesn't care.  I'll marry
him anyhow.  I love him, and I'll wait for him and marry him, and
you can do what you please.  So there!"

"Ye'll marry him, will you?" asked Butler, nonplussed and further
astounded.  "So ye'll wait for him and marry him?  Ye'll take him
away from his wife and children, where, if he were half a man, he'd
be stayin' this minute instead of gallivantin' around with you.
And marry him? Ye'd disgrace your father and yer mother and yer
family? Ye'll stand here and say this to me, I that have raised ye,
cared for ye, and made somethin' of ye? Where would you be if it
weren't for me and your poor, hard-workin' mother, schemin' and
plannin' for you year in and year out? Ye're smarter than I am, I
suppose.  Ye know more about the world than I do, or any one else
that might want to say anythin' to ye.  I've raised ye to be a fine
lady, and this is what I get.  Talk about me not bein' able to
understand, and ye lovin' a convict-to-be, a robber, an embezzler,
a bankrupt, a lyin', thavin'--"

"Father!" exclaimed Aileen, determinedly.  "I'll not listen to you
talking that way.  He's not any of the things that you say.  I'll
not stay here."  She moved toward the door; but Butler jumped up
now and stopped her.  His face for the moment was flushed and
swollen with anger. 

"But I'm not through with him yet," he went on, ignoring her desire
to leave, and addressing her direct--confident now that she was as
capable as another of understanding him.  "I'll get him as sure
as I have a name.  There's law in this land, and I'll have it on
him.  I'll show him whether he'll come sneakin' into dacent homes
and robbin' parents of their children."

He paused after a time for want of breath and Aileen stared, her
face tense and white.  Her father could be so ridiculous.  He was,
contrasted with Cowperwood and his views, so old-fashioned.  To
think he could be talking of some one coming into their home and
stealing her away from him, when she had been so willing to go.
What silliness! And yet, why argue? What good could be accomplished,
arguing with him here in this way? And so for the moment, she said
nothing more--merely looked.  But Butler was by no means done.
His mood was too stormy even though he was doing his best now to
subdue himself. 

"It's too bad, daughter," he resumed quietly, once he was satisfied
that she was going to have little, if anything, to say.  "I'm lettin'
my anger get the best of me.  It wasn't that I intended talkin'
to ye about when I ast ye to come in.  It's somethin' else I have
on me mind.  I was thinkin', perhaps, ye'd like to go to Europe for
the time bein' to study music.  Ye're not quite yourself just at
present.  Ye're needin' a rest.  It would be good for ye to go away
for a while.  Ye could have a nice time over there.  Norah could
go along with ye, if you would, and Sister Constantia that taught
you.  Ye wouldn't object to havin' her, I suppose?"

At the mention of this idea of a trip of Europe again, with Sister
Constantia and music thrown in to give it a slightly new form,
Aileen bridled, and yet half-smiled to herself now.  It was so
ridiculous--so tactless, really, for her father to bring up this
now, and especially after denouncing Cowperwood and her, and
threatening all the things he had.  Had he no diplomacy at all where
she was concerned? It was really too funny! But she restrained
herself here again, because she felt as well as saw, that argument
of this kind was all futile now.

"I wish you wouldn't talk about that, father," she began, having
softened under his explanation.  "I don't want to go to Europe now.
I don't want to leave Philadelphia.  I know you want me to go; but
I don't want to think of going now.  I can't."

Butler's brow darkened again.  What was the use of all this opposition
on her part? Did she really imagine that she was going to master
him--her father, and in connection with such an issue as this? How
impossible! But tempering his voice as much as possible, he went
on, quite softly, in fact.  "But it would be so fine for ye, Aileen.
Ye surely can't expect to stay here after--" He paused, for he was
going to say "what has happened."  He knew she was very sensitive
on that point.  His own conduct in hunting her down had been such
a breach of fatherly courtesy that he knew she felt resentful, and
in a way properly so.  Still, what could be greater than her own
crime? "After," he concluded, "ye have made such a mistake ye
surely wouldn't want to stay here.  Ye won't be wantin' to keep
up that--committin' a mortal sin.  It's against the laws of God
and man."

He did so hope the thought of sin would come to Aileen--the enormity
of her crime from a spiritual point of view--but Aileen did not
see it at all. 

"You don't understand me, father," she exclaimed, hopelessly toward
the end.  "You can't.  I have one idea, and you have another.  But
I don't seem to be able to make you understand now.  The fact is,
if you want to know it, I don't believe in the Catholic Church any
more, so there."

The moment Aileen had said this she wished she had not.  It was a
slip of the tongue.  Butler's face took on an inexpressibly sad,
despairing look. 

"Ye don't believe in the Church?" he asked.

"No, not exactly--not like you do."

He shook his head. 

"The harm that has come to yer soul!" he replied.  "It's plain to
me, daughter, that somethin' terrible has happened to ye.  This man
has ruined ye, body and soul.  Somethin' must be done.  I don't
want to be hard on ye, but ye must leave Philadelphy.  Ye can't
stay here.  I can't permit ye.  Ye can go to Europe, or ye can go
to yer aunt's in New Orleans; but ye must go somewhere.  I can't
have ye stayin' here--it's too dangerous.  It's sure to be comin'
out.  The papers'll be havin' it next.  Ye're young yet.  Yer life
is before you.  I tremble for yer soul; but so long as ye're young
and alive ye may come to yer senses.  It's me duty to be hard.
It's my obligation to you and the Church.  Ye must quit this life.
Ye must lave this man.  Ye must never see him any more.  I can't
permit ye.  He's no good.  He has no intintion of marrying ye, and
it would be a crime against God and man if he did.  No, no! Never
that! The man's a bankrupt, a scoundrel, a thafe.  If ye had him,
ye'd soon be the unhappiest woman in the world.  He wouldn't be
faithful to ye.  No, he couldn't.  He's not that kind."  He paused,
sick to the depths of his soul.  "Ye must go away.  I say it once
and for all.  I mane it kindly, but I want it.  I have yer best
interests at heart.  I love ye; but ye must.  I'm sorry to see ye
go--I'd rather have ye here.  No one will be sorrier; but ye must.
Ye must make it all seem natcheral and ordinary to yer mother; but
ye must go--d'ye hear? Ye must."

He paused, looking sadly but firmly at Aileen under his shaggy
eyebrows.  She knew he meant this.  It was his most solemn, his
most religious expression.  But she did not answer.  She could not.
What was the use?  Only she was not going.  She knew that--and so
she stood there white and tense. 

"Now get all the clothes ye want," went on Butler, by no means
grasping her true mood.  "Fix yourself up in any way you plase.
Say where ye want to go, but get ready."

"But I won't, father," finally replied Aileen, equally solemnly,
equally determinedly.  "I won't go! I won't leave Philadelphia."

"Ye don't mane to say ye will deliberately disobey me when I'm
asking ye to do somethin' that's intended for yer own good, will
ye daughter?"

"Yes, I will," replied Aileen, determinedly.  "I won't go! I'm
sorry, but I won't!"

"Ye really mane that, do ye?" asked Butler, sadly but grimly. 

"Yes, I do," replied Aileen, grimly, in return. 

"Then I'll have to see what I can do, daughter," replied the old
man.  "Ye're still my daughter, whatever ye are, and I'll not see
ye come to wreck and ruin for want of doin' what I know to be my
solemn duty.  I'll give ye a few more days to think this over, but
go ye must.  There's an end of that.  There are laws in this land
still.  There are things that can be done to those who won't obey
the law.  I found ye this time--much as it hurt me to do it.  I'll
find ye again if ye try to disobey me.  Ye must change yer ways.
I can't have ye goin' on as ye are.  Ye understand now.  It's the
last word.  Give this man up, and ye can have anything ye choose.
Ye're my girl--I'll do everything I can in this world to make ye
happy.  Why, why shouldn't I? What else have I to live for but me
children? It's ye and the rest of them that I've been workin' and
plannin' for all these years.  Come now, be a good girl.  Ye love
your old father, don't ye? Why, I rocked ye in my arms as a baby,
Aileen.  I've watched over ye when ye were not bigger than what
would rest in me two fists here.  I've been a good father to ye--
ye can't deny that.  Look at the other girls you've seen.  Have
any of them had more nor what ye have had? Ye won't go against me
in this.  I'm sure ye won't.  Ye can't.  Ye love me too much--surely
ye do--don't ye?" His voice weakened.  His eyes almost filled. 

He paused and put a big, brown, horny hand on Aileen's arm.  She
had listened to his plea not unmoved--really more or less softened--
because of the hopelessness of it.  She could not give up Cowperwood.
Her father just did not understand.  He did not know what love was.
Unquestionably he had never loved as she had. 

She stood quite silent while Butler appealed to her. 

"I'd like to, father," she said at last and softly, tenderly.
"Really I would.  I do love you.  Yes, I do.  I want to please you;
but I can't in this--I can't! I love Frank Cowperwood.  You don't
understand--really you don't!"

At the repetition of Cowperwood's name Butler's mouth hardened.
He could see that she was infatuated--that his carefully calculated
plea had failed.  So he must think of some other way. 

"Very well, then," he said at last and sadly, oh, so sadly, as
Aileen turned away.  "Have it yer own way, if ye will.  Ye must
go, though, willy-nilly.  It can't be any other way.  I wish to
God it could."

Aileen went out, very solemn, and Butler went over to his desk and
sat down.  "Such a situation!" he said to himself.  Such a complication!"





Chapter XXXVIII




The situation which confronted Aileen was really a trying one.  A
girl of less innate courage and determination would have weakened
and yielded.  For in spite of her various social connections and
acquaintances, the people to whom Aileen could run in an emergency
of the present kind were not numerous.  She could scarcely think
of any one who would be likely to take her in for any lengthy period,
without question.  There were a number of young women of her own
age, married and unmarried, who were very friendly to her, but
there were few with whom she was really intimate.  The only person
who stood out in her mind, as having any real possibility of refuge
for a period, was a certain Mary Calligan, better known as "Mamie"
among her friends, who had attended school with Aileen in former
years and was now a teacher in one of the local schools.

The Calligan family consisted of Mrs. Katharine Calligan, the
mother, a dressmaker by profession and a widow--her husband, a
house-mover by trade, having been killed by a falling wall some
ten years before--and Mamie, her twenty-three-year-old daughter.
They lived in a small two-story brick house in Cherry Street, near
Fifteenth.  Mrs. Calligan was not a very good dressmaker, not
good enough, at least, for the Butler family to patronize in their
present exalted state.  Aileen went there occasionally for gingham
house-dresses, underwear, pretty dressing-gowns, and alterations
on some of her more important clothing which was made by a very
superior modiste in Chestnut Street.  She visited the house largely
because she had gone to school with Mamie at St. Agatha's, when
the outlook of the Calligan family was much more promising.  Mamie
was earning forty dollars a month as the teacher of a sixth-grade
room in one of the nearby public schools, and Mrs. Calligan averaged
on the whole about two dollars a day--sometimes not so much.  The
house they occupied was their own, free and clear, and the furniture
which it contained suggested the size of their joint income, which
was somewhere near eighty dollars a month.

Mamie Calligan was not good-looking, not nearly as good-looking
as her mother had been before her.  Mrs. Calligan was still plump,
bright, and cheerful at fifty, with a fund of good humor.  Mamie
was somewhat duller mentally and emotionally.  She was serious-minded--
made so, perhaps, as much by circumstances as by anything else,
for she was not at all vivid, and had little sex magnetism.  Yet
she was kindly, honest, earnest, a good Catholic, and possessed
of that strangely excessive ingrowing virtue which shuts so many
people off from the world--a sense of duty.  To Mamie Calligan duty
(a routine conformity to such theories and precepts as she had
heard and worked by since her childhood) was the all-important
thing, her principal source of comfort and relief; her props in
a queer and uncertain world being her duty to her Church; her
duty to her school; her duty to her mother; her duty to her friends,
etc.  Her mother often wished for Mamie's sake that she was less
dutiful and more charming physically, so that the men would like
her.

In spite of the fact that her mother was a dressmaker, Mamie's
clothes never looked smart or attractive--she would have felt out
of keeping with herself if they had.  Her shoes were rather large,
and ill-fitting; her skirt hung in lifeless lines from her hips
to her feet, of good material but seemingly bad design.  At that
time the colored "jersey," so-called, was just coming into popular
wear, and, being close-fitting, looked well on those of good form.
Alas for Mamie Calligan! The mode of the time compelled her to wear
one; but she had neither the arms nor the chest development which
made this garment admirable.  Her hat, by choice, was usually a
pancake affair with a long, single feather, which somehow never
seemed to be in exactly the right position, either to her hair or
her face.  At most times she looked a little weary; but she was
not physically weary so much as she was bored.  Her life held so
little of real charm; and Aileen Butler was unquestionably the most
significant element of romance in it.

Mamie's mother's very pleasant social disposition, the fact that
they had a very cleanly, if poor little home, that she could
entertain them by playing on their piano, and that Mrs. Calligan
took an adoring interest in the work she did for her, made up the
sum and substance of the attraction of the Calligan home for Aileen.
She went there occasionally as a relief from other things, and
because Mamie Calligan had a compatible and very understanding
interest in literature.  Curiously, the books Aileen liked she
liked--Jane Eyre, Kenelm Chillingly, Tricotrin, and A Bow of Orange
Ribbon.  Mamie occasionally recommended to Aileen some latest
effusion of this character; and Aileen, finding her judgment good,
was constrained to admire her.

In this crisis it was to the home of the Calligans that Aileen
turned in thought.  If her father really was not nice to her, and
she had to leave home for a time, she could go to the Calligans.
They would receive her and say nothing.  They were not sufficiently
well known to the other members of the Butler family to have the
latter suspect that she had gone there.  She might readily disappear
into the privacy of Cherry Street and not be seen or heard of for
weeks.  It is an interesting fact to contemplate that the Calligans,
like the various members of the Butler family, never suspected
Aileen of the least tendency toward a wayward existence.  Hence
her flight from her own family, if it ever came, would be laid
more to the door of a temperamental pettishness than anything else.

On the other hand, in so far as the Butler family as a unit was
concerned, it needed Aileen more than she needed it.  It needed
the light of her countenance to keep it appropriately cheerful,
and if she went away there would be a distinct gulf that would not
soon be overcome.

Butler, senior, for instance, had seen his little daughter grow
into radiantly beautiful womanhood.  He had seen her go to school
and convent and learn to play the piano--to him a great
accomplishment.  Also he had seen her manner change and become
very showy and her knowledge of life broaden, apparently, and
become to him, at least, impressive.  Her smart, dogmatic views
about most things were, to him, at least, well worth listening to.
She knew more about books and art than Owen or Callum, and her
sense of social manners was perfect.  When she came to the table--
breakfast, luncheon, or dinner--she was to him always a charming
object to see.  He had produced Aileen--he congratulated himself.
He had furnished her the money to be so fine.  He would continue
to do so.  No second-rate upstart of a man should be allowed to
ruin her life.  He proposed to take care of her always--to leave
her so much money in a legally involved way that a failure of a
husband could not possibly affect her.  "You're the charming lady
this evenin', I'm thinkin'," was one of his pet remarks; and also,
"My, but we're that fine!" At table almost invariably she sat
beside him and looked out for him.  That was what he wanted.  He
had put her there beside him at his meals years before when she
was a child.

Her mother, too, was inordinately fond of her, and Callum and Owen
appropriately brotherly.  So Aileen had thus far at least paid
back with beauty and interest quite as much as she received, and
all the family felt it to be so.  When she was away for a day or
two the house seemed glum--the meals less appetizing.  When she
returned, all were happy and gay again.

Aileen understood this clearly enough in a way.  Now, when it came
to thinking of leaving and shifting for herself, in order to avoid
a trip which she did not care to be forced into, her courage was
based largely on this keen sense of her own significance to the
family.  She thought over what her father had said, and decided she
must act at once.  She dressed for the street the next morning,
after her father had gone, and decided to step in at the Calligans'
about noon, when Mamie would be at home for luncheon.  Then she
would take up the matter casually.  If they had no objection, she
would go there.  She sometimes wondered why Cowperwood did not
suggest, in his great stress, that they leave for some parts unknown;
but she also felt that he must know best what he could do.  His
increasing troubles depressed her.

Mrs. Calligan was alone when she arrived and was delighted to see
her.  After exchanging the gossip of the day, and not knowing
quite how to proceed in connection with the errand which had brought
her, she went to the piano and played a melancholy air.

"Sure, it's lovely the way you play, Aileen," observed Mrs. Calligan
who was unduly sentimental herself.  "I love to hear you.  I wish
you'd come oftener to see us.  You're so rarely here nowadays."

"Oh, I've been so busy, Mrs. Calligan," replied Aileen.  "I've had
so much to do this fall, I just couldn't.  They wanted me to go
to Europe; but I didn't care to.  Oh, dear!" she sighed, and in
her playing swept off with a movement of sad, romantic significance.
The door opened and Mamie came in.  Her commonplace face brightened
at the sight of Aileen.

"Well, Aileen Butler!" she exclaimed.  "Where did you come from?
Where have you been keeping yourself so long?"

Aileen rose to exchange kisses.  "Oh, I've been very busy, Mamie.
I've just been telling your mother.  How are you, anyway? How are
you getting along in your work?"

Mamie recounted at once some school difficulties which were puzzling
her--the growing size of classes and the amount of work expected.
While Mrs. Calligan was setting the table Mamie went to her room
and Aileen followed her.

As she stood before her mirror arranging her hair Aileen looked
at her meditatively.

"What's the matter with you, Aileen, to-day?" Mamie asked.  "You
look so--" She stopped to give her a second glance.

"How do I look?" asked Aileen.

"Well, as if you were uncertain or troubled about something.  I
never saw you look that way before.  What's the matter?"

"Oh, nothing," replied Aileen.  "I was just thinking."  She went
to one of the windows which looked into the little yard, meditating
on whether she could endure living here for any length of time.
The house was so small, the furnishings so very simple.

"There is something the matter with you to-day, Aileen," observed
Mamie, coming over to her and looking in her face.  "You're not
like yourself at all."

"I've got something on my mind," replied Aileen--"something that's
worrying me.  I don't know just what to do--that's what's the matter."

"Well, whatever can it be?" commented Mamie.  "I never saw you
act this way before.  Can't you tell me? What is it?"

"No, I don't think I can--not now, anyhow."  Aileen paused.  "Do
you suppose your mother would object," she asked, suddenly, "if
I came here and stayed a little while? I want to get away from home
for a time for a certain reason."

"Why, Aileen Butler, how you talk!" exclaimed her friend.  "Object!
You know she'd be delighted, and so would I.  Oh, dear--can you
come? But what makes you want to leave home?"

"That's just what I can't tell you--not now, anyhow.  Not you, so
much, but your mother.  You know, I'm afraid of what she'd think,"
replied Aileen.  "But, you mustn't ask me yet, anyhow.  I want to
think.  Oh, dear! But I want to come, if you'll let me.  Will you
speak to your mother, or shall I?"

"Why, I will," said Mamie, struck with wonder at this remarkable
development; "but it's silly to do it.  I know what she'll say
before I tell her, and so do you.  You can just bring your things
and come.  That's all.  She'd never say anything or ask anything,
either, and you know that--if you didn't want her to."  Mamie was
all agog and aglow at the idea.  She wanted the companionship of
Aileen so much.

Aileen looked at her solemnly, and understood well enough why she
was so enthusiastic--both she and her mother.  Both wanted her
presence to brighten their world.  "But neither of you must tell
anybody that I'm here, do you hear? I don't want any one to know--
particularly no one of my family.  I've a reason, and a good one,
but I can't tell you what it is--not now, anyhow.  You'll promise
not to tell any one."

"Oh, of course," replied Mamie eagerly.  "But you're not going to
run away for good, are you, Aileen?" she concluded curiously and
gravely.

"Oh, I don't know; I don't know what I'll do yet.  I only know
that I want to get away for a while, just now--that's all."  She
paused, while Mamie stood before her, agape.

"Well, of all things," replied her friend.  "Wonders never cease,
do they, Aileen? But it will be so lovely to have you here.  Mama
will be so pleased.  Of course, we won't tell anybody if you don't
want us to.  Hardly any one ever comes here; and if they do, you
needn't see them.  You could have this big room next to me.  Oh,
wouldn't that be nice? I'm perfectly delighted."  The young
school-teacher's spirits rose to a decided height.  "Come on, why
not tell mama right now?"

Aileen hesitated because even now she was not positive whether
she should do this, but finally they went down the stairs together,
Aileen lingering behind a little as they neared the bottom.  Mamie
burst in upon her mother with: "Oh, mama, isn't it lovely? Aileen's
coming to stay with us for a while.  She doesn't want any one to
know, and she's coming right away."  Mrs. Calligan, who was holding
a sugarbowl in her hand, turned to survey her with a surprised but
smiling face.  She was immediately curious as to why Aileen should
want to come--why leave home.  On the other hand, her feeling for
Aileen was so deep that she was greatly and joyously intrigued by
the idea.  And why not? Was not the celebrated Edward Butler's
daughter a woman grown, capable of regulating her own affairs, and
welcome, of course, as the honored member of so important a family.
It was very flattering to the Calligans to think that she would
want to come under any circumstances.

"I don't see how your parents can let you go, Aileen; but you're
certainly welcome here as long as you want to stay, and that's
forever, if you want to."  And Mrs. Calligan beamed on her welcomingly.
The idea of Aileen Butler asking to be permitted to come here! And
the hearty, comprehending manner in which she said this, and Mamie's
enthusiasm, caused Aileen to breathe a sigh of relief.  The matter
of the expense of her presence to the Calligans came into her mind.

"I want to pay you, of course," she said to Mrs. Calligan, "if
I come."

"The very idea, Aileen Butler!" exclaimed Mamie.  "You'll do nothing
of the sort.  You'll come here and live with me as my guest."

"No, I won't! If I can't pay I won't come," replied Aileen.  "You'll
have to let me do that."  She knew that the Calligans could not
afford to keep her.

"Well, we'll not talk about that now, anyhow," replied Mrs. Calligan.
"You can come when you like and stay as long as you like.  Reach
me some clean napkins, Mamie."  Aileen remained for luncheon, and
left soon afterward to keep her suggested appointment with Cowperwood,
feeling satisfied that her main problem had been solved.  Now her
way was clear.  She could come here if she wanted to.  It was simply
a matter of collecting a few necessary things or coming without
bringing anything.  Perhaps Frank would have something to suggest.

In the meantime Cowperwood made no effort to communicate with
Aileen since the unfortunate discovery of their meeting place, but
had awaited a letter from her, which was not long in coming.  And,
as usual, it was a long, optimistic, affectionate, and defiant
screed in which she related all that had occurred to her and her
present plan of leaving home.  This last puzzled and troubled him
not a little.

Aileen in the bosom of her family, smart and well-cared for, was
one thing.  Aileen out in the world dependent on him was another.
He had never imagined that she would be compelled to leave before
he was prepared to take her; and if she did now, it might stir up
complications which would be anything but pleasant to contemplate.
Still he was fond of her, very, and would do anything to make her
happy.  He could support her in a very respectable way even now,
if he did not eventually go to prison, and even there he might
manage to make some shift for her.  It would be so much better,
though, if he could persuade her to remain at home until he knew
exactly what his fate was to be.  He never doubted but that some
day, whatever happened, within a reasonable length of time, he
would be rid of all these complications and well-to-do again, in
which case, if he could get a divorce, he wanted to marry Aileen.
If not, he would take her with him anyhow, and from this point of
view it might be just as well as if she broke away from her family
now.  But from the point of view of present complications--the
search Butler would make--it might be dangerous.  He might even
publicly charge him with abduction.  He therefore decided to
persuade Aileen to stay at home, drop meetings and communications
for the time being, and even go abroad.  He would be all right
until she came back and so would she--common sense ought to rule
in this case.

With all this in mind he set out to keep the appointment she
suggested in her letter, nevertheless feeling it a little dangerous
to do so.

"Are you sure," he asked, after he had listened to her description
of the Calligan homestead, "that you would like it there? It sounds
rather poor to me."

"Yes, but I like them so much," replied Aileen.

"And you're sure they won't tell on you?"

"Oh, no; never, never!"

"Very well," he concluded.  "You know what you're doing.  I don't
want to advise you against your will.  If I were you, though, I'd
take your father's advice and go away for a while.  He'll get over
this then, and I'll still be here.  I can write you occasionally,
and you can write me."

The moment Cowperwood said this Aileen's brow clouded.  Her love
for him was so great that there was something like a knife thrust
in the merest hint at an extended separation.  Her Frank here and
in trouble--on trial maybe and she away! Never! What could he mean
by suggesting such a thing? Could it be that he didn't care for
her as much as she did for him? Did he really love her? she asked
herself.  Was he going to desert her just when she was going to
do the thing which would bring them nearer together? Her eyes clouded,
for she was terribly hurt.

"Why, how you talk!" she exclaimed.  "You know I won't leave
Philadelphia now.  You certainly don't expect me to leave you."

Cowperwood saw it all very clearly.  He was too shrewd not to.
He was immensely fond of her.  Good heaven, he thought, he would
not hurt her feelings for the world!

"Honey," he said, quickly, when he saw her eyes, "you don't
understand.  I want you to do what you want to do.  You've planned
this out in order to be with me; so now you do it.  Don't think
any more about me or anything I've said.  I was merely thinking
that it might make matters worse for both of us; but I don't believe
it will.  You think your father loves you so much that after you're
gone he'll change his mind.  Very good; go.  But we must be very
careful, sweet--you and I--really we must.  This thing is getting
serious.  If you should go and your father should charge me with
abduction--take the public into his confidence and tell all about
this, it would be serious for both of us--as much for you as for
me, for I'd be convicted sure then, just on that account, if nothing
else.  And then what? You'd better not try to see me often for the
present--not any oftener than we can possibly help.  If we had
used common sense and stopped when your father got that letter,
this wouldn't have happened.  But now that it has happened, we
must be as wise as we can, don't you see? So, think it over, and
do what you think best and then write me and whatever you do will
be all right with me--do you hear?" He drew her to him and kissed
her.  "You haven't any money, have you?" he concluded wisely.

Aileen, deeply moved by all he had just said, was none the less
convinced once she had meditated on it a moment, that her course
was best.  Her father loved her too much.  He would not do
anything to hurt her publicly and so he would not attack Cowperwood
through her openly.  More than likely, as she now explained to
Frank, he would plead with her to come back.  And he, listening,
was compelled to yield.  Why argue? She would not leave him anyhow.

He went down in his pocket for the first time since he had known
Aileen and produced a layer of bills.  "Here's two hundred dollars,
sweet," he said, "until I see or hear from you.  I'll see that you
have whatever you need; and now don't think that I don't love you.
You know I do.  I'm crazy about you."

Aileen protested that she did not need so much--that she did not
really need any--she had some at home; but he put that aside.  He
knew that she must have money.

"Don't talk, honey," he said.  "I know what you need."  She had
been so used to receiving money from her father and mother in
comfortable amounts from time to time that she thought nothing of
it.  Frank loved her so much that it made everything right between
them.  She softened in her mood and they discussed the matter of
letters, reaching the conclusion that a private messenger would
be safest.  When finally they parted, Aileen, from being sunk in
the depths by his uncertain attitude, was now once more on the
heights.  She decided that he did love her, and went away smiling.
She had her Frank to fall back on--she would teach her father.
Cowperwood shook his head, following her with his eyes.  She
represented an additional burden, but give her up, he certainly
could not.  Tear the veil from this illusion of affection and make
her feel so wretched when he cared for her so much? No.  There was
really nothing for him to do but what he had done.  After all, he
reflected, it might not work out so badly.  Any detective work
that Butler might choose to do would prove that she had not run
to him.  If at any moment it became necessary to bring common
sense into play to save the situation from a deadly climax, he
could have the Butlers secretly informed as to Aileen's whereabouts.
That would show he had little to do with it, and they could try
to persuade Aileen to come home again.  Good might result--one
could not tell.  He would deal with the evils as they arose.  He
drove quickly back to his office, and Aileen returned to her home
determined to put her plan into action.  Her father had given her
some little time in which to decide--possibly he would give her
longer--but she would not wait.  Having always had her wish granted
in everything, she could not understand why she was not to have
her way this time.  It was about five o'clock now.  She would wait
until all the members of the family were comfortably seated at the
dinner-table, which would be about seven o'clock, and then slip
out.

On arriving home, however, she was greeted by an unexpected reason
for suspending action.  This was the presence of a certain Mr. and
Mrs. Steinmetz--the former a well-known engineer who drew the
plans for many of the works which Butler undertook.  It was the
day before Thanksgiving, and they were eager to have Aileen and
Norah accompany them for a fortnight's stay at their new home in
West Chester--a structure concerning the charm of which Aileen
had heard much.  They were exceedingly agreeable people--
comparatively young and surrounded by a coterie of interesting
friends.  Aileen decided to delay her flight and go.  Her father
was most cordial.  The presence and invitation of the Steinmetzes
was as much a relief to him as it was to Aileen.  West Chester
being forty miles from Philadelphia, it was unlikely that Aileen
would attempt to meet Cowperwood while there.

She wrote Cowperwood of the changed condition and departed, and
he breathed a sigh of relief, fancying at the time that this storm
had permanently blown over.





Chapter XXXIX




In the meanwhile the day of Cowperwood's trial was drawing near.
He was under the impression that an attempt was going to be made
to convict him whether the facts warranted it or not.  He did
not see any way out of his dilemma, however, unless it was to
abandon everything and leave Philadelphia for good, which was
impossible.  The only way to guard his future and retain his
financial friends was to stand trial as quickly as possible, and
trust them to assist him to his feet in the future in case he
failed.  He discussed the possibilities of an unfair trial with
Steger, who did not seem to think that there was so much to that.
In the first place, a jury could not easily be suborned by any one.
In the next place, most judges were honest, in spite of their
political cleavage, and would go no further than party bias would
lead them in their rulings and opinions, which was, in the main,
not so far.  The particular judge who was to sit in this case, one
Wilbur Payderson, of the Court of Quarter Sessions, was a strict
party nominee, and as such beholden to Mollenhauer, Simpson, and
Butler; but, in so far as Steger had ever heard, he was an honest
man.

"What I can't understand," said Steger, "is why these fellows
should be so anxious to punish you, unless it is for the effect
on the State at large.  The election's over.  I understand there's
a movement on now to get Stener out in case he is convicted, which
he will be.  They have to try him.  He won't go up for more than
a year, or two or three, and if he does he'll be pardoned out in
half the time or less.  It would be the same in your case, if you
were convicted.  They couldn't keep you in and let him out.  But
it will never get that far--take my word for it.  We'll win before
a jury, or we'll reverse the judgment of conviction before the
State Supreme Court, certain.  Those five judges up there are not
going to sustain any such poppycock idea as this."

Steger actually believed what he said, and Cowperwood was pleased.
Thus far the young lawyer had done excellently well in all of his
cases.  Still, he did not like the idea of being hunted down by
Butler.  It was a serious matter, and one of which Steger was
totally unaware.  Cowperwood could never quite forget that in
listening to his lawyer's optimistic assurances.

The actual beginning of the trial found almost all of the inhabitants
of this city of six hundred thousand "keyed up."  None of the
women of Cowperwood's family were coming into court.  He had
insisted that there should be no family demonstration for the
newspapers to comment upon.  His father was coming, for he might
be needed as a witness.  Aileen had written him the afternoon
before saying she had returned from West Chester and wishing him
luck.  She was so anxious to know what was to become of him that
she could not stay away any longer and had returned--not to go
to the courtroom, for he did not want her to do that, but to be
as near as possible when his fate was decided, adversely or otherwise.
She wanted to run and congratulate him if he won, or to console
with him if he lost.  She felt that her return would be likely to
precipitate a collision with her father, but she could not help that.

The position of Mrs. Cowperwood was most anomalous.  She had to
go through the formality of seeming affectionate and tender, even
when she knew that Frank did not want her to be.  He felt
instinctively now that she knew of Aileen.  He was merely awaiting
the proper hour in which to spread the whole matter before her.
She put her arms around him at the door on the fateful morning,
in the somewhat formal manner into which they had dropped these
later years, and for a moment, even though she was keenly aware
of his difficulties, she could not kiss him.  He did not want to
kiss her, but he did not show it.  She did kiss him, though, and
added: "Oh, I do hope things come out all right."

"You needn't worry about that, I think, Lillian," he replied,
buoyantly.  "I'll be all right."

He ran down the steps and walked out on Girard Avenue to his former
car line, where he bearded a car.  He was thinking of Aileen and
how keenly she was feeling for him, and what a mockery his married
life now was, and whether he would face a sensible jury, and so
on and so forth.  If he didn't--if he didn't--this day was crucial!

He stepped off the car at Third and Market and hurried to his
office.  Steger was already there.  "Well, Harper," observed
Cowperwood, courageously, "today's the day."

The Court of Quarter Sessions, Part I, where this trial was to take
place, was held in famous Independence Hall, at Sixth and Chestnut
Streets, which was at this time, as it had been for all of a century
before, the center of local executive and judicial life.  It was a
low two-story building of red brick, with a white wooden central
tower of old Dutch and English derivation, compounded of the square,
the circle, and the octagon.  The total structure consisted of a
central portion and two T-shaped wings lying to the right and left,
whose small, oval-topped old-fashioned windows and doors were set
with those many-paned sashes so much admired by those who love
what is known as Colonial architecture.  Here, and in an addition
known as State House Row (since torn down), which extended from
the rear of the building toward Walnut Street, were located the
offices of the mayor, the chief of police, the city treasurer, the
chambers of council, and all the other important and executive
offices of the city, together with the four branches of Quarter
Sessions, which sat to hear the growing docket of criminal cases.
The mammoth city hall which was subsequently completed at Broad
and Market Streets was then building.

An attempt had been made to improve the reasonably large courtrooms
by putting in them raised platforms of dark walnut surmounted by
large, dark walnut desks, behind which the judges sat; but the
attempt was not very successful.  The desks, jury-boxes, and
railings generally were made too large, and so the general effect
was one of disproportion.  A cream-colored wall had been thought
the appropriate thing to go with black walnut furniture, but time
and dust had made the combination dreary.  There were no pictures
or ornaments of any kind, save the stalky, over-elaborated
gas-brackets which stood on his honor's desk, and the single swinging
chandelier suspended from the center of the ceiling.  Fat bailiffs
and court officers, concerned only in holding their workless jobs,
did not add anything to the spirit of the scene.  Two of them in
the particular court in which this trial was held contended hourly
as to which should hand the judge a glass of water.  One preceded
his honor like a fat, stuffy, dusty majordomo to and from his
dressing-room.  His business was to call loudly, when the latter
entered, "His honor the Court, hats off.  Everybody please rise,"
while a second bailiff, standing at the left of his honor when he
was seated, and between the jury-box and the witness-chair, recited
in an absolutely unintelligible way that beautiful and dignified
statement of collective society's obligation to the constituent
units, which begins, "Hear ye! hear ye! hear ye!" and ends, "All
those of you having just cause for complaint draw near and ye shall
be heard."  However, you would have thought it was of no import
here.  Custom and indifference had allowed it to sink to a mumble.
A third bailiff guarded the door of the jury-room; and in addition
to these there were present a court clerk--small, pale, candle-waxy,
with colorless milk-and-water eyes, and thin, pork-fat-colored hair
and beard, who looked for all the world like an Americanized and
decidedly decrepit Chinese mandarin--and a court stenographer.

Judge Wilbur Payderson, a lean herring of a man, who had sat in
this case originally as the examining judge when Cowperwood had
been indicted by the grand jury, and who had bound him over for
trial at this term, was a peculiarly interesting type of judge,
as judges go.  He was so meager and thin-blooded that he was
arresting for those qualities alone.  Technically, he was learned
in the law; actually, so far as life was concerned, absolutely
unconscious of that subtle chemistry of things that transcends all
written law and makes for the spirit and, beyond that, the inutility
of all law, as all wise judges know.  You could have looked at his
lean, pedantic body, his frizzled gray hair, his fishy, blue-gray
eyes, without any depth of speculation in them, and his nicely
modeled but unimportant face, and told him that he was without
imagination; but he would not have believed you--would have fined
you for contempt of court.  By the careful garnering of all his
little opportunities, the furbishing up of every meager advantage;
by listening slavishly to the voice of party, and following as
nearly as he could the behests of intrenched property, he had
reached his present state.  It was not very far along, at that.
His salary was only six thousand dollars a year.  His little fame
did not extend beyond the meager realm of local lawyers and judges.
But the sight of his name quoted daily as being about his duties,
or rendering such and such a decision, was a great satisfaction
to him.  He thought it made him a significant figure in the world.
"Behold I am not as other men," he often thought, and this comforted
him.  He was very much flattered when a prominent case came to his
calendar; and as he sat enthroned before the various litigants and
lawyers he felt, as a rule, very significant indeed.  Now and then
some subtlety of life would confuse his really limited intellect;
but in all such cases there was the letter of the law.  He could
hunt in the reports to find out what really thinking men had
decided.  Besides, lawyers everywhere are so subtle.  They put the
rules of law, favorable or unfavorable, under the judge's thumb
and nose.  "Your honor, in the thirty-second volume of the Revised
Reports of Massachusetts, page so and so, line so and so, in Arundel
versus Bannerman, you will find, etc."  How often have you heard
that in a court of law? The reasoning that is left to do in most
cases is not much.  And the sanctity of the law is raised like a
great banner by which the pride of the incumbent is strengthened.

Payderson, as Steger had indicated, could scarcely be pointed to
as an unjust judge.  He was a party judge--Republican in principle,
or rather belief, beholden to the dominant party councils for his
personal continuance in office, and as such willing and anxious
to do whatever he considered that he reasonably could do to further
the party welfare and the private interests of his masters.  Most
people never trouble to look into the mechanics of the thing they
call their conscience too closely.  Where they do, too often they
lack the skill to disentangle the tangled threads of ethics and
morals.  Whatever the opinion of the time is, whatever the weight
of great interests dictates, that they conscientiously believe.
Some one has since invented the phrase "a corporation-minded judge."
There are many such.

Payderson was one.  He fairly revered property and power.  To him
Butler and Mollenhauer and Simpson were great men--reasonably sure
to be right always because they were so powerful.  This matter of
Cowperwood's and Stener's defalcation he had long heard of.  He
knew by associating with one political light and another just what
the situation was.  The party, as the leaders saw it, had been put
in a very bad position by Cowperwood's subtlety.  He had led Stener
astray--more than an ordinary city treasurer should have been led
astray--and, although Stener was primarily guilty as the original
mover in the scheme, Cowperwood was more so for having led him
imaginatively to such disastrous lengths.  Besides, the party
needed a scapegoat--that was enough for Payderson, in the first
place.  Of course, after the election had been won, and it appeared
that the party had not suffered so much, he did not understand
quite why it was that Cowperwood was still so carefully included
in the Proceedings; but he had faith to believe that the leaders
had some just grounds for not letting him off.  From one source
and another he learned that Butler had some private grudge against
Cowperwood.  What it was no one seemed to know exactly.  The general
impression was that Cowperwood had led Butler into some unwholesome
financial transactions.  Anyhow, it was generally understood that
for the good of the party, and in order to teach a wholesome lesson
to dangerous subordinates--it had been decided to allow these
several indictments to take their course.  Cowperwood was to be
punished quite as severely as Stener for the moral effect on the
community.  Stener was to be sentenced the maximum sentence for
his crime in order that the party and the courts should appear
properly righteous.  Beyond that he was to be left to the mercy
of the governor, who could ease things up for him if he chose, and
if the leaders wished.  In the silly mind of the general public
the various judges of Quarter Sessions, like girls incarcerated
in boarding-schools, were supposed in their serene aloofness from
life not to know what was going on in the subterranean realm of
politics; but they knew well enough, and, knowing particularly
well from whence came their continued position and authority,
they were duly grateful.





Chapter XL




When Cowperwood came into the crowded courtroom with his father
and Steger, quite fresh and jaunty (looking the part of the shrewd
financier, the man of affairs), every one stared.  It was really
too much to expect, most of them thought, that a man like this
would be convicted.  He was, no doubt, guilty; but, also, no doubt,
he had ways and means of evading the law.  His lawyer, Harper
Steger, looked very shrewd and canny to them.  It was very cold,
and both men wore long, dark, bluish-gray overcoats, cut in the
latest mode.  Cowperwood was given to small boutonnieres in fair
weather, but to-day he wore none.  His tie, however, was of heavy,
impressive silk, of lavender hue, set with a large, clear, green
emerald.  He wore only the thinnest of watch-chains, and no other
ornament of any kind.  He always looked jaunty and yet reserved,
good-natured, and yet capable and self-sufficient.  Never had he
looked more so than he did to-day.

He at once took in the nature of the scene, which had a peculiar
interest for him.  Before him was the as yet empty judge's rostrum,
and at its right the empty jury-box, between which, and to the
judge's left, as he sat facing the audience, stood the witness-chair
where he must presently sit and testify.  Behind it, already awaiting
the arrival of the court, stood a fat bailiff, one John Sparkheaver
whose business it was to present the aged, greasy Bible to be
touched by the witnesses in making oath, and to say, "Step this
way," when the testimony was over.  There were other bailiffs--one
at the gate giving into the railed space before the judge's desk,
where prisoners were arraigned, lawyers sat or pleaded, the
defendant had a chair, and so on; another in the aisle leading to
the jury-room, and still another guarding the door by which the
public entered.  Cowperwood surveyed Stener, who was one of the
witnesses, and who now, in his helpless fright over his own fate,
was without malice toward any one.  He had really never borne any.
He wished if anything now that he had followed Cowperwood's advice,
seeing where he now was, though he still had faith that Mollenhauer
and the political powers represented by him would do something for
him with the governor, once he was sentenced.  He was very pale
and comparatively thin.  Already he had lost that ruddy bulk which
had been added during the days of his prosperity.  He wore a new
gray suit and a brown tie, and was clean-shaven.  When his eye
caught Cowperwood's steady beam, it faltered and drooped.  He
rubbed his ear foolishly.  Cowperwood nodded.

"You know," he said to Steger, "I feel sorry for George.  He's
such a fool.  Still I did all I could."

Cowperwood also watched Mrs. Stener out of the tail of his eye--
an undersized, peaked, and sallow little woman, whose clothes
fitted her abominably.  It was just like Stener to marry a woman
like that, he thought.  The scrubby matches of the socially unelect
or unfit always interested, though they did not always amuse, him.
Mrs. Stener had no affection for Cowperwood, of course, looking on
him, as she did, as the unscrupulous cause of her husband's downfall.
They were now quite poor again, about to move from their big house
into cheaper quarters; and this was not pleasing for her to
contemplate.

Judge Payderson came in after a time, accompanied by his undersized
but stout court attendant, who looked more like a pouter-pigeon
than a human being; and as they came, Bailiff Sparkheaver rapped
on the judge's desk, beside which he had been slumbering, and
mumbled, "Please rise!" The audience arose, as is the rule of all
courts.  Judge Payderson stirred among a number of briefs that were
lying on his desk, and asked, briskly, "What's the first case, Mr.
Protus?" He was speaking to his clerk.

During the long and tedious arrangement of the day's docket and
while the various minor motions of lawyers were being considered,
this courtroom scene still retained interest for Cowperwood.  He
was so eager to win, so incensed at the outcome of untoward events
which had brought him here.  He was always intensely irritated,
though he did not show it, by the whole process of footing delays
and queries and quibbles, by which legally the affairs of men were
too often hampered.  Law, if you had asked him, and he had accurately
expressed himself, was a mist formed out of the moods and the
mistakes of men, which befogged the sea of life and prevented plain
sailing for the little commercial and social barques of men; it
was a miasma of misinterpretation where the ills of life festered,
and also a place where the accidentally wounded were ground between
the upper and the nether millstones of force or chance; it was a
strange, weird, interesting, and yet futile battle of wits where
the ignorant and the incompetent and the shrewd and the angry and
the weak were made pawns and shuttlecocks for men--lawyers, who
were playing upon their moods, their vanities, their desires, and
their necessities.  It was an unholy and unsatisfactory disrupting
and delaying spectacle, a painful commentary on the frailties of
life, and men, a trick, a snare, a pit and gin.  In the hands of
the strong, like himself when he was at his best, the law was a
sword and a shield, a trap to place before the feet of the unwary;
a pit to dig in the path of those who might pursue.  It was
anything you might choose to make of it--a door to illegal
opportunity; a cloud of dust to be cast in the eyes of those who
might choose, and rightfully, to see; a veil to be dropped arbitrarily
between truth and its execution, justice and its judgment, crime
and punishment.  Lawyers in the main were intellectual mercenaries
to be bought and sold in any cause.  It amused him to hear the
ethical and emotional platitudes of lawyers, to see how readily
they would lie, steal, prevaricate, misrepresent in almost any
cause and for any purpose.  Great lawyers were merely great
unscrupulous subtleties, like himself, sitting back in dark,
close-woven lairs like spiders and awaiting the approach of unwary
human flies.  Life was at best a dark, inhuman, unkind, unsympathetic
struggle built of cruelties and the law, and its lawyers were the
most despicable representatives of the whole unsatisfactory mess.
Still he used law as he would use any other trap or weapon to rid
him of a human ill; and as for lawyers, he picked them up as he
would any club or knife wherewith to defend himself.  He had no
particular respect for any of them--not even Harper Steger, though
he liked him.  They were tools to be used--knives, keys, clubs,
anything you will; but nothing more.  When they were through they
were paid and dropped--put aside and forgotten.  As for judges,
they were merely incompetent lawyers, at a rule, who were shelved
by some fortunate turn of chance, and who would not, in all
likelihood, be as efficient as the lawyers who pleaded before
them if they were put in the same position.  He had no respect for
judges--he knew too much about them.  He knew how often they were
sycophants, political climbers, political hacks, tools, time-servers,
judicial door-mats lying before the financially and politically
great and powerful who used them as such.  Judges were fools, as
were most other people in this dusty, shifty world.  Pah! His
inscrutable eyes took them all in and gave no sign.  His only
safety lay, he thought, in the magnificent subtley of his own
brain, and nowhere else.  You could not convince Cowperwood of any
great or inherent virtue in this mortal scheme of things.  He knew
too much; he knew himself.

When the judge finally cleared away the various minor motions
pending, he ordered his clerk to call the case of the City of
Philadelphia versus Frank A. Cowperwood, which was done in a clear
voice.  Both Dennis Shannon, the new district attorney, and Steger,
were on their feet at once.  Steger and Cowperwood, together with
Shannon and Strobik, who had now come in and was standing as the
representative of the State of Pennsylvania--the complainant--had
seated themselves at the long table inside the railing which
inclosed the space before the judge's desk.  Steger proposed to
Judge Payderson, for effect's sake more than anything else, that
this indictment be quashed, but was overruled.

A jury to try the case was now quickly impaneled--twelve men out
of the usual list called to serve for the month--and was then ready
to be challenged by the opposing counsel.  The business of impaneling
a jury was a rather simple thing so far as this court was concerned.
It consisted in the mandarin-like clerk taking the names of all
the jurors called to serve in this court for the month--some fifty
in all--and putting them, each written on a separate slip of paper,
in a whirling drum, spinning it around a few times, and then lifting
out the first slip which his hand encountered, thus glorifying
chance and settling on who should be juror No. 1.  His hand reaching
in twelve times drew out the names of the twelve jurymen, who as
their names were called, were ordered to take their places in the
jury-box.

Cowperwood observed this proceeding with a great deal of interest.
What could be more important than the men who were going to try him?
The process was too swift for accurate judgment, but he received
a faint impression of middle-class men.  One man in particular,
however, an old man of sixty-five, with iron-gray hair and beard,
shaggy eyebrows, sallow complexion, and stooped shoulders, struck
him as having that kindness of temperament and breadth of experience
which might under certain circumstances be argumentatively swayed
in his favor.  Another, a small, sharp-nosed, sharp-chinned commercial
man of some kind, he immediately disliked.

"I hope I don't have to have that man on my jury," he said to
Steger, quietly.

"You don't," replied Steger.  "I'll challenge him.  We have the
right to fifteen peremptory challenges on a case like this, and
so has the prosecution."

When the jury-box was finally full, the two lawyers waited for the
clerk to bring them the small board upon which slips of paper bearing
the names of the twelve jurors were fastened in rows in order of
their selection--jurors one, two, and three being in the first row;
four, five, and six in the second, and so on.  It being the
prerogative of the attorney for the prosecution to examine and
challenge the jurors first, Shannon arose, and, taking the board,
began to question them as to their trades or professions, their
knowledge of the case before the court, and their possible prejudice
for or against the prisoner.

It was the business of both Steger and Shannon to find men who knew
a little something of finance and could understand a peculiar
situation of this kind without any of them (looking at it from
Steger's point of view) having any prejudice against a man's trying
to assist himself by reasonable means to weather a financial storm
or (looking at it from Shannon's point of view) having any sympathy
with such means, if they bore about them the least suspicion of
chicanery, jugglery, or dishonest manipulation of any kind.  As
both Shannon and Steger in due course observed for themselves in
connection with this jury, it was composed of that assorted social
fry which the dragnets of the courts, cast into the ocean of the
city, bring to the surface for purposes of this sort.  It was made
up in the main of managers, agents, tradesmen, editors, engineers,
architects, furriers, grocers, traveling salesmen, authors, and
every other kind of working citizen whose experience had fitted
him for service in proceedings of this character.  Rarely would
you have found a man of great distinction; but very frequently a
group of men who were possessed of no small modicum of that
interesting quality known as hard common sense.

Throughout all this Cowperwood sat quietly examining the men.  A
young florist, with a pale face, a wide speculative forehead, and
anemic hands, struck him as being sufficiently impressionable to
his personal charm to be worth while.  He whispered as much to
Steger.  There was a shrewd Jew, a furrier, who was challenged
because he had read all of the news of the panic and had lost two
thousand dollars in street-railway stocks.  There was a stout
wholesale grocer, with red cheeks, blue eyes, and flaxen hair, who
Cowperwood said he thought was stubborn.  He was eliminated.  There
was a thin, dapper manager of a small retail clothing store, very
anxious to be excused, who declared, falsely, that he did not
believe in swearing by the Bible.  Judge Payderson, eyeing him
severely, let him go.  There were some ten more in all--men who
knew of Cowperwood, men who admitted they were prejudiced, men who
were hidebound Republicans and resentful of this crime, men who
knew Stener--who were pleasantly eliminated.

By twelve o'clock, however, a jury reasonably satisfactory to
both sides had been chosen.





Chapter XLI




At two o'clock sharp Dennis Shannon, as district attorney, began
his opening address.  He stated in a very simple, kindly way--for
he had a most engaging manner--that the indictment as here presented
charged Mr. Frank A. Cowperwood, who was sitting at the table
inside the jury-rail, first with larceny, second with embezzlement,
third with larceny as bailee, and fourth with embezzlement of a
certain sum of money--a specific sum, to wit, sixty thousand
dollars--on a check given him (drawn to his order) October 9, 1871,
which was intended to reimburse him for a certain number of
certificates of city loan, which he as agent or bailee of the check
was supposed to have purchased for the city sinking-fund on the
order of the city treasurer (under some form of agreement which
had been in existence between them, and which had been in force
for some time)--said fund being intended to take up such certificates
as they might mature in the hands of holders and be presented for
payment--for which purpose, however, the check in question had
never been used.

"Now, gentlemen," said Mr. Shannon, very quietly, "before we go
into this very simple question of whether Mr. Cowperwood did or
did not on the date in question get from the city treasurer sixty
thousand dollars, for which he made no honest return, let me
explain to you just what the people mean when they charge him
first with larceny, second with embezzlement, third with larceny
as bailee, and fourth with embezzlement on a check.  Now, as you
see, there are four counts here, as we lawyers term them, and the
reason there are four counts is as follows: A man may be guilty
of larceny and embezzlement at the same time, or of larceny or
embezzlement separately, and without being guilty of the other,
and the district attorney representing the people might be uncertain,
not that he was not guilty of both, but that it might not be possible
to present the evidence under one count, so as to insure his adequate
punishment for a crime which in a way involved both.  In such cases,
gentlemen, it is customary to indict a man under separate counts,
as has been done in this case.  Now, the four counts in this case,
in a way, overlap and confirm each other, and it will be your duty,
after we have explained their nature and character and presented
the evidence, to say whether the defendant is guilty on one count
or the other, or on two or three of the counts, or on all four, just
as you see fit and proper--or, to put it in a better way, as the
evidence warrants.  Larceny, as you may or may not know, is the
act of taking away the goods or chattels of another without his
knowledge or consent, and embezzlement is the fraudulent appropriation
to one's own use of what is intrusted to one's care and management,
especially money.  Larceny as bailee, on the other hand, is simply
a more definite form of larceny wherein one fixes the act of
carrying away the goods of another without his knowledge or consent
on the person to whom the goods were delivered in trust that is,
the agent or bailee.  Embezzlement on a check, which constitutes
the fourth charge, is simply a more definite form of fixing charge
number two in an exact way and signifies appropriating the money
on a check given for a certain definite purpose.  All of these
charges, as you can see, gentlemen, are in a way synonymous.  They
overlap and overlay each other.  The people, through their
representative, the district attorney, contend that Mr. Cowperwood,
the defendant here, is guilty of all four charges.  So now, gentlemen,
we will proceed to the history of this crime, which proves to me
as an individual that this defendant has one of the most subtle
and dangerous minds of the criminal financier type, and we hope
by witnesses to prove that to you, also."

Shannon, because the rules of evidence and court procedure here
admitted of no interruption of the prosecution in presenting a
case, then went on to describe from his own point of view how
Cowperwood had first met Stener; how he had wormed himself into
his confidence; how little financial knowledge Stener had, and
so forth; coming down finally to the day the check for sixty
thousand dollars was given Cowperwood; how Stener, as treasurer,
claimed that he knew nothing of its delivery, which constituted
the base of the charge of larceny; how Cowperwood, having it,
misappropriated the certificates supposed to have been purchased
for the sinking-fund, if they were purchased at all--all of which
Shannon said constituted the crimes with which the defendant was
charged, and of which he was unquestionably guilty.

"We have direct and positive evidence of all that we have thus
far contended, gentlemen," Mr. Shannon concluded violently.  "This
is not a matter of hearsay or theory, but of fact.  You will be
shown by direct testimony which cannot be shaken just how it was
done.  If, after you have heard all this, you still think this man
is innocent--that he did not commit the crimes with which he is
charged--it is your business to acquit him.  On the other hand,
if you think the witnesses whom we shall put on the stand are
telling the truth, then it is your business to convict him, to
find a verdict for the people as against the defendant.  I thank
you for your attention."

The jurors stirred comfortably and took positions of ease, in which
they thought they were to rest for the time; but their idle comfort
was of short duration for Shannon now called out the name of George
W. Stener, who came hurrying forward very pale, very flaccid, very
tired-looking.  His eyes, as he took his seat in the witness-chair,
laying his hand on the Bible and swearing to tell the truth, roved
in a restless, nervous manner.

His voice was a little weak as he started to give his testimony.
He told first how he had met Cowperwood in the early months of
1866--he could not remember the exact day; it was during his first
term as city treasurer--he had been elected to the office in the
fall of 1864.  He had been troubled about the condition of city
loan, which was below par, and which could not be sold by the city
legally at anything but par.  Cowperwood had been recommended to
him by some one--Mr. Strobik, he believed, though he couldn't be
sure.  It was the custom of city treasurers to employ brokers, or
a broker, in a crisis of this kind, and he was merely following
what had been the custom.  He went on to describe, under steady
promptings and questions from the incisive mind of Shannon, just
what the nature of this first conversation was--he remembered it
fairly well; how Mr. Cowperwood had said he thought he could do
what was wanted; how he had gone away and drawn up a plan or thought
one out; and how he had returned and laid it before Stener.  Under
Shannon's skillful guidance Stener elucidated just what this scheme
was--which wasn't exactly so flattering to the honesty of men in
general as it was a testimonial to their subtlety and skill.

After much discussion of Stener's and Cowperwood's relations the
story finally got down to the preceding October, when by reason
of companionship, long business understanding, mutually prosperous
relationship, etc., the place bad been reached where, it was
explained, Cowperwood was not only handling several millions of
city loan annually, buying and selling for the city and trading
in it generally, but in the bargain had secured one five hundred
thousand dollars' worth of city money at an exceedingly low rate
of interest, which was being invested for himself and Stener in
profitable street-car ventures of one kind and another.  Stener
was not anxious to be altogether clear on this point; but Shannon,
seeing that he was later to prosecute Stener himself for this very
crime of embezzlement, and that Steger would soon follow in
cross-examination, was not willing to let him be hazy.  Shannon
wanted to fix Cowperwood in the minds of the jury as a clever,
tricky person, and by degrees he certainly managed to indicate a
very subtle-minded man.  Occasionally, as one sharp point after
another of Cowperwood's skill was brought out and made moderately
clear, one juror or another turned to look at Cowperwood.  And he
noting this and in order to impress them all as favorably as
possible merely gazed Stenerward with a steady air of intelligence
and comprehension.

The examination now came down to the matter of the particular check
for sixty thousand dollars which Albert Stires had handed Cowperwood
on the afternoon--late--of October 9, 1871.  Shannon showed Stener
the check itself.  Had he ever seen it? Yes.  Where? In the office
of District Attorney Pettie on October 20th, or thereabouts last.
Was that the first time he had seen it? Yes.  Had he ever heard
about it before then? Yes.  When? On October 10th last.  Would he
kindly tell the jury in his own way just how and under what
circumstances he first heard of it then? Stener twisted uncomfortably
in his chair.  It was a hard thing to do.  It was not a pleasant
commentary on his own character and degree of moral stamina, to
say the least.  However, he cleared his throat again and began a
description of that small but bitter section of his life's drama
in which Cowperwood, finding himself in a tight place and about
to fail, had come to him at his office and demanded that he loan
him three hundred thousand dollars more in one lump sum.

There was considerable bickering just at this point between Steger
and Shannon, for the former was very anxious to make it appear
that Stener was lying out of the whole cloth about this.  Steger
got in his objection at this point, and created a considerable
diversion from the main theme, because Stener kept saying he
"thought" or he "believed."

"Object!" shouted Steger, repeatedly.  "I move that that be
stricken from the record as incompetent, irrelevant, and immaterial.
The witness is not allowed to say what he thinks, and the
prosecution knows it very well."

"Your honor," insisted Shannon, "I am doing the best I can to have
the witness tell a plain, straightforward story, and I think that
it is obvious that he is doing so."

"Object!" reiterated Steger, vociferously.  "Your honor, I insist
that the district attorney has no right to prejudice the minds of
the jury by flattering estimates of the sincerity of the witness.
What he thinks of the witness and his sincerity is of no importance
in this case.  I must ask that your honor caution him plainly in
this matter."

"Objection sustained," declared Judge Payderson, "the prosecution
will please be more explicit"; and Shannon went on with his case.

Stener's testimony, in one respect, was most important, for it made
plain what Cowperwood did not want brought out--namely, that he
and Stener had had a dispute before this; that Stener had distinctly
told Cowperwood that he would not loan him any more money; that
Cowperwood had told Stener, on the day before he secured this check,
and again on that very day, that he was in a very desperate situation
financially, and that if he were not assisted to the extent of
three hundred thousand dollars he would fail, and that then both
he and Stener would be ruined.  On the morning of this day, according
to Stener, he had sent Cowperwood a letter ordering him to cease
purchasing city loan certificates for the sinking-fund.  It was
after their conversation on the same afternoon that Cowperwood
surreptitiously secured the check for sixty thousand dollars from
Albert Stires without his (Stener's) knowledge; and it was subsequent
to this latter again that Stener, sending Albert to demand the
return of the check, was refused, though the next day at five
o'clock in the afternoon Cowperwood made an assignment.  And the
certificates for which the check had been purloined were not in
the sinking-fund as they should have been.  This was dark testimony
for Cowperwood.

If any one imagines that all this was done without many vehement
objections and exceptions made and taken by Steger, and subsequently
when he was cross-examining Stener, by Shannon, he errs greatly.
At times the chamber was coruscating with these two gentlemen's
bitter wrangles, and his honor was compelled to hammer his desk
with his gavel, and to threaten both with contempt of court, in
order to bring them to a sense of order.  Indeed while Payderson
was highly incensed, the jury was amused and interested.

"You gentlemen will have to stop this, or I tell you now that you
will both be heavily fined.  This is a court of law, not a bar-room.
Mr. Steger, I expect you to apologize to me and your colleague at
once.  Mr. Shannon, I must ask that you use less aggressive methods.
Your manner is offensive to me.  It is not becoming to a court of
law.  I will not caution either of you again."

Both lawyers apologized as lawyers do on such occasions, but it
really made but little difference.  Their individual attitudes
and moods continued about as before.

"What did he say to you," asked Shannon of Stener, after one of
these troublesome interruptions, "on that occasion, October 9th
last, when he came to you and demanded the loan of an additional
three hundred thousand dollars? Give his words as near as you can
remember--exactly, if possible."

"Object!" interposed Steger, vigorously.  "His exact words are
not recorded anywhere except in Mr. Stener's memory, and his memory
of them cannot be admitted in this case.  The witness has testified
to the general facts."

Judge Payderson smiled grimly.  "Objection overruled," he returned.

"Exception!" shouted Steger.

"He said, as near as I can remember," replied Stener, drumming on
the arms of the witness-chair in a nervous way, "that if I didn't
give him three hundred thousand dollars he was going to fail, and
I would be poor and go to the penitentiary."

"Object!" shouted Stager, leaping to his feet.  "Your honor, I
object to the whole manner in which this examination is being
conducted by the prosecution.  The evidence which the district
attorney is here trying to extract from the uncertain memory of
the witness is in defiance of all law and precedent, and has no
definite bearing on the facts of the case, and could not disprove
or substantiate whether Mr. Cowperwood thought or did not think
that he was going to fail.  Mr. Stener might give one version of
this conversation or any conversation that took place at this time,
and Mr. Cowperwood another.  As a matter of fact, their versions
are different.  I see no point in Mr. Shannon's line of inquiry,
unless it is to prejudice the jury's minds towards accepting certain
allegations which the prosecution is pleased to make and which it
cannot possibly substantiate.  I think you ought to caution the
witness to testify only in regard to things that he recalls exactly,
not to what he thinks he remembers; and for my part I think that
all that has been testified to in the last five minutes might be
well stricken out."

"Objection overruled," replied Judge Payderson, rather indifferently;
and Steger who had been talking merely to overcome the weight of
Stener's testimony in the minds of the jury, sat down.

Shannon once more approached Stener.

"Now, as near as you can remember, Mr. Stener, I wish you would
tell the jury what else it was that Mr. Cowperwood said on that
occasion.  He certainly didn't stop with the remark that you would
be ruined and go to the penitentiary.  Wasn't there other language
that was employed on that occasion?"

"He said, as far as I can remember," replied Stener, "that there
were a lot of political schemers who were trying to frighten me,
that if I didn't give him three hundred thousand dollars we would
both be ruined, and that I might as well be tried for stealing a
sheep as a lamb."

"Ha!" yelled Shannon.  "He said that, did he?"

"Yes, sir; he did," said Stener.

"How did he say it, exactly? What were his exact words?" Shannon
demanded, emphatically, pointing a forceful forefinger at Stener
in order to key him up to a clear memory of what had transpired.

"Well, as near as I can remember, he said just that," replied
Stener, vaguely.  "You might as well be tried for stealing a sheep
as a lamb."

"Exactly!" exclaimed Shannon, whirling around past the jury to
look at Cowperwood.  "I thought so."

"Pure pyrotechnics, your honor," said Steger, rising to his feet
on the instant.  "All intended to prejudice the minds of the jury.
Acting.  I wish you would caution the counsel for the prosecution
to confine himself to the evidence in hand, and not act for the
benefit of his case."

The spectators smiled; and Judge Payderson, noting it, frowned
severely.  "Do you make that as an objection, Mr. Steger?" he asked.

"I certainly do, your honor," insisted Steger, resourcefully.

"Objection overruled.  Neither counsel for the prosecution nor for
the defense is limited to a peculiar routine of expression."

Steger himself was ready to smile, but he did not dare to.

Cowperwood fearing the force of such testimony and regretting it,
still looked at Stener, pityingly.  The feebleness of the man;
the weakness of the man; the pass to which his cowardice had
brought them both!

When Shannon was through bringing out this unsatisfactory data,
Steger took Stener in hand; but he could not make as much out of
him as he hoped.  In so far as this particular situation was
concerned, Stener was telling the exact truth; and it is hard to
weaken the effect of the exact truth by any subtlety of interpretation,
though it can, sometimes, be done.  With painstaking care Steger
went over all the ground of Stener's long relationship with
Cowperwood, and tried to make it appear that Cowperwood was
invariably the disinterested agent--not the ringleader in a subtle,
really criminal adventure.  It was hard to do, but he made a fine
impression.  Still the jury listened with skeptical minds.  It
might not be fair to punish Cowperwood for seizing with avidity
upon a splendid chance to get rich quick, they thought; but it
certainly was not worth while to throw a veil of innocence over
such palpable human cupidity.  Finally, both lawyers were through
with Stener for the time being, anyhow, and then Albert Stires was
called to the stand.

He was the same thin, pleasant, alert, rather agreeable soul that
he had been in the heyday of his clerkly prosperity--a little paler
now, but not otherwise changed.  His small property had been saved
for him by Cowperwood, who had advised Steger to inform the Municipal
Reform Association that Stires' bondsmen were attempting to
sequestrate it for their own benefit, when actually it should go
to the city if there were any real claim against him--which there
was not.  That watchful organization had issued one of its numerous
reports covering this point, and Albert had had the pleasure of
seeing Strobik and the others withdraw in haste.  Naturally he was
grateful to Cowperwood, even though once he had been compelled to
cry in vain in his presence.  He was anxious now to do anything
he could to help the banker, but his naturally truthful disposition
prevented him from telling anything except the plain facts, which
were partly beneficial and partly not.

Stires testified that he recalled Cowperwood's saying that he had
purchased the certificates, that he was entitled to the money,
that Stener was unduly frightened, and that no harm would come to
him, Albert.  He identified certain memoranda in the city treasurer's
books, which were produced, as being accurate, and others in
Cowperwood's books, which were also produced, as being corroborative.
His testimony as to Stener's astonishment on discovering that his
chief clerk had given Cowperwood a check was against the latter; but
Cowperwood hoped to overcome the effect of this by his own testimony
later.

Up to now both Steger and Cowperwood felt that they were doing
fairly well, and that they need not be surprised if they won their
case.





Chapter XLII




The trial moved on.   One witness for the prosecution after another
followed until the State had built up an arraignment that satisfied
Shannon that he had established Cowperwood's guilt, whereupon he
announced that he rested.  Steger at once arose and began a long
argument for the dismissal of the case on the ground that there
was no evidence to show this, that and the other, but Judge Payderson
would have none of it.  He knew how important the matter was in
the local political world.

"I don't think you had better go into all that now, Mr. Steger,"
he said, wearily, after allowing him to proceed a reasonable
distance.  "I am familiar with the custom of the city, and the
indictment as here made does not concern the custom of the city.
Your argument is with the jury, not with me.  I couldn't enter
into that now.  You may renew your motion at the close of the
defendants' case.  Motion denied."

District-Attorney Shannon, who had been listening attentively,
sat down.  Steger, seeing there was no chance to soften the judge's
mind by any subtlety of argument, returned to Cowperwood, who
smiled at the result.

"We'll just have to take our chances with the jury," he announced.

"I was sure of it," replied Cowperwood.

Steger then approached the jury, and, having outlined the case
briefly from his angle of observation, continued by telling them
what he was sure the evidence would show from his point of view.

"As a matter of fact, gentlemen, there is no essential difference
in the evidence which the prosecution can present and that which
we, the defense, can present.  We are not going to dispute that
Mr. Cowperwood received a check from Mr. Stener for sixty thousand
dollars, or that he failed to put the certificate of city loan
which that sum of money represented, and to which he was entitled
in payment as agent, in the sinking-fund, as the prosecution now
claims he should have done; but we are going to claim and prove
also beyond the shadow of a reasonable doubt that he had a right,
as the agent of the city, doing business with the city through its
treasury department for four years, to withhold, under an agreement
which he had with the city treasurer, all payments of money and
all deposits of certificates in the sinking-fund until the first
day of each succeeding month--the first month following any given
transaction.  As a matter of fact we can and will bring many traders
and bankers who have had dealings with the city treasury in the
past in just this way to prove this.  The prosecution is going
to ask you to believe that Mr. Cowperwood knew at the time he
received this check that he was going to fail; that he did not buy
the certificates, as he claimed, with the view of placing them in
the sinking-fund; and that, knowing he was going to fail, and that
he could not subsequently deposit them, he deliberately went to
Mr. Albert Stires, Mr. Stener's secretary, told him that he had
purchased such certificates, and on the strength of a falsehood,
implied if not actually spoken, secured the check, and walked away.

"Now, gentlemen, I am not going to enter into a long-winded discussion
of these points at this time, since the testimony is going to show
very rapidly what the facts are.  We have a number of witnesses
here, and we are all anxious to have them heard.  What I am going
to ask you to remember is that there is not one scintilla of
testimony outside of that which may possibly be given by Mr. George
W. Stener, which will show either that Mr. Cowperwood knew, at
the time he called on the city treasurer, that he was going to fail,
or that he had not purchased the certificates in question, or that
he had not the right to withhold them from the sinking-fund as long
as he pleased up to the first of the month, the time he invariably
struck a balance with the city.  Mr. Stener, the ex-city treasurer,
may possibly testify one way.  Mr. Cowperwood, on his own behalf,
will testify another.  It will then be for you gentlemen to decide
between them, to decide which one you prefer to believe--Mr. George
W. Stener, the ex-city treasurer, the former commercial associate
of Mr. Cowperwood, who, after years and years of profit, solely
because of conditions of financial stress, fire, and panic, preferred
to turn on his one-time associate from whose labors he had reaped
so much profit, or Mr. Frank A. Cowperwood, the well-known banker
and financier, who did his best to weather the storm alone, who
fulfilled to the letter every agreement he ever had with the city,
who has even until this hour been busy trying to remedy the unfair
financial difficulties forced upon him by fire and panic, and who
only yesterday made an offer to the city that, if he were allowed
to continue in uninterrupted control of his affairs he would gladly
repay as quickly as possible every dollar of his indebtedness
(which is really not all his), including the five hundred thousand
dollars under discussion between him and Mr. Stener and the city,
and so prove by his works, not talk, that there was no basis for
this unfair suspicion of his motives.  As you perhaps surmise, the
city has not chosen to accept his offer, and I shall try and tell
you why later, gentlemen.  For the present we will proceed with
the testimony, and for the defense all I ask is that you give very
close attention to all that is testified to here to-day.  Listen
very carefully to Mr. W. C. Davison when he is put on the stand.
Listen equally carefully to Mr. Cowperwood when we call him to
testify.  Follow the other testimony closely, and then you will
be able to judge for yourselves.  See if you can distinguish a
just motive for this prosecution.  I can't.  I am very much obliged
to you for listening to me, gentlemen, so attentively."

He then put on Arthur Rivers, who had acted for Cowperwood on
'change as special agent during the panic, to testify to the large
quantities of city loan he had purchased to stay the market; and
then after him, Cowperwood's brothers, Edward and Joseph, who
testified to instructions received from Rivers as to buying and
selling city loan on that occasion--principally buying.

The next witness was President W. C. Davison of the Girard National
Bank.  He was a large man physically, not so round of body as
full and broad.  His shoulders and chest were ample.  He had a
big blond head, with an ample breadth of forehead, which was high
and sane-looking.  He had a thick, squat nose, which, however,
was forceful, and thin, firm, even lips.  There was the faintest
touch of cynical humor in his hard blue eyes at times; but mostly
he was friendly, alert, placid-looking, without seeming in the
least sentimental or even kindly.  His business, as one could see
plainly, was to insist on hard financial facts, and one could see
also how he would naturally be drawn to Frank Algernon Cowperwood
without being mentally dominated or upset by him.  As he took the
chair very quietly, and yet one might say significantly, it was
obvious that he felt that this sort of legal-financial palaver was
above the average man and beneath the dignity of a true financier--
in other words, a bother.  The drowsy Sparkheaver holding up a
Bible beside him for him to swear by might as well have been a
block of wood.  His oath was a personal matter with him.  It was
good business to tell the truth at times.  His testimony was very
direct and very simple.

He had known Mr. Frank Algernon Cowperwood for nearly ten years.
He had done business with or through him nearly all of that time.
He knew nothing of his personal relations with Mr. Stener, and did
not know Mr. Stener personally.  As for the particular check of
sixty thousand dollars--yes, he had seen it before.  It had come
into the bank on October 10th along with other collateral to offset
an overdraft on the part of Cowperwood & Co.  It was placed to
the credit of Cowperwood & Co. on the books of the bank, and the
bank secured the cash through the clearing-house.  No money was
drawn out of the bank by Cowperwood & Co. after that to create an
overdraft.  The bank's account with Cowperwood was squared.

Nevertheless, Mr. Cowperwood might have drawn heavily, and nothing
would have been thought of it.  Mr. Davison did not know that Mr.
Cowperwood was going to fail--did not suppose that he could, so
quickly.  He had frequently overdrawn his account with the bank;
as a matter of fact, it was the regular course of his business to
overdraw it.  It kept his assets actively in use, which was the
height of good business.  His overdrafts were protected by collateral,
however, and it was his custom to send bundles of collateral or
checks, or both, which were variously distributed to keep things
straight.  Mr. Cowperwood's account was the largest and most active
in the bank, Mr. Davison kindly volunteered.  When Mr. Cowperwood
had failed there had been over ninety thousand dollars' worth of
certificates of city loan in the bank's possession which Mr
Cowperwood had sent there as collateral.  Shannon, on cross-examination,
tried to find out for the sake of the effect on the jury, whether
Mr. Davison was not for some ulterior motive especially favorable
to Cowperwood.  It was not possible for him to do that.  Steger
followed, and did his best to render the favorable points made by
Mr. Davison in Cowperwood's behalf perfectly clear to the jury by
having him repeat them.  Shannon objected, of course, but it was
of no use.  Steger managed to make his point.

He now decided to have Cowperwood take the stand, and at the
mention of his name in this connection the whole courtroom bristled.

Cowperwood came forward briskly and quickly.  He was so calm, so
jaunty, so defiant of life, and yet so courteous to it.  These
lawyers, this jury, this straw-and-water judge, these machinations
of fate, did not basically disturb or humble or weaken him.  He
saw through the mental equipment of the jury at once.  He wanted
to assist his counsel in disturbing and confusing Shannon, but
his reason told him that only an indestructible fabric of fact or
seeming would do it.  He believed in the financial rightness of
the thing he had done.  He was entitled to do it.  Life was war--
particularly financial life; and strategy was its keynote, its
duty, its necessity.  Why should he bother about petty, picayune
minds which could not understand this? He went over his history
for Steger and the jury, and put the sanest, most comfortable
light on it that he could.  He had not gone to Mr. Stener in the
first place, he said--he had been called.  He had not urged Mr.
Stener to anything.  He had merely shown him and his friends
financial possibilities which they were only too eager to seize
upon.  And they had seized upon them.  (It was not possible for
Shannon to discover at this period how subtly he had organized
his street-car companies so that he could have "shaken out" Stener
and his friends without their being able to voice a single protest,
so he talked of these things as opportunities which he had made
for Stener and others.  Shannon was not a financier, neither was
Steger.  They had to believe in a way, though they doubted it,
partly--particularly Shannon.)  He was not responsible for the
custom prevailing in the office of the city treasurer, he said.
He was a banker and broker.

The jury looked at him, and believed all except this matter of
the sixty-thousand-dollar check.  When it came to that he explained
it all plausibly enough.  When he had gone to see Stener those
several last days, he had not fancied that he was really going to
fail.  He had asked Stener for some money, it is true--not so very
much, all things considered--one hundred and fifty thousand dollars;
but, as Stener should have testified, he (Cowperwood) was not
disturbed in his manner.  Stener had merely been one resource of
his.  He was satisfied at that time that he had many others.  He
had not used the forceful language or made the urgent appeal which
Stener said he had, although he had pointed out to Stener that it
was a mistake to become panic-stricken, also to withhold further
credit.  It was true that Stener was his easiest, his quickest
resource, but not his only one.  He thought, as a matter of fact,
that his credit would be greatly extended by his principal money
friends if necessary, and that he would have ample time to patch
up his affairs and keep things going until the storm should blow
over.  He had told Stener of his extended purchase of city loan
to stay the market on the first day of the panic, and of the fact
that sixty thousand dollars was due him.  Stener had made no
objection.  It was just possible that he was too mentally disturbed
at the time to pay close attention.  After that, to his, Cowperwood's,
surprise, unexpected pressure on great financial houses from
unexpected directions had caused them to be not willingly but
unfortunately severe with him.  This pressure, coming collectively
the next day, had compelled him to close his doors, though he had
not really expected to up to the last moment.  His call for the
sixty-thousand-dollar check at the time had been purely fortuitous.
He needed the money, of course, but it was due him, and his clerks
were all very busy.  He merely asked for and took it personally
to save time.  Stener knew if it had been refused him he would have
brought suit.  The matter of depositing city loan certificates in
the sinking-fund, when purchased for the city, was something to
which he never gave any personal attention whatsoever.  His
bookkeeper, Mr. Stapley, attended to all that.  He did not know,
as a matter of fact, that they had not been deposited.  (This was
a barefaced lie.  He did know.)  As for the check being turned over
to the Girard National Bank, that was fortuitous.  It might just
as well have been turned over to some other bank if the conditions
had been different.

Thus on and on he went, answering all of Steger's and Shannon's
searching questions with the most engaging frankness, and you
could have sworn from the solemnity with which he took it all--
the serious business attention--that he was the soul of so-called
commercial honor.  And to say truly, he did believe in the justice
as well as the necessity and the importance of all that he had
done and now described.  He wanted the jury to see it as he saw
it--put itself in his place and sympathize with him.

He was through finally, and the effect on the jury of his testimony
and his personality was peculiar.  Philip Moultrie, juror No. 1,
decided that Cowperwood was lying.  He could not see how it was
possible that he could not know the day before that he was going
to fail.  He must have known, he thought.  Anyhow, the whole series
of transactions between him and Stener seemed deserving of some
punishment, and all during this testimony he was thinking how,
when he got in the jury-room, he would vote guilty.  He even
thought of some of the arguments he would use to convince the
others that Cowperwood was guilty.  Juror No. 2, on the contrary,
Simon Glassberg, a clothier, thought he understood how it all came
about, and decided to vote for acquittal.  He did not think Cowperwood
was innocent, but he did not think he deserved to be punished.
Juror No. 3, Fletcher Norton, an architect, thought Cowperwood was
guilty, but at the same time that he was too talented to be sent
to prison.  Juror No. 4, Charles Hillegan, an Irishman, a contractor,
and a somewhat religious-minded person, thought Cowperwood was
guilty and ought to be punished.  Juror No. 5, Philip Lukash, a
coal merchant, thought he was guilty.  Juror No. 6, Benjamin Fraser,
a mining expert, thought he was probably guilty, but he could not
be sure.  Uncertain what he would do, juror No. 7, J. J. Bridges,
a broker in Third Street, small, practical, narrow, thought
Cowperwood was shrewd and guilty and deserved to be punished.  He
would vote for his punishment.  Juror No. 8, Guy E. Tripp, general
manager of a small steamboat company, was uncertain.  Juror No.
9, Joseph Tisdale, a retired glue manufacturer, thought Cowperwood
was probably guilty as charged, but to Tisdale it was no crime.
Cowperwood was entitled to do as he had done under the circumstances.
Tisdale would vote for his acquittal.  Juror No. 10, Richard Marsh,
a young florist, was for Cowperwood in a sentimental way.  He had,
as a matter of fact, no real convictions.  Juror No. 11, Richard
Webber, a grocer, small financially, but heavy physically, was for
Cowperwood's conviction.  He thought him guilty.  Juror No. 12,
Washington B. Thomas, a wholesale flour merchant, thought Cowperwood
was guilty, but believed in a recommendation to mercy after
pronouncing him so.  Men ought to be reformed, was his slogan.

So they stood, and so Cowperwood left them, wondering whether any
of his testimony had had a favorable effect.





Chapter XLIII




Since it is the privilege of the lawyer for the defense to address
the jury first, Steger bowed politely to his colleague and came
forward.  Putting his hands on the jury-box rail, he began in a
very quiet, modest, but impressive way:

  "Gentlemen of the jury, my client, Mr. Frank Algernon Cowperwood,
  a well-known banker and financier of this city, doing business in
  Third Street, is charged by the State of Pennsylvania, represented
  by the district attorney of this district, with fraudulently
  transferring from the treasury of the city of Philadelphia to his
  own purse the sum of sixty thousand dollars, in the form of a check
  made out to his order, dated October 9, 1871, and by him received
  from one Albert Stires, the private secretary and head bookkeeper
  of the treasurer of this city, at the time in question.  Now,
  gentlemen, what are the facts in this connection? You have heard
  the various witnesses and know the general outlines of the story.
  Take the testimony of George W. Stener, to begin with.  He tells
  you that sometime back in the year 1866 he was greatly in need of
  some one, some banker or broker, who would tell him how to bring
  city loan, which was selling very low at the time, to par--who
  would not only tell him this, but proceed to demonstrate that his
  knowledge was accurate by doing it.  Mr. Stener was an
  inexperienced man at the time in the matter of finance.  Mr.
  Cowperwood was an active young man with an enviable record as a
  broker and a trader on 'change.  He proceeded to demonstrate to
  Mr. Stener not only in theory, but in fact, how this thing of
  bringing city loan to par could be done.  He made an arrangement
  at that time with Mr. Stener, the details of which you have
  heard from Mr. Stener himself, the result of which was that a
  large amount of city loan was turned over to Mr. Cowperwood by
  Mr. Stener for sale, and by adroit manipulation--methods of
  buying and selling which need not be gone into here, but which
  are perfectly sane and legitimate in the world in which Mr.
  Cowperwood operated, did bring that loan to par, and kept it
  there year after year as you have all heard here testified to.

  "Now what is the bone of contention here, gentlemen, the
  significant fact which brings Mr. Stener into this court at
  this time charging his old-time agent and broker with larceny
  and embezzlement, and alleging that he has transferred to his
  own use without a shadow of return sixty thousand dollars of
  the money which belongs to the city treasury? What is it? Is
  it that Mr. Cowperwood secretly, with great stealth, as it were,
  at some time or other, unknown to Mr. Stener or to his assistants,
  entered the office of the treasurer and forcibly, and with
  criminal intent, carried away sixty thousand dollars' worth of
  the city's money? Not at all.  The charge is, as you have heard
  the district attorney explain, that Mr. Cowperwood came in
  broad daylight at between four and five o'clock of the afternoon
  preceeding the day of his assignment; was closeted with Mr.
  Stener for a half or three-quarters of an hour; came out;
  explained to Mr. Albert Stires that he had recently bought sixty
  thousand dollars' worth of city loan for the city sinking-fund,
  for which he had not been paid; asked that the amount be
  credited on the city's books to him, and that he be given a
  check, which was his due, and walked out.  Anything very
  remarkable about that, gentlemen? Anything very strange? Has
  it been testified here to-day that Mr. Cowperwood was not the
  agent of the city for the transaction of just such business as
  he said on that occasion that he had transacted? Did any one say
  here on the witness-stand that he had not bought city loan as
  he said he had?

  "Why is it then that Mr. Stener charges Mr. Cowperwood with
  larcenously securing and feloniously disposing of a check for
  sixty thousand dollars for certificates which he had a right to
  buy, and which it has not been contested here that he did buy?
  The reason lies just here--listen--just here.  At the time my
  client asked for the check and took it away with him and
  deposited it in his own bank to his own account, he failed,
  so the prosecution insists, to put the sixty thousand dollars'
  worth of certificates for which he had received the check, in
  the sinking-fund; and having failed to do that, and being
  compelled by the pressure of financial events the same day to
  suspend payment generally, he thereby, according to the
  prosecution and the anxious leaders of the Republican party in
  the city, became an embezzler, a thief, a this or that--anything
  you please so long as you find a substitute for George W. Stener
  and the indifferent leaders of the Republican party in the eyes
  of the people."

And here Mr. Steger proceeded boldly and defiantly to outline the
entire political situation as it had manifested itself in connection
with the Chicago fire, the subsequent panic and its political
consequences, and to picture Cowperwood as the unjustly maligned
agent, who before the fire was valuable and honorable enough to
suit any of the political leaders of Philadelphia, but afterward,
and when political defeat threatened, was picked upon as the most
available scapegoat anywhere within reach.

And it took him a half hour to do that.  And afterward but only
after he had pointed to Stener as the true henchman and stalking
horse, who had, in turn, been used by political forces above him
to accomplish certain financial results, which they were not
willing to have ascribed to themselves, he continued with:

  "But now, in the light of all this, only see how ridiculous all
  this is! How silly! Frank A. Cowperwood had always been the
  agent of the city in these matters for years and years.  He
  worked under certain rules which he and Mr. Stener had agreed
  upon in the first place, and which obviously came from others,
  who were above Mr. Stener, since they were hold-over customs
  and rules from administrations, which had been long before Mr.
  Stener ever appeared on the scene as city treasurer.  One of
  them was that he could carry all transactions over until the
  first of the month following before he struck a balance.  That
  is, he need not pay any money over for anything to the city
  treasurer, need not send him any checks or deposit any money or
  certificates in the sinking-fund until the first of the month
  because--now listen to this carefully, gentlemen; it is
  important--because his transactions in connection with city
  loan and everything else that he dealt in for the city treasurer
  were so numerous, so swift, so uncalculated beforehand, that
  he had to have a loose, easy system of this kind in order to do
  his work properly--to do business at all.  Otherwise he could
  not very well have worked to the best advantage for Mr. Stener,
  or for any one else.  It would have meant too much bookkeeping
  for him--too much for the city treasurer.  Mr. Stener has
  testified to that in the early part of his story.  Albert Stires
  has indicated that that was his understanding of it.  Well, then
  what? Why, just this.  Would any jury suppose, would any sane
  business man believe that if such were the case Mr. Cowperwood
  would be running personally with all these items of deposit,
  to the different banks or the sinking-fund or the city treasurer's
  office, or would be saying to his head bookkeeper, 'Here, Stapley,
  here is a check for sixty thousand dollars.  See that the
  certificates of loan which this represents are put in the
  sinking-fund to-day'? And why not? What a ridiculous supposition
  any other supposition is! As a matter of course and as had
  always been the case, Mr. Cowperwood had a system.  When the
  time came, this check and these certificates would be
  automatically taken care of.  He handed his bookkeeper the
  check and forgot all about it.  Would you imagine a banker with
  a vast business of this kind doing anything else?"

Mr. Steger paused for breath and inquiry, and then, having satisfied
himself that his point had been sufficiently made, he continued:

  "Of course the answer is that he knew he was going to fail.
  Well, Mr. Cowperwood's reply is that he didn't know anything of
  the sort.  He has personally testified here that it was only at
  the last moment before it actually happened that he either
  thought or knew of such an occurrence.  Why, then, this alleged
  refusal to let him have the check to which he was legally entitled?
  I think I know.  I think I can give a reason if you will hear me
  out."

Steger shifted his position and came at the jury from another
intellectual angle:

  "It was simply because Mr. George W. Stener at that time, owing
  to a recent notable fire and a panic, imagined for some reason--
  perhaps because Mr. Cowperwood cautioned him not to become
  frightened over local developments generally--that Mr. Cowperwood
  was going to close his doors; and having considerable money on
  deposit with him at a low rate of interest, Mr. Stener decided
  that Mr. Cowperwood must not have any more money--not even the
  money that was actually due him for services rendered, and that
  had nothing whatsoever to do with the money loaned him by Mr.
  Stener at two and one-half per cent.  Now isn't that a ridiculous
  situation? But it was because Mr. George W. Stener was filled
  with his own fears, based on a fire and a panic which had
  absolutely nothing to do with Mr. Cowperwood's solvency in the
  beginning that he decided not to let Frank A. Cowperwood have
  the money that was actually due him, because he, Stener, was
  criminally using the city's money to further his own private
  interests (through Mr. Cowperwood as a broker), and in danger
  of being exposed and possibly punished.  Now where, I ask you,
  does the good sense of that decision come in? Is it apparent to
  you, gentlemen? Was Mr. Cowperwood still an agent for the city
  at the time he bought the loan certificates as here testified?
  He certainly was.  If so, was he entitled to that money? Who is
  going to stand up here and deny it? Where is the question then,
  as to his right or his honesty in this matter? How does it come
  in here at all? I can tell you.  It sprang solely from one source
  and from nowhere else, and that is the desire of the politicians
  of this city to find a scapegoat for the Republican party.

  "Now you may think I am going rather far afield for an explanation
  of this very peculiar decision to prosecute Mr. Cowperwood, an
  agent of the city, for demanding and receiving what actually
  belonged to him.  But I'm not.  Consider the position of the
  Republican party at that time.  Consider the fact that an exposure
  of the truth in regard to the details of a large defalcation in
  the city treasury would have a very unsatisfactory effect on the
  election about to be held.  The Republican party had a new city
  treasurer to elect, a new district attorney.  It had been in the
  habit of allowing its city treasurers the privilege of investing
  the funds in their possession at a low rate of interest for the
  benefit of themselves and their friends.  Their salaries were
  small.  They had to have some way of eking out a reasonable
  existence.  Was Mr. George Stener responsible for this custom of
  loaning out the city money? Not at all.  Was Mr. Cowperwood? Not
  at all.  The custom had been in vogue long before either Mr.
  Cowperwood or Mr. Stener came on the scene.  Why, then, this
  great hue and cry about it now? The entire uproar sprang solely
  from the fear of Mr. Stener at this juncture, the fear of the
  politicians at this juncture, of public exposure.  No city
  treasurer had ever been exposed before.  It was a new thing to
  face exposure, to face the risk of having the public's attention
  called to a rather nefarious practice of which Mr. Stener was
  taking advantage, that was all.  A great fire and a panic were
  endangering the security and well-being of many a financial
  organization in the city--Mr. Cowperwood's among others.  It
  meant many possible failures, and many possible failures meant
  one possible failure.  If Frank A. Cowperwood failed, he would
  fail owing the city of Philadelphia five hundred thousand dollars,
  borrowed from the city treasurer at the very low rate of interest
  of two and one-half per cent.  Anything very detrimental to Mr.
  Cowperwood in that? Had he gone to the city treasurer and asked
  to be loaned money at two and one-half per cent.? If he had, was
  there anything criminal in it from a business point of view?
  Isn't a man entitled to borrow money from any source he can at
  the lowest possible rate of interest? Did Mr. Stener have to
  loan it to Mr. Cowperwood if he did not want to? As a matter of
  fact didn't he testify here to-day that he personally had sent
  for Mr. Cowperwood in the first place? Why, then, in Heaven's
  name, this excited charge of larceny, larceny as bailee,
  embezzlement, embezzlement on a check, etc., etc.?

  "Once more, gentlemen, listen.  I'll tell you why.  The men
  who stood behind Stener, and whose bidding he was doing, wanted
  to make a political scapegoat of some one--of Frank Algernon
  Cowperwood, if they couldn't get any one else.  That's why.
  No other reason under God's blue sky, not one.  Why, if Mr.
  Cowperwood needed more money just at that time to tide him
  over, it would have been good policy for them to have given it
  to him and hushed this matter up.  It would have been illegal--
  though not any more illegal than anything else that has ever
  been done in this connection--but it would have been safer.
  Fear, gentlemen, fear, lack of courage, inability to meet a
  great crisis when a great crisis appears, was all that really
  prevented them from doing this.  They were afraid to place
  confidence in a man who had never heretofore betrayed their
  trust and from whose loyalty and great financial ability they
  and the city had been reaping large profits.  The reigning city
  treasurer of the time didn't have the courage to go on in the
  face of fire and panic and the rumors of possible failure, and
  stick by his illegal guns; and so he decided to draw in his
  horns as testified here to-day--to ask Mr. Cowperwood to return
  all or at least a big part of the five hundred thousand dollars
  he had loaned him, and which Cowperwood had been actually using
  for his, Stener's benefit, and to refuse him in addition the
  money that was actually due him for an authorized purchase of
  city loan.  Was Cowperwood guilty as an agent in any of these
  transactions? Not in the least.  Was there any suit pending to
  make him return the five hundred thousand dollars of city money
  involved in his present failure? Not at all.  It was simply a
  case of wild, silly panic on the part of George W. Stener, and
  a strong desire on the part of the Republican party leaders,
  once they discovered what the situation was, to find some one
  outside of Stener, the party treasurer, upon whom they could
  blame the shortage in the treasury.  You heard what Mr.
  Cowperwood testified to here in this case to-day--that he went
  to Mr. Stener to forfend against any possible action of this
  kind in the first place.  And it was because of this very
  warning that Mr. Stener became wildly excited, lost his head,
  and wanted Mr. Cowperwood to return him all his money, all the
  five hundred thousand dollars he had loaned him at two and
  one-half per cent.  Isn't that silly financial business at the
  best? Wasn't that a fine time to try to call a perfectly legal
  loan?

  "But now to return to this particular check of sixty thousand
  dollars.  When Mr. Cowperwood called that last afternoon before
  he failed, Mr. Stener testified that he told him that he couldn't
  have any more money, that it was impossible, and that then Mr.
  Cowperwood went out into his general office and without his
  knowledge or consent persuaded his chief clerk and secretary,
  Mr. Albert Stires, to give him a check for sixty thousand dollars,
  to which he was not entitled and on which he, Stener, would
  have stopped payment if he had known.

  "What nonsense! Why didn't he know? The books were there, open
  to him.  Mr. Stires told him the first thing the next morning.
  Mr. Cowperwood thought nothing of it, for he was entitled to it,
  and could collect it in any court of law having jurisdiction in
  such cases, failure or no failure.  It is silly for Mr. Stener
  to say he would have stopped payment.  Such a claim was probably
  an after-thought of the next morning after he had talked with his
  friends, the politicians, and was all a part, a trick, a trap,
  to provide the Republican party with a scapegoat at this time.
  Nothing more and nothing less; and you may be sure no one knew
  it better than the people who were most anxious to see Mr.
  Cowperwood convicted."

Steger paused and looked significantly at Shannon.

  "Gentlemen of the jury [he finally concluded, quietly and
  earnestly], you are going to find, when you think it over in
  the jury-room this evening, that this charge of larceny and
  larceny as bailee, and embezzlement of a check for sixty
  thousand dollars, which are contained in this indictment, and
  which represent nothing more than the eager effort of the
  district attorney to word this one act in such a way that it
  will look like a crime, represents nothing more than the excited
  imagination of a lot of political refugees who are anxious to
  protect their own skirts at the expense of Mr. Cowperwood, and
  who care for nothing--honor, fair play, or anything else, so
  long as they are let off scot-free.  They don't want the
  Republicans of Pennsylvania to think too ill of the Republican
  party management and control in this city.  They want to protect
  George W. Stener as much as possible and to make a political
  scapegoat of my client.  It can't be done, and it won't be done.
  As honorable, intelligent men you won't permit it to be done.
  And I think with that thought I can safely leave you."

Steger suddenly turned from the jury-box and walked to his seat
beside Cowperwood, while Shannon arose, calm, forceful, vigorous,
much younger.

As between man and man, Shannon was not particularly opposed to
the case Steger had made out for Cowperwood, nor was he opposed
to Cowperwood's having made money as he did.  As a matter of fact,
Shannon actually thought that if he had been in Cowperwood's position
he would have done exactly the same thing.  However, he was the
newly elected district attorney.  He had a record to make; and,
besides, the political powers who were above him were satisfied that
Cowperwood ought to be convicted for the looks of the thing.
Therefore he laid his hands firmly on the rail at first, looked
the jurors steadily in the eyes for a time, and, having framed a
few thoughts in his mind began:

  "Now, gentlemen of the jury, it seems to me that if we all pay
  strict attention to what has transpired here to-day, we will
  have no difficulty in reaching a conclusion; and it will be a
  very satisfactory one, if we all try to interpret the facts
  correctly.  This defendant, Mr. Cowperwood, comes into this
  court to-day charged, as I have stated to you before, with
  larceny, with larceny as bailee, with embezzlement, and with
  embezzlement of a specific check--namely, one dated October 9,
  1871, drawn to the order of Frank A. Cowperwood & Company for
  the sum of sixty thousand dollars by the secretary of the city
  treasurer for the city treasurer, and by him signed, as he had
  a perfect right to sign it, and delivered to the said Frank A.
  Cowperwood, who claims that he was not only properly solvent
  at the time, but had previously purchased certificates of city
  loan to the value of sixty thousand dollars, and had at that
  time or would shortly thereafter, as was his custom, deposit
  them to the credit of the city in the city sinking-fund, and
  thus close what would ordinarily be an ordinary transaction--
  namely, that of Frank A. Cowperwood & Company as bankers and
  brokers for the city buying city loan for the city, depositing
  it in the sinking-fund, and being promptly and properly reimbursed.
  Now, gentlemen, what are the actual facts in this case? Was the
  said Frank A. Cowperwood & Company--there is no company, as
  you well know, as you have heard testified here to-day, only
  Frank A. Cowperwood--was the said Frank A. Cowperwood a fit
  person to receive the check at this time in the manner he
  received it--that is, was he authorized agent of the city at
  the time, or was he not? Was he solvent? Did he actually himself
  think he was going to fail, and was this sixty-thousand-dollar
  check a last thin straw which he was grabbing at to save his
  financial life regardless of what it involved legally, morally,
  or otherwise; or had he actually purchased certificates of city
  loan to the amount he said he had in the way he said he had, at
  the time he said he had, and was he merely collecting his honest
  due? Did he intend to deposit these certificates of loans in the
  city sinking-fund, as he said he would--as it was understood
  naturally and normally that he would--or did he not? Were his
  relations with the city treasurer as broker and agent the same
  as they had always been on the day that he secured this particular
  check for sixty thousand dollars, or were they not? Had they been
  terminated by a conversation fifteen minutes before or two days
  before or two weeks before--it makes no difference when, so long
  as they had been properly terminated--or had they not? A business
  man has a right to abrogate an agreement at any time where there
  is no specific form of contract and no fixed period of operation
  entered into--as you all must know.  You must not forget that in
  considering the evidence in this case.  Did George W. Stener,
  knowing or suspecting that Frank A. Cowperwood was in a tight
  place financially, unable to fulfill any longer properly and
  honestly the duties supposedly devolving on him by this agreement,
  terminate it then and there on October 9, 1871, before this
  check for sixty thousand dollars was given, or did he not? Did
  Mr. Frank A. Cowperwood then and there, knowing that he was no
  longer an agent of the city treasurer and the city, and knowing
  also that he was insolvent (having, as Mr. Stener contends,
  admitted to him that he was so), and having no intention of
  placing the certificates which he subsequently declared he had
  purchased in the sinking-fund, go out into Mr. Stener's general
  office, meet his secretary, tell him he had purchased sixty
  thousand dollars' worth of city loan, ask for the check, get
  it, put it in his pocket, walk off, and never make any return
  of any kind in any manner, shape, or form to the city, and then,
  subsequently, twenty-four hours later, fail, owing this and
  five hundred thousand dollars more to the city treasury, or did
  he not? What are the facts in this case? What have the witnesses
  testified to? What has George W. Stener testified to, Albert
  Stires, President Davison, Mr. Cowperwood himself? What are the
  interesting, subtle facts in this case, anyhow? Gentlemen, you
  have a very curious problem to decide."

He paused and gazed at the jury, adjusting his sleeves as he did
so, and looking as though he knew for certain that he was on the
trail of a slippery, elusive criminal who was in a fair way to
foist himself upon an honorable and decent community and an honorable
and innocent jury as an honest man.

Then he continued:

  "Now, gentlemen, what are the facts? You can see for yourselves
  exactly how this whole situation has come about.  You are sensible
  men.  I don't need to tell you.  Here are two men, one elected
  treasurer of the city of Philadelphia, sworn to guard the
  interests of the city and to manipulate its finances to the best
  advantage, and the other called in at a time of uncertain financial
  cogitation to assist in unraveling a possibly difficult financial
  problem; and then you have a case of a quiet, private financial
  understanding being reached, and of subsequent illegal dealings
  in which one man who is shrewder, wiser, more versed in the subtle
  ways of Third Street leads the other along over seemingly charming
  paths of fortunate investment into an accidental but none the
  less criminal mire of failure and exposure and public calumny and
  what not.  And then they get to the place where the more vulnerable
  individual of the two--the man in the most dangerous position,
  the city treasurer of Philadelphia, no less--can no longer
  reasonably or, let us say, courageously, follow the other fellow;
  and then you have such a spectacle as was described here this
  afternoon in the witness-chair by Mr. Stener--that is, you have
  a vicious, greedy, unmerciful financial wolf standing over a
  cowering, unsophisticated commercial lamb, and saying to him,
  his white, shiny teeth glittering all the while, 'If you don't
  advance me the money I ask for--the three hundred thousand
  dollars I now demand--you will be a convict, your children will
  be thrown in the street, you and your wife and your family will
  be in poverty again, and there will be no one to turn a hand
  for you.'  That is what Mr. Stener says Mr. Cowperwood said to
  him.  I, for my part, haven't a doubt in the world that he did.
  Mr. Steger, in his very guarded references to his client,
  describes him as a nice, kind, gentlemanly agent, a broker
  merely on whom was practically forced the use of five hundred
  thousand dollars at two and a half per cent. when money was
  bringing from ten to fifteen per cent. in Third Street on call
  loans, and even more.  But I for one don't choose to believe it.
  The thing that strikes me as strange in all of this is that if
  he was so nice and kind and gentle and remote--a mere hired and
  therefore subservient agent--how is it that he could have gone
  to Mr. Stener's office two or three days before the matter of
  this sixty-thousand-dollar check came up and say to him, as Mr.
  Stener testifies under oath that he did say to him, 'If you
  don't give me three hundred thousand dollars' worth more of the
  city's money at once, to-day, I will fail, and you will be a
  convict.  You will go to the penitentiary.'? That's what he said
  to him.  'I will fail and you will be a convict.  They can't
  touch me, but they will arrest you.  I am an agent merely.'
  Does that sound like a nice, mild, innocent, well-mannered agent,
  a hired broker, or doesn't it sound like a hard, defiant,
  contemptuous master--a man in control and ready to rule and win
  by fair means or foul?

  "Gentlemen, I hold no brief for George W. Stener.  In my judgment
  he is as guilty as his smug co-partner in crime--if not more so--
  this oily financier who came smiling and in sheep's clothing,
  pointing out subtle ways by which the city's money could be made
  profitable for both; but when I hear Mr. Cowperwood described as
  I have just heard him described, as a nice, mild, innocent agent,
  my gorge rises.  Why, gentlemen, if you want to get a right point
  of view on this whole proposition you will have to go back about
  ten or twelve years and see Mr. George W. Stener as he was then,
  a rather poverty-stricken beginner in politics, and before this
  very subtle and capable broker and agent came along and pointed
  out ways and means by which the city's money could be made
  profitable; George W. Stener wasn't very much of a personage then,
  and neither was Frank A. Cowperwood when he found Stener newly
  elected to the office of city treasurer.  Can't you see him arriving
  at that time nice and fresh and young and well dressed, as shrewd
  as a fox, and saying: 'Come to me.  Let me handle city loan.
  Loan me the city's money at two per cent. or less.'  Can't you
  hear him suggesting this? Can't you see him?

  "George W. Stener was a poor man, comparatively a very poor man,
  when he first became city treasurer.  All he had was a small
  real-estate and insurance business which brought him in, say,
  twenty-five hundred dollars a year.  He had a wife and four
  children to support, and he had never had the slightest taste
  of what for him might be called luxury or comfort.  Then comes
  Mr. Cowperwood--at his request, to be sure, but on an errand
  which held no theory of evil gains in Mr. Stener's mind at the
  time--and proposes his grand scheme of manipulating all the city
  loan to their mutual advantage.  Do you yourselves think,
  gentlemen, from what you have seen of George W. Stener here on
  the witness-stand, that it was he who proposed this plan of
  ill-gotten wealth to that gentleman over there?"

He pointed to Cowperwood.

 "Does he look to you like a man who would be able to tell that
  gentleman anything about finance or this wonderful manipulation
  that followed? I ask you, does he look clever enough to suggest
  all the subtleties by which these two subsequently made so much
  money? Why, the statement of this man Cowperwood made to his
  creditors at the time of his failure here a few weeks ago showed
  that he considered himself to be worth over one million two
  hundred and fifty thousand dollars, and he is only a little over
  thirty-four years old to-day.  How much was he worth at the time
  he first entered business relations with the ex-city treasurer?
  Have you any idea? I can tell.  I had the matter looked up almost
  a month ago on my accession to office.  Just a little over two
  hundred thousand dollars, gentlemen--just a little over two
  hundred thousand dollars.  Here is an abstract from the files of
  Dun & Company for that year.  Now you can see how rapidly our
  Caesar has grown in wealth since then.  You can see how profitable 
  these few short years have been to him.  Was George W. Stener
  worth any such sum up to the time he was removed from his office
  and indicted for embezzlement? Was he? I have here a schedule of
  his liabilities and assets made out at the time.  You can see it
  for yourselves, gentlemen.  Just two hundred and twenty thousand
  dollars measured the sum of all his property three weeks ago;
  and it is an accurate estimate, as I have reason to know.  Why
  was it, do you suppose, that Mr. Cowperwood grew so fast in 
  wealth and Mr. Stener so slowly? They were partners in crime.
  Mr. Stener was loaning Mr. Cowperwood vast sums of the city's
  money at two per cent. when call-rates for money in Third Street
  were sometimes as high as sixteen and seventeen per cent.  Don't
  you suppose that Mr. Cowperwood sitting there knew how to use
  this very cheaply come-by money to the very best advantage? Does
  he look to you as though he didn't? You have seen him on the
  witness-stand.  You have heard him testify.  Very suave, very 
  straightforward-seeming, very innocent, doing everything as a
  favor to Mr. Stener and his friends, of course, and yet making
  a million in a little over six years and allowing Mr. Stener to
  make one hundred and sixty thousand dollars or less, for Mr.
  Stener had some little money at the time this partnership was
  entered into--a few thousand dollars."

Shannon now came to the vital transaction of October 9th, when
Cowperwood called on Stener and secured the check for sixty thousand
dollars from Albert Stires.  His scorn for this (as he appeared to
think) subtle and criminal transaction was unbounded.  It was plain
larceny, stealing, and Cowperwood knew it when he asked Stires for
the check.

  "Think of it! [Shannon exclaimed, turning and looking squarely
  at Cowperwood, who faced him quite calmly, undisturbed and
  unashamed.]  Think of it! Think of the colossal nerve of the
  man--the Machiavellian subtlety of his brain.  He knew he was
  going to fail.  He knew after two days of financial work--after
  two days of struggle to offset the providential disaster which
  upset his nefarious schemes--that he had exhausted every possible
  resource save one, the city treasury, and that unless he could
  compel aid there he was going to fail.  He already owed the city
  treasury five hundred thousand dollars.  He had already used the
  city treasurer as a cat's-paw so much, had involved him so deeply,
  that the latter, because of the staggering size of the debt, was
  becoming frightened.  Did that deter Mr. Cowperwood? Not at all."

He shook his finger ominously in Cowperwood's face, and the latter
turned irritably away.  "He is showing off for the benefit of his
future," he whispered to Steger.  "I wish you could tell the jury
that."

"I wish I could," replied Steger, smiling scornfully, "but my hour
is over."

  "Why [continued Mr. Shannon, turning once more to the jury],
  think of the colossal, wolfish nerve that would permit a man to
  say to Albert Stires that he had just purchased sixty thousand
  dollars' worth additional of city loan, and that he would then
  and there take the check for it! Had he actually purchased this
  city loan as he said he had? Who can tell? Could any human being
  wind through all the mazes of the complicated bookkeeping system
  which he ran, and actually tell? The best answer to that is that
  if he did purchase the certificates he intended that it should
  make no difference to the city, for he made no effort to put the
  certificates in the sinking-fund, where they belonged.  His
  counsel says, and he says, that he didn't have to until the first
  of the month, although the law says that he must do it at once,
  and he knew well enough that legally he was bound to do it.  His
  counsel says, and he says, that he didn't know he was going to
  fail.  Hence there was no need of worrying about it.  I wonder
  if any of you gentlemen really believed that? Had he ever asked
  for a check like that so quick before in his life? In all the
  history of these nefarious transactions was there another incident
  like that? You know there wasn't.  He had never before, on any
  occasion, asked personally for a check for anything in this
  office, and yet on this occasion he did it.  Why? Why should he
  ask for it this time? A few hours more, according to his own
  statement, wouldn't have made any difference one way or the other,
  would it? He could have sent a boy for it, as usual.  That was
  the way it had always been done before.  Why anything different
  now? I'll tell you why! [Shannon suddenly shouted, varying his
  voice tremendously.]  I'll tell you why! He knew that he was a
  ruined man! He knew that his last semi-legitimate avenue of
  escape--the favor of George W. Stener--had been closed to him!
  He knew that honestly, by open agreement, he could not extract
  another single dollar from the treasury of the city of
  Philadelphia.  He knew that if he left the office without this
  check and sent a boy for it, the aroused city treasurer would
  have time to inform his clerks, and that then no further money
  could be obtained.  That's why! That's why, gentlemen, if you
  really want to know.

  "Now, gentlemen of the jury, I am about done with my arraignment
  of this fine, honorable, virtuous citizen whom the counsel for
  the defense, Mr. Steger, tells you you cannot possibly convict
  without doing a great injustice.  All I have to say is that you
  look to me like sane, intelligent men--just the sort of men that
  I meet everywhere in the ordinary walks of life, doing an
  honorable American business in an honorable American way.  Now,
  gentlemen of the jury [he was very soft-spoken now], all I have
  to say is that if, after all you have heard and seen here to-day,
  you still think that Mr. Frank A. Cowperwood is an honest,
  honorable man--that he didn't steal, willfully and knowingly,
  sixty thousand dollars from the Philadelphia city treasury; that
  he had actually bought the certificates he said he had, and had
  intended to put them in the sinking-fund, as he said he did,
  then don't you dare to do anything except turn him loose, and
  that speedily, so that he can go on back to-day into Third
  Street, and start to straighten out his much-entangled financial
  affairs.  It is the only thing for honest, conscientious men to
  do--to turn him instantly loose into the heart of this community,
  so that some of the rank injustice that my opponent, Mr. Steger,
  alleges has been done him will be a little made up to him.  You
  owe him, if that is the way you feel, a prompt acknowledgment of
  his innocence.  Don't worry about George W. Stener.  His guilt
  is established by his own confession.  He admits he is guilty.
  He will be sentenced without trial later on.  But this man--he
  says he is an honest, honorable man.  He says he didn't think he
  was going to fail.  He says he used all that threatening,
  compelling, terrifying language, not because he was in danger
  of failing, but because he didn't want the bother of looking
  further for aid.  What do you think? Do you really think that he
  had purchased sixty thousand dollars more of certificates for
  the sinking-fund, and that he was entitled to the money? If so,
  why didn't he put them in the sinking-fund? They're not there
  now, and the sixty thousand dollars is gone.  Who got it? The
  Girard National Bank, where he was overdrawn to the extent of
  one hundred thousand dollars! Did it get it and forty thousand
  dollars more in other checks and certificates? Certainly.  Why?
  Do you suppose the Girard National Bank might be in any way
  grateful for this last little favor before he closed his doors?
  Do you think that President Davison, whom you saw here testifying
  so kindly in this case feels at all friendly, and that that may
  possibly--I don't say that it does--explain his very kindly
  interpretation of Mr. Cowperwood's condition? It might be.  You
  can think as well along that line as I can.  Anyhow, gentlemen,
  President Davison says Mr. Cowperwood is an honorable, honest
  man, and so does his counsel, Mr. Steger.  You have heard the
  testimony.  Now you think it over.  If you want to turn him
  loose--turn him loose.  [He waved his hand wearily.]  You're
  the judges.  I wouldn't; but then I am merely a hard-working
  lawyer--one person, one opinion.  You may think differently--
  that's your business.  [He waved his hand suggestively, almost
  contemptuously.]  However, I'm through, and I thank you for
  your courtesy.  Gentlemen, the decision rests with you."

He turned away grandly, and the jury stirred--so did the idle
spectators in the court.  Judge Payderson sighed a sigh of relief.
It was now quite dark, and the flaring gas forms in the court were
all brightly lighted.  Outside one could see that it was snowing.
The judge stirred among his papers wearily, and turning to the
jurors solemnly, began his customary explanation of the law, after
which they filed out to the jury-room.

Cowperwood turned to his father who now came over across the
fast-emptying court, and said:

"Well, we'll know now in a little while."

"Yes," replied Cowperwood, Sr., a little wearily.  "I hope it comes
out right.  I saw Butler back there a little while ago."

"Did you?" queried Cowperwood, to whom this had a peculiar interest.

"Yes," replied his father.  "He's just gone."

So, Cowperwood thought, Butler was curious enough as to his fate
to want to come here and watch him tried.  Shannon was his tool.
Judge Payderson was his emissary, in a way.  He, Cowperwood, might
defeat him in the matter of his daughter, but it was not so easy
to defeat him here unless the jury should happen to take a
sympathetic attitude.  They might convict him, and then Butler's
Judge Payderson would have the privilege of sentencing him--giving
him the maximum sentence.  That would not be so nice--five years!
He cooled a little as he thought of it, but there was no use worrying
about what had not yet happened.  Steger came forward and told him
that his bail was now ended--had been the moment the jury left the
room--and that he was at this moment actually in the care of the
sheriff, of whom he knew--Sheriff Adlai Jaspers.  Unless he were
acquitted by the jury, Steger added, he would have to remain in
the sheriff's care until an application for a certificate of
reasonable doubt could be made and acted upon.

"It would take all of five days, Frank," Steger said, "but Jaspers
isn't a bad sort.  He'd be reasonable.  Of course if we're lucky
you won't have to visit him.  You will have to go with this bailiff
now, though.  Then if things come out right we'll go home.  Say,
I'd like to win this case," he said.  "I'd like to give them the
laugh and see you do it.  I consider you've been pretty badly treated,
and I think I made that perfectly clear.  I can reverse this verdict
on a dozen grounds if they happen to decide against you."

He and Cowperwood and the latter's father now stalked off with
the sheriff's subordinate--a small man by the name of "Eddie"
Zanders, who had approached to take charge.  They entered a small
room called the pen at the back of the court, where all those on
trial whose liberty had been forfeited by the jury's leaving the
room had to wait pending its return.  It was a dreary, high-ceiled,
four-square place, with a window looking out into Chestnut Street,
and a second door leading off into somewhere--one had no idea where.
It was dingy, with a worn wooden floor, some heavy, plain, wooden
benches lining the four sides, no pictures or ornaments of any
kind.  A single two-arm gas-pipe descended from the center of the
ceiling.  It was permeated by a peculiarly stale and pungent odor,
obviously redolent of all the flotsam and jetsam of life--criminal
and innocent--that had stood or sat in here from time to time,
waiting patiently to learn what a deliberating fate held in store.

Cowperwood was, of course, disgusted; but he was too self-reliant
and capable to show it.  All his life he had been immaculate,
almost fastidious in his care of himself.  Here he was coming,
perforce, in contact with a form of life which jarred upon him
greatly.  Steger, who was beside him, made some comforting,
explanatory, apologetic remarks.

"Not as nice as it might be," he said, "but you won't mind waiting
a little while.  The jury won't be long, I fancy."

"That may not help me," he replied, walking to the window.
Afterward he added: "What must be, must be."

His father winced.  Suppose Frank was on the verge of a long
prison term, which meant an atmosphere like this? Heavens! For a
moment, he trembled, then for the first time in years he made a
silent prayer.





Chapter XLIV




Meanwhile the great argument had been begun in the jury-room, and
all the points that had been meditatively speculated upon in the
jury-box were now being openly discussed.

It is amazingly interesting to see how a jury will waver and
speculate in a case like this--how curious and uncertain is the
process by which it makes up its so-called mind.  So-called truth
is a nebulous thing at best; facts are capable of such curious
inversion and interpretation, honest and otherwise.  The jury had
a strongly complicated problem before it, and it went over it and
over it.

Juries reach not so much definite conclusions as verdicts, in a
curious fashion and for curious reasons.  Very often a jury will
have concluded little so far as its individual members are concerned
and yet it will have reached a verdict.  The matter of time, as all
lawyers know, plays a part in this.  Juries, speaking of the members
collectively and frequently individually, object to the amount of
time it takes to decide a case.  They do not enjoy sitting and
deliberating over a problem unless it is tremendously fascinating.
The ramifications or the mystery of a syllogism can become a
weariness and a bore.  The jury-room itself may and frequently does
become a dull agony.

On the other hand, no jury contemplates a disagreement with any
degree of satisfaction.  There is something so inherently constructive
in the human mind that to leave a problem unsolved is plain misery.
It haunts the average individual like any other important task
left unfinished.  Men in a jury-room, like those scientifically
demonstrated atoms of a crystal which scientists and philosophers
love to speculate upon, like finally to arrange themselves into an
orderly and artistic whole, to present a compact, intellectual
front, to be whatever they have set out to be, properly and rightly--
a compact, sensible jury.  One sees this same instinct magnificently
displayed in every other phase of nature--in the drifting of sea-wood
to the Sargasso Sea, in the geometric interrelation of air-bubbles
on the surface of still water, in the marvelous unreasoned architecture
of so many insects and atomic forms which make up the substance
and the texture of this world.  It would seem as though the physical
substance of life--this apparition of form which the eye detects
and calls real were shot through with some vast subtlety that loves
order, that is order.  The atoms of our so-called being, in spite
of our so-called reason--the dreams of a mood--know where to go
and what to do.  They represent an order, a wisdom, a willing that
is not of us.  They build orderly in spite of us.  So the subconscious
spirit of a jury.  At the same time, one does not forget the strange
hypnotic effect of one personality on another, the varying effects
of varying types on each other, until a solution--to use the word
in its purely chemical sense--is reached.  In a jury-room the
thought or determination of one or two or three men, if it be
definite enough, is likely to pervade the whole room and conquer
the reason or the opposition of the majority.  One man "standing
out" for the definite thought that is in him is apt to become either
the triumphant leader of a pliant mass or the brutally battered
target of a flaming, concentrated intellectual fire.  Men despise
dull opposition that is without reason.  In a jury-room, of all
places, a man is expected to give a reason for the faith that is
in him--if one is demanded.  It will not do to say, "I cannot agree."
Jurors have been known to fight.  Bitter antagonisms lasting for
years have been generated in these close quarters.  Recalcitrant
jurors have been hounded commercially in their local spheres for
their unreasoned oppositions or conclusions.

After reaching the conclusion that Cowperwood unquestionably
deserved some punishment, there was wrangling as to whether the
verdict should be guilty on all four counts, as charged in the
indictment.  Since they did not understand how to differentiate
between the various charges very well, they decided it should be
on all four, and a recommendation to mercy added.  Afterward this
last was eliminated, however; either he was guilty or he was not.
The judge could see as well as they could all the extenuating
circumstances--perhaps better.  Why tie his hands? As a rule no
attention was paid to such recommendations, anyhow, and it only
made the jury look wabbly.

So, finally, at ten minutes after twelve that night, they were
ready to return a verdict; and Judge Payderson, who, because of
his interest in the case and the fact that he lived not so far
away, had decided to wait up this long, was recalled.  Steger and
Cowperwood were sent for.  The court-room was fully lighted.  The
bailiff, the clerk, and the stenographer were there.  The jury
filed in, and Cowperwood, with Steger at his right, took his
position at the gate which gave into the railed space where prisoners
always stand to hear the verdict and listen to any commentary of
the judge.  He was accompanied by his father, who was very nervous.

For the first time in his life he felt as though he were walking
in his sleep.  Was this the real Frank Cowperwood of two months
before--so wealthy, so progressive, so sure? Was this only December
5th or 6th now (it was after midnight)? Why was it the jury had
deliberated so long? What did it mean? Here they were now, standing
and gazing solemnly before them; and here now was Judge Payderson,
mounting the steps of his rostrum, his frizzled hair standing out
in a strange, attractive way, his familiar bailiff rapping for
order.  He did not look at Cowperwood--it would not be courteous--
but at the jury, who gazed at him in return.  At the words of the
clerk, "Gentlemen of the jury, have you agreed upon a verdict?"
the foreman spoke up, "We have."

"Do you find the defendant guilty or not guilty?"

"We find the defendant guilty as charged in the indictment."

How had they come to do this? Because he had taken a check for
sixty thousand dollars which did not belong to him? But in reality
it did.  Good Lord, what was sixty thousand dollars in the sum
total of all the money that had passed back and forth between him
and George W. Stener? Nothing, nothing! A mere bagatelle in its
way; and yet here it had risen up, this miserable, insignificant
check, and become a mountain of opposition, a stone wall, a
prison-wall barring his further progress.  It was astonishing.
He looked around him at the court-room.  How large and bare and
cold it was! Still he was Frank A. Cowperwood.  Why should he let
such queer thoughts disturb him? His fight for freedom and privilege
and restitution was not over yet.  Good heavens! It had only begun.
In five days he would be out again on bail.  Steger would take an
appeal.  He would be out, and he would have two long months in
which to make an additional fight.  He was not down yet.  He would
win his liberty.  This jury was all wrong.  A higher court would
say so.  It would reverse their verdict, and he knew it.  He turned
to Steger, where the latter was having the clerk poll the jury, in
the hope that some one juror had been over-persuaded, made to vote
against his will.

"Is that your verdict?" he heard the clerk ask of Philip Moultrie,
juror No. 1.

"It is," replied that worthy, solemnly.

"Is that your verdict?" The clerk was pointing to Simon Glassberg.

"Yes, sir."

"Is that your verdict?" He pointed to Fletcher Norton.

"Yes."

So it went through the whole jury.  All the men answered firmly
and clearly, though Steger thought it might barely be possible
that one would have changed his mind.  The judge thanked them and
told them that in view of their long services this night, they
were dismissed for the term.  The only thing remaining to be done
now was for Steger to persuade Judge Payderson to grant a stay of
sentence pending the hearing of a motion by the State Supreme Court
for a new trial.

The Judge looked at Cowperwood very curiously as Steger made this
request in proper form, and owing to the importance of the case
and the feeling he had that the Supreme Court might very readily
grant a certificate of reasonable doubt in this case, he agreed.
There was nothing left, therefore, but for Cowperwood to return
at this late hour with the deputy sheriff to the county jail, where
he must now remain for five days at least--possibly longer.

The jail in question, which was known locally as Moyamensing Prison,
was located at Tenth and Reed Streets, and from an architectural
and artistic point of view was not actually displeasing to the eye.
It consisted of a central portion--prison, residence for the sheriff
or what you will--three stories high, with a battlemented cornice
and a round battlemented tower about one-third as high as the
central portion itself, and two wings, each two stories high,
with battlemented turrets at either end, giving it a highly
castellated and consequently, from the American point of view, a
very prison-like appearance.  The facade of the prison, which was
not more than thirty-five feet high for the central portion, nor
more than twenty-five feet for the wings, was set back at least a
hundred feet from the street, and was continued at either end,
from the wings to the end of the street block, by a stone wall
all of twenty feet high.  The structure was not severely prison-like,
for the central portion was pierced by rather large, unbarred
apertures hung on the two upper stories with curtains, and giving
the whole front a rather pleasant and residential air.  The wing
to the right, as one stood looking in from the street, was the
section known as the county jail proper, and was devoted to the
care of prisoners serving short-term sentences on some judicial
order.  The wing to the left was devoted exclusively to the care
and control of untried prisoners.  The whole building was built
of a smooth, light-colored stone, which on a snowy night like this,
with the few lamps that were used in it glowing feebly in the dark,
presented an eery, fantastic, almost supernatural appearance.

It was a rough and blowy night when Cowperwood started for this
institution under duress.  The wind was driving the snow before
it in curious, interesting whirls.  Eddie Zanders, the sheriff's
deputy on guard at the court of Quarter Sessions, accompanied him
and his father and Steger.  Zanders was a little man, dark, with
a short, stubby mustache, and a shrewd though not highly intelligent
eye.  He was anxious first to uphold his dignity as a deputy
sheriff, which was a very important position in his estimation,
and next to turn an honest penny if he could.  He knew little save
the details of his small world, which consisted of accompanying
prisoners to and from the courts and the jails, and seeing that
they did not get away.  He was not unfriendly to a particular type
of prisoner--the well-to-do or moderately prosperous--for he had
long since learned that it paid to be so.  To-night he offered a
few sociable suggestions--viz., that it was rather rough, that the
jail was not so far but that they could walk, and that Sheriff
Jaspers would, in all likelihood, be around or could be aroused.
Cowperwood scarcely heard.  He was thinking of his mother and his
wife and of Aileen.

When the jail was reached he was led to the central portion, as
it was here that the sheriff, Adlai Jaspers, had his private office.
Jaspers had recently been elected to office, and was inclined to
conform to all outward appearances, in so far as the proper conduct
of his office was concerned, without in reality inwardly conforming.
Thus it was generally known among the politicians that one way he
had of fattening his rather lean salary was to rent private rooms
and grant special privileges to prisoners who had the money to pay
for the same.  Other sheriffs had done it before him.  In fact,
when Jaspers was inducted into office, several prisoners were already
enjoying these privileges, and it was not a part of his scheme of
things to disturb them.  The rooms that he let to the "right
parties," as he invariably put it, were in the central portion of
the jail, where were his own private living quarters.  They were
unbarred, and not at all cell-like.  There was no particular danger
of escape, for a guard stood always at his private door instructed
"to keep an eye" on the general movements of all the inmates.  A
prisoner so accommodated was in many respects quite a free person.
His meals were served to him in his room, if he wished.  He could
read or play cards, or receive guests; and if he had any favorite
musical instrument, that was not denied him.  There was just one
rule that had to be complied with.  If he were a public character,
and any newspaper men called, he had to be brought down-stairs
into the private interviewing room in order that they might not
know that he was not confined in a cell like any other prisoner.

Nearly all of these facts had been brought to Cowperwood's
attention beforehand by Steger; but for all that, when he crossed
the threshold of the jail a peculiar sensation of strangeness and
defeat came over him.  He and his party were conducted to a little
office to the left of the entrance, where were only a desk and a
chair, dimly lighted by a low-burning gas-jet.  Sheriff Jaspers,
rotund and ruddy, met them, greeting them in quite a friendly way.
Zanders was dismissed, and went briskly about his affairs.

"A bad night, isn't it?" observed Jaspers, turning up the gas and
preparing to go through the routine of registering his prisoner.
Steger came over and held a short, private conversation with him
in his corner, over his desk which resulted presently in the
sheriff's face lighting up.

"Oh, certainly, certainly! That's all right, Mr. Steger, to be
sure! Why, certainly!"

Cowperwood, eyeing the fat sheriff from his position, understood
what it was all about.  He had regained completely his critical
attitude, his cool, intellectual poise.  So this was the jail,
and this was the fat mediocrity of a sheriff who was to take care
of him.  Very good.  He would make the best of it.  He wondered
whether he was to be searched--prisoners usually were--but he
soon discovered that he was not to be.

"That's all right, Mr. Cowperwood," said Jaspers, getting up.
"I guess I can make you comfortable, after a fashion.  We're not
running a hotel here, as you know"--he chuckled to himself--"but
I guess I can make you comfortable.  John," he called to a sleepy
factotum, who appeared from another room, rubbing his eyes, "is
the key to Number Six down here?"

"Yes, sir."

"Let me have it."

John disappeared and returned, while Steger explained to Cowperwood
that anything he wanted in the way of clothing, etc., could be
brought in.  Steger himself would stop round next morning and
confer with him, as would any of the members of Cowperwood's family
whom he wished to see.  Cowperwood immediately explained to his
father his desire for as little of this as possible.  Joseph or
Edward might come in the morning and bring a grip full of underwear,
etc.; but as for the others, let them wait until he got out or had
to remain permanently.  He did think of writing Aileen, cautioning
her to do nothing; but the sheriff now beckoned, and he quietly
followed.  Accompanied by his father and Steger, he ascended to
his new room.

It was a simple, white-walled chamber fifteen by twenty feet in
size, rather high-ceiled, supplied with a high-backed, yellow wooden
bed, a yellow bureau, a small imitation-cherry table, three very
ordinary cane-seated chairs with carved hickory-rod backs,
cherry-stained also, and a wash-stand of yellow-stained wood to
match the bed, containing a washbasin, a pitcher, a soap-dish,
uncovered, and a small, cheap, pink-flowered tooth and shaving
brush mug, which did not match the other ware and which probably
cost ten cents.  The value of this room to Sheriff Jaspers was
what he could get for it in cases like this--twenty-five to
thirty-five dollars a week.  Cowperwood would pay thirty-five.

Cowperwood walked briskly to the window, which gave out on the
lawn in front, now embedded in snow, and said he thought this was
all right.  Both his father and Steger were willing and anxious
to confer with him for hours, if he wished; but there was nothing
to say.  He did not wish to talk.

"Let Ed bring in some fresh linen in the morning and a couple of
suits of clothes, and I will be all right.  George can get my
things together."  He was referring to a family servant who acted
as valet and in other capacities.  "Tell Lillian not to worry.
I'm all right.  I'd rather she would not come here so long as I'm
going to be out in five days.  If I'm not, it will be time enough
then.  Kiss the kids for me."  And he smiled good-naturedly.

After his unfulfilled predictions in regard to the result of this
preliminary trial Steger was almost afraid to suggest confidently
what the State Supreme Court would or would not do; but he had
to say something.

"I don't think you need worry about what the outcome of my appeal
will be, Frank.  I'll get a certificate of reasonable doubt, and
that's as good as a stay of two months, perhaps longer.  I don't
suppose the bail will be more than thirty thousand dollars at the
outside.  You'll be out again in five or six days, whatever happens."

Cowperwood said that he hoped so, and suggested that they drop
matters for the night.  After a few fruitless parleys his father
and Steger finally said good night, leaving him to his own private
reflections.  He was tired, however, and throwing off his clothes,
tucked himself in his mediocre bed, and was soon fast asleep.





Chapter XLV




Say what one will about prison life in general, modify it ever so
much by special chambers, obsequious turnkeys, a general tendency
to make one as comfortable as possible, a jail is a jail, and there
is no getting away from that.  Cowperwood, in a room which was not
in any way inferior to that of the ordinary boarding-house, was
nevertheless conscious of the character of that section of this
real prison which was not yet his portion.  He knew that there were
cells there, probably greasy and smelly and vermin-infested, and
that they were enclosed by heavy iron bars, which would have as
readily clanked on him as on those who were now therein incarcerated
if he had not had the price to pay for something better.  So much
for the alleged equality of man, he thought, which gave to one man,
even within the grim confines of the machinery of justice, such
personal liberty as he himself was now enjoying, and to another,
because he chanced to lack wit or presence or friends or wealth,
denied the more comfortable things which money would buy.

The morning after the trial, on waking, he stirred curiously, and
then it suddenly came to him that he was no longer in the free and
comfortable atmosphere of his own bedroom, but in a jail-cell, or
rather its very comfortable substitute, a sheriff's rented bedroom.
He got up and looked out the window.  The ground outside and
Passayunk Avenue were white with snow.  Some wagons were silently
lumbering by.  A few Philadelphians were visible here and there,
going to and fro on morning errands.  He began to think at once
what he must do, how he must act to carry on his buiness, to
rehabilitate himself; and as he did so he dressed and pulled the
bell-cord, which had been indicated to him, and which would bring
him an attendant who would build him a fire and later bring him
something to eat.  A shabby prison attendant in a blue uniform,
conscious of Cowperwood's superiority because of the room he
occupied, laid wood and coal in the grate and started a fire, and
later brought him his breakfast, which was anything but prison
fare, though poor enough at that.

After that he was compelled to wait in patience several hours, in
spite of the sheriff's assumption of solicitous interest, before
his brother Edward was admitted with his clothes.  An attendant,
for a consideration, brought him the morning papers, and these,
except for the financial news, he read indifferently.  Late in
the afternoon Steger arrived, saying he had been busy having certain
proceedings postponed, but that he had arranged with the sheriff
for Cowperwood to be permitted to see such of those as had important
business with him.

By this time, Cowperwood had written Aileen under no circumstances
to try to see him, as he would be out by the tenth, and that either
that day, or shortly after, they would meet.  As he knew, she
wanted greatly to see him, but he had reason to believe she was
under surveillance by detectives employed by her father.  This was
not true, but it was preying on her fancy, and combined with some
derogatory remarks dropped by Owen and Callum at the dinner table
recently, had proved almost too much for her fiery disposition.
But, because of Cowperwood's letter reaching her at the Calligans',
she made no move until she read on the morning of the tenth that
Cowperwood's plea for a certificate of reasonable doubt had been
granted, and that he would once more, for the time being at least,
be a free man.  This gave her courage to do what she had long
wanted to do, and that was to teach her father that she could get
along without him and that he could not make her do anything she
did not want to do.  She still had the two hundred dollars Cowperwood
had given her and some additional cash of her own--perhaps three
hundred and fifty dollars in all.  This she thought would be
sufficient to see her to the end of her adventure, or at least
until she could make some other arrangement for her personal
well-being.  From what she knew of the feeling of her family for
her, she felt that the agony would all be on their side, not hers.
Perhaps when her father saw how determined she was he would decide
to let her alone and make peace with her.  She was determined to
try it, anyhow, and immediately sent word to Cowperwood that she
was going to the Calligans and would welcome him to freedom.

In a way, Cowperwood was rather gratified by Aileen's message,
for he felt that his present plight, bitter as it was, was largely
due to Butler's opposition and he felt no compunction in striking
him through his daughter.  His former feeling as to the wisdom of
not enraging Butler had proved rather futile, he thought, and since
the old man could not be placated it might be just as well to have
Aileen demonstrate to him that she was not without resources of
her own and could live without him.  She might force him to change
his attitude toward her and possibly even to modify some of his
political machinations against him, Cowperwood.  Any port in a
storm--and besides, he had now really nothing to lose, and instinct
told him that her move was likely to prove more favorable than
otherwise--so he did nothing to prevent it.

She took her jewels, some underwear, a couple of dresses which
she thought would be serviceable, and a few other things, and
packed them in the most capacious portmanteau she had.  Shoes and
stockings came into consideration, and, despite her efforts, she
found that she could not get in all that she wished.  Her nicest
hat, which she was determined to take, had to be carried outside.
She made a separate bundle of it, which was not pleasant to
contemplate.  Still she decided to take it.  She rummaged in a
little drawer where she kept her money and jewels, and found the
three hundred and fifty dollars and put it in her purse.  It wasn't
much, as Aileen could herself see, but Cowperwood would help her.
If he did not arrange to take care of her, and her father would
not relent, she would have to get something to do.  Little she
knew of the steely face the world presents to those who have not
been practically trained and are not economically efficient.  She
did not understand the bitter reaches of life at all.  She waited,
humming for effect, until she heard her father go downstairs to
dinner on this tenth day of December, then leaned over the upper
balustrade to make sure that Owen, Callum, Norah, and her mother
were at the table, and that Katy, the housemaid, was not anywhere
in sight.  Then she slipped into her father's den, and, taking a
note from inside her dress, laid it on his desk, and went out.
It was addressed to "Father," and read:

  Dear Father,--I just cannot do what you want me to.  I have made
  up my mind that I love Mr. Cowperwood too much, so I am going
  away.  Don't look for me with him.  You won't find me where you
  think.  I am not going to him; I will not be there.  I am going
  to try to get along by myself for a while, until he wants me and
  can marry me.  I'm terribly sorry; but I just can't do what you
  want.  I can't ever forgive you for the way you acted to me.
  Tell mama and Norah and the boys good-by for me.
 
                                                       Aileen

To insure its discovery, she picked up Butler's heavy-rimmed
spectacles which he employed always when reading, and laid them
on it.  For a moment she felt very strange, somewhat like a thief--
a new sensation for her.  She even felt a momentary sense of
ingratitude coupled with pain.  Perhaps she was doing wrong.  Her
father had been very good to her.  Her mother would feel so very
bad.  Norah would be sorry, and Callum and Owen.  Still, they did
not understand her any more.  She was resentful of her father's
attitude.  He might have seen what the point was; but no, he was
too old, too hidebound in religion and conventional ideas--he never
would.  He might never let her come back.  Very well, she would
get along somehow.  She would show him.  She might get a place as
a school-teacher, and live with the Calligans a long while, if
necessary, or teach music.

She stole downstairs and out into the vestibule, opening the outer
door and looking out into the street.  The lamps were already
flaring in the dark, and a cool wind was blowing.  Her portmanteau
was heavy, but she was quite strong.  She walked briskly to the
corner, which was some fifty feet away, and turned south, walking
rather nervously and irritably, for this was a new experience for
her, and it all seemed so undignified, so unlike anything she was
accustomed to doing.  She put her bag down on a street corner,
finally, to rest.  A boy whistling in the distance attracted her
attention, and as he drew near she called to him: "Boy! Oh, boy!"

He came over, looking at her curiously.

"Do you want to earn some money?"

"Yes, ma'am," he replied politely, adjusting a frowsy cap over one
ear.

"Carry this bag for me," said Aileen, and he picked it up and
marched off.

In due time she arrived at the Calligans', and amid much excitement
was installed in the bosom of her new home.  She took her situation
with much nonchalance, once she was properly placed, distributing
her toilet articles and those of personal wear with quiet care.
The fact that she was no longer to have the services of Kathleen,
the maid who had served her and her mother and Norah jointly, was
odd, though not trying.  She scarcely felt that she had parted
from these luxuries permanently, and so made herself comfortable.

Mamie Calligan and her mother were adoring slaveys, so she was not
entirely out of the atmosphere which she craved and to which she
was accustomed.





Chapter XLVI




Meanwhile, in the Butler home the family was assembling for dinner.
Mrs. Butler was sitting in rotund complacency at the foot of the
table, her gray hair combed straight back from her round, shiny
forehead.  She had on a dark-gray silk dress, trimmed with
gray-and-white striped ribbon.  It suited her florid temperament
admirably.  Aileen had dictated her mother's choice, and had seen
that it had been properly made.  Norah was refreshingly youthful
in a pale-green dress, with red-velvet cuffs and collar.  She
looked young, slender, gay.  Her eyes, complexion and hair were fresh
and healthy.  She was trifling with a string of coral beads which
her mother had just given her.

"Oh, look, Callum," she said to her brother opposite her, who was
drumming idly on the table with his knife and fork.  "Aren't they
lovely? Mama gave them to me."

"Mama does more for you than I would.  You know what you'd get
from me, don't you?"

"What?"

He looked at her teasingly.  For answer Norah made a face at him.
Just then Owen came in and took his place at the table.  Mrs.
Butler saw Norah's grimace.

"Well, that'll win no love from your brother, ye can depend on
that," she commented.

"Lord, what a day!" observed Owen, wearily, unfolding his napkin.
"I've had my fill of work for once."

"What's the trouble?" queried his mother, feelingly.

"No real trouble, mother," he replied.  "Just everything--ducks
and drakes, that's all."

"Well, ye must ate a good, hearty meal now, and that'll refresh
ye," observed his mother, genially and feelingly.  "Thompson"--she
was referring to the family grocer--"brought us the last of his
beans.  You must have some of those."

"Sure, beans'll fix it, whatever it is, Owen," joked Callum.
"Mother's got the answer."

"They're fine, I'd have ye know," replied Mrs. Butler, quite
unconscious of the joke.

"No doubt of it, mother," replied Callum.  "Real brain-food.  Let's
feed some to Norah."

"You'd better eat some yourself, smarty.  My, but you're gay! I
suppose you're going out to see somebody.  That's why."

"Right you are, Norah.  Smart girl, you.  Five or six.  Ten to
fifteen minutes each.  I'd call on you if you were nicer."

"You would if you got the chance," mocked Norah.  "I'd have you
know I wouldn't let you.  I'd feel very bad if I couldn't get
somebody better than you."

"As good as, you mean," corrected Callum.

"Children, children!" interpolated Mrs. Butler, calmly, looking
about for old John, the servant.  "You'll be losin' your tempers
in a minute.  Hush now.  Here comes your father.  Where's Aileen?"

Butler walked heavily in and took his seat.

John, the servant, appeared bearing a platter of beans among other
things, and Mrs. Butler asked him to send some one to call Aileen.

"It's gettin' colder, I'm thinkin'," said Butler, by way of
conversation, and eyeing Aileen's empty chair.  She would come soon
now--his heavy problem.  He had been very tactful these last two
months--avoiding any reference to Cowperwood in so far as he could
help in her presence.

"It's colder," remarked Owen, "much colder.  We'll soon see real
winter now."

Old John began to offer the various dishes in order; but when all
had been served Aileen had not yet come.

"See where Aileen is, John," observed Mrs. Butler, interestedly.
"The meal will be gettin' cold."

Old John returned with the news that Aileen was not in her room.

"Sure she must be somewhere," commented Mrs. Butler, only slightly
perplexed.  "She'll be comin', though, never mind, if she wants to.
She knows it's meal-time."

The conversation drifted from a new water-works that was being
planned to the new city hall, then nearing completion; Cowperwood's
financial and social troubles, and the state of the stock market
generally; a new gold-mine in Arizona; the departure of Mrs.
Mollenhauer the following Tuesday for Europe, with appropriate
comments by Norah and Callum; and a Christmas ball that was going
to be given for charity.

"Aileen'll be wantin' to go to that," commented Mrs.  Butler.

"I'm going, you bet," put in Norah.

"Who's going to take you?" asked Callum.

"That's my affair, mister," she replied, smartly.

The meal was over, and Mrs. Butler strolled up to Aileen's room
to see why she had not come down to dinner.  Butler entered his
den, wishing so much that he could take his wife into his confidence
concerning all that was worrying him.  On his desk, as he sat down
and turned up the light, he saw the note.  He recognized Aileen's
handwriting at once.   What could she mean by writing him? A sense
of the untoward came to him, and he tore it open slowly, and,
putting on his glasses, contemplated it solemnly.

So Aileen was gone.  The old man stared at each word as if it had
been written in fire.  She said she had not gone with Cowperwood.
It was possible, just the same, that he had run away from Philadelphia
and taken her with him.  This was the last straw.  This ended it.
Aileen lured away from home--to where--to what? Butler could scarcely
believe, though, that Cowperwood had tempted her to do this.  He
had too much at stake; it would involve his own and Butler's families.
The papers would be certain to get it quickly.  He got up, crumpling
the paper in his hand, and turned about at a noise.  His wife was
coming in.  He pulled himself together and shoved the letter in
his pocket.

"Aileen's not in her room," she said, curiously.  "She didn't say
anything to you about going out, did she?"

"No," he replied, truthfully, wondering how soon he should have
to tell his wife.

"That's odd," observed Mrs. Butler, doubtfully.  "She must have
gone out after somethin'.  It's a wonder she wouldn't tell somebody."

Butler gave no sign.  He dared not.  "She'll be back," he said,
more in order to gain time than anything else.  He was sorry to
have to pretend.  Mrs. Butler went out, and he closed the door.
Then he took out the letter and read it again.  The girl was crazy.
She was doing an absolutely wild, inhuman, senseless thing.  Where
could she go, except to Cowperwood? She was on the verge of a
public scandal, and this would produce it.  There was just one
thing to do as far as he could see.  Cowperwood, if he were still
in Philadelphia, would know.  He would go to him--threaten, cajole,
actually destroy him, if necessary.  Aileen must come back.  She
need not go to Europe, perhaps, but she must come back and behave
herself at least until Cowperwood could legitimately marry her.
That was all he could expect now.  She would have to wait, and some
day perhaps he could bring himself to accept her wretched proposition.
Horrible thought! It would kill her mother, disgrace her sister.
He got up, took down his hat, put on his overcoat, and started out.

Arriving at the Cowperwood home he was shown into the reception-room.
Cowperwood at the time was in his den looking over some private
papers.  When the name of Butler was announced he immediately went
down-stairs.  It was characteristic of the man that the announcement
of Butler's presence created no stir in him whatsoever.  So Butler
had come.  That meant, of course, that Aileen had gone.  Now for
a battle, not of words, but of weights of personalities.  He felt
himself to be intellectually, socially, and in every other way the
more powerful man of the two.  That spiritual content of him which
we call life hardened to the texture of steel.  He recalled that
although he had told his wife and his father that the politicians,
of whom Butler was one, were trying to make a scapegoat of him,
Butler, nevertheless, was not considered to be wholly alienated
as a friend, and civility must prevail.  He would like very much
to placate him if he could, to talk out the hard facts of life in
a quiet and friendly way.  But this matter of Aileen had to be
adjusted now once and for all.  And with that thought in his mind
he walked quickly into Butler's presence.

The old man, when he learned that Cowperwood was in and would see
him, determined to make his contact with the financier as short
and effective as possible.  He moved the least bit when he heard
Cowperwood's step, as light and springy as ever.

"Good evening, Mr. Butler," said Cowperwood, cheerfully, when he
saw him, extending his hand.  "What can I do for you?"

"Ye can take that away from in front of me, for one thing," said
Butler, grimly referring to his hand.  "I have no need of it.
It's my daughter I've come to talk to ye about, and I want plain
answers.  Where is she?"

"You mean Aileen?" said Cowperwood, looking at him with steady,
curious, unrevealing eyes, and merely interpolating this to obtain
a moment for reflection.  "What can I tell you about her?"

"Ye can tell me where she is, that I know.  And ye can make her
come back to her home, where she belongs.  It was bad fortune that
ever brought ye across my doorstep; but I'll not bandy words with
ye here.  Ye'll tell me where my daughter is, and ye'll leave her
alone from now, or I'll--" The old man's fists closed like a vise,
and his chest heaved with suppressed rage.  "Ye'll not be drivin'
me too far, man, if ye're wise," he added, after a time, recovering
his equanimity in part.  "I want no truck with ye.  I want my
daughter."

"Listen, Mr. Butler," said Cowperwood, quite calmly, relishing the
situation for the sheer sense of superiority it gave him.  "I want
to be perfectly frank with you, if you will let me.  I may know
where your daughter is, and I may not.  I may wish to tell you,
and I may not.  She may not wish me to.  But unless you wish to
talk with me in a civil way there is no need of our going on any
further.  You are privileged to do what you like.  Won't you come
up-stairs to my room? We can talk more comfortably there."

Butler looked at his former protege in utter astonishment.  He
had never before in all his experience come up against a more
ruthless type--suave, bland, forceful, unterrified.  This man
had certainly come to him as a sheep, and had turned out to be a
ravening wolf.  His incarceration had not put him in the least awe.

"I'll not come up to your room," Butler said, "and ye'll not get
out of Philadelphy with her if that's what ye're plannin'.  I can
see to that.  Ye think ye have the upper hand of me, I see, and
ye're anxious to make something of it.  Well, ye're not.  It
wasn't enough that ye come to me as a beggar, cravin' the help of
me, and that I took ye in and helped ye all I could--ye had to
steal my daughter from me in the bargain.  If it wasn't for the
girl's mother and her sister and her brothers--dacenter men than
ever ye'll know how to be--I'd brain ye where ye stand.  Takin'
a young, innocent girl and makin' an evil woman out of her, and
ye a married man! It's a God's blessin' for ye that it's me, and
not one of me sons, that's here talkin' to ye, or ye wouldn't be
alive to say what ye'd do."

The old man was grim but impotent in his rage.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Butler," replied Cowperwood, quietly.  "I'm willing
to explain, but you won't let me.  I'm not planning to run away
with your daughter, nor to leave Philadelphia.  You ought to know
me well enough to know that I'm not contemplating anything of that
kind; my interests are too large.  You and I are practical men.
We ought to be able to talk this matter over together and reach
an understanding.  I thought once of coming to you and explaining
this; but I was quite sure you wouldn't listen to me.  Now that
you are here I would like to talk to you.  If you will come up to
my room I will be glad to--otherwise not.  Won't you come up?"

Butler saw that Cowperwood had the advantage.  He might as well
go up.  Otherwise it was plain he would get no information.

"Very well," he said.

Cowperwood led the way quite amicably, and, having entered his
private office, closed the door behind him.

"We ought to be able to talk this matter over and reach an
understanding," he said again, when they were in the room and he
had closed the door.  "I am not as bad as you think, though I know
I appear very bad."  Butler stared at him in contempt.  "I love
your daughter, and she loves me.  I know you are asking yourself
how I can do this while I am still married; but I assure you I can,
and that I do.  I am not happily married.  I had expected, if this
panic hadn't come along, to arrange with my wife for a divorce and
marry Aileen.  My intentions are perfectly good.  The situation
which you can complain of, of course, is the one you encountered
a few weeks ago.  It was indiscreet, but it was entirely human.
Your daughter does not complain--she understands."  At the mention
of his daughter in this connection Butler flushed with rage and
shame, but he controlled himself.

"And ye think because she doesn't complain that it's all right,
do ye?" he asked, sarcastically.

"From my point of view, yes; from yours no.  You have one view of
life, Mr. Butler, and I have another."

"Ye're right there," put in Butler, "for once, anyhow."

"That doesn't prove that either of us is right or wrong.  In my
judgment the present end justifies the means.  The end I have in
view is to marry Aileen.  If I can possibly pull myself out of
this financial scrape that I am in I will do so.  Of course, I
would like to have your consent for that--so would Aileen; but if
we can't, we can't."  (Cowperwood was thinking that while this
might not have a very soothing effect on the old contractor's
point of view, nevertheless it must make some appeal to his sense
of the possible or necessary.  Aileen's present situation was quite
unsatisfactory without marriage in view.  And even if he,
Cowperwood, was a convicted embezzler in the eyes of the public,
that did not make him so.  He might get free and restore himself--
would certainly--and Aileen ought to be glad to marry him if she
could under the circumstances.  He did not quite grasp the depth
of Butler's religious and moral prejudices.)  "Lately," he went
on, "you have been doing all you can, as I understand it, to pull
me down, on account of Aileen, I suppose; but that is simply
delaying what I want to do."

"Ye'd like me to help ye do that, I suppose?" suggested Butler,
with infinite disgust and patience.

"I want to marry Aileen," Cowperwood repeated, for emphasis' sake.
"She wants to marry me.  Under the circumstances, however you may
feel, you can have no real objection to my doing that, I am sure;
yet you go on fighting me--making it hard for me to do what you
really know ought to be done."

"Ye're a scoundrel," said Butler, seeing through his motives quite
clearly.  "Ye're a sharper, to my way of thinkin', and it's no
child of mine I want connected with ye.  I'm not sayin', seein'
that things are as they are, that if ye were a free man it wouldn't
be better that she should marry ye.  It's the one dacent thing ye
could do--if ye would, which I doubt.  But that's nayther here nor
there now.  What can ye want with her hid away somewhere? Ye can't
marry her.  Ye can't get a divorce.  Ye've got your hands full
fightin' your lawsuits and kapin' yourself out of jail.  She'll
only be an added expense to ye, and ye'll be wantin' all the money
ye have for other things, I'm thinkin'.  Why should ye want to be
takin' her away from a dacent home and makin' something out of her
that ye'd be ashamed to marry if you could? The laist ye could do,
if ye were any kind of a man at all, and had any of that thing that
ye're plased to call love, would be to lave her at home and keep
her as respectable as possible.  Mind ye, I'm not thinkin' she
isn't ten thousand times too good for ye, whatever ye've made of
her.  But if ye had any sinse of dacency left, ye wouldn't let her
shame her family and break her old mother's heart, and that for
no purpose except to make her worse than she is already.  What
good can ye get out of it, now? What good can ye expect to come
of it? Be hivins, if ye had any sinse at all I should think ye
could see that for yerself.  Ye're only addin' to your troubles,
not takin' away from them--and she'll not thank ye for that later
on."

He stopped, rather astonished that he should have been drawn into
an argument.  His contempt for this man was so great that he could
scarcely look at him, but his duty and his need was to get Aileen
back.  Cowperwood looked at him as one who gives serious attention
to another.  He seemed to be thinking deeply over what Butler had
said.

"To tell you the truth, Mr. Butler," he said, "I did not want
Aileen to leave your home at all; and she will tell you so, if
you ever talk to her about it.  I did my best to persuade her
not to, and when she insisted on going the only thing I could do
was to be sure she would be comfortable wherever she went.  She
was greatly outraged to think you should have put detectives on
her trail.  That, and the fact that you wanted to send her away
somewhere against her will, was the principal reasons for her
leaving.  I assure you I did not want her to go.  I think you
forget sometimes, Mr. Butler, that Aileen is a grown woman, and
that she has a will of her own.  You think I control her to her
great disadvantage.  As a matter of fact, I am very much in love
with her, and have been for three or four years; and if you know
anything about love you know that it doesn't always mean control.
I'm not doing Aileen any injustice when I say that she has had as
much influence on me as I have had on her.  I love her, and that's
the cause of all the trouble.  You come and insist that I shall
return your daughter to you.  As a matter of fact, I don't know
whether I can or not.  I don't know that she would go if I wanted
her to.  She might turn on me and say that I didn't care for her
any more.  That is not true, and I would not want her to feel that
way.  She is greatly hurt, as I told you, by what you did to her,
and the fact that you want her to leave Philadelphia.  You can do
as much to remedy that as I can.  I could tell you where she is,
but I do not know that I want to.  Certainly not until I know what
your attitude toward her and this whole proposition is to be."

He paused and looked calmly at the old contractor, who eyed him
grimly in return.

"What proposition are ye talkin' about?" asked Butler, interested
by the peculiar developments of this argument.  In spite of himself
he was getting a slightly different angle on the whole situation.
The scene was shifting to a certain extent.  Cowperwood appeared
to be reasonably sincere in the matter.  His promises might all
be wrong, but perhaps he did love Aileen; and it was possible that
he did intend to get a divorce from his wife some time and marry
her.  Divorce, as Butler knew, was against the rules of the Catholic
Church, which he so much revered.  The laws of God and any sense
of decency commanded that Cowperwood should not desert his wife
and children and take up with another woman--not even Aileen, in
order to save her.  It was a criminal thing to plan, sociologically
speaking, and showed what a villain Cowperwood inherently was;
but, nevertheless, Cowperwood was not a Catholic, his views of
life were not the same as his own, Butler's, and besides and worst
of all (no doubt due in part to Aileen's own temperament), he had
compromised her situation very materially.  She might not easily
be restored to a sense of of the normal and decent, and so the
matter was worth taking into thought.  Butler knew that ultimately
he could not countenance any such thing--certainly not, and keep
his faith with the Church--but he was human enough none the less
to consider it.  Besides, he wanted Aileen to come back; and Aileen
from now on, he knew, would have some say as to what her future
should be.

"Well, it's simple enough," replied Cowperwood.  "I should like
to have you withdraw your opposition to Aileen's remaining in
Philadelphia, for one thing; and for another, I should like you
to stop your attacks on me."  Cowperwood smiled in an ingratiating
way.  He hoped really to placate Butler in part by his generous
attitude throughout this procedure.  "I can't make you do that,
of course, unless you want to.  I merely bring it up, Mr. Butler,
because I am sure that if it hadn't been for Aileen you would not
have taken the course you have taken toward me.  I understood you
received an anonymous letter, and that afternoon you called your
loan with me.  Since then I have heard from one source and another
that you were strongly against me, and I merely wish to say that
I wish you wouldn't be.  I am not guilty of embezzling any sixty
thousand dollars, and you know it.  My intentions were of the best.
I did not think I was going to fail at the time I used those
certificates, and if it hadn't been for several other loans that
were called I would have gone on to the end of the month and put
them back in time, as I always had.  I have always valued your
friendship very highly, and I am very sorry to lose it.  Now I
have said all I am going to say."

Butler looked at Cowperwood with shrewd, calculating eyes.  The
man had some merit, but much unconscionable evil in him.  Butler
knew very well how he had taken the check, and a good many other
things in connection with it.  The manner in which he had played
his cards to-night was on a par with the way he had run to him on
the night of the fire.  He was just shrewd and calculating and
heartless.

"I'll make ye no promise," he said.  "Tell me where my daughter
is, and I'll think the matter over.  Ye have no claim on me now,
and I owe ye no good turn.  But I'll think it over, anyhow."

"That's quite all right," replied Cowperwood.  "That's all I can
expect.  But what about Aileen? Do you expect her to leave
Philadelphia?"

"Not if she settles down and behaves herself: but there must be
an end of this between you and her.  She's disgracin' her family
and ruinin' her soul in the bargain.  And that's what you are doin'
with yours.  It'll be time enough to talk about anything else when
you're a free man.  More than that I'll not promise."

Cowperwood, satisfied that this move on Aileen's part had done her
a real service if it had not aided him especially, was convinced
that it would be a good move for her to return to her home at
once.  He could not tell how his appeal to the State Supreme Court
would eventuate.  His motion for a new trial which was now to be
made under the privilege of the certificate of reasonable doubt
might not be granted, in which case he would have to serve a term
in the penitentiary.  If he were compelled to go to the penitentiary
she would be safer--better off in the bosom of her family.  His
own hands were going to be exceedingly full for the next two months
until he knew how his appeal was coming out.  And after that--well,
after that he would fight on, whatever happened.

During all the time that Cowperwood had been arguing his case in
this fashion he had been thinking how he could adjust this
compromise so as to retain the affection of Aileen and not offend
her sensibilities by urging her to return.  He knew that she would
not agree to give up seeing him, and he was not willing that she
should.  Unless he had a good and sufficient reason, he would be
playing a wretched part by telling Butler where she was.  He did
not intend to do so until he saw exactly how to do it--the way that
would make it most acceptable to Aileen.  He knew that she would
not long be happy where she was.  Her flight was due in part to
Butler's intense opposition to himself and in part to his determination
to make her leave Philadelphia and behave; but this last was now
in part obviated.  Butler, in spite of his words, was no longer
a stern Nemesis.  He was a melting man--very anxious to find his
daughter, very willing to forgive her.  He was whipped, literally
beaten, at his own game, and Cowperwood could see it in the old
man's eyes.  If he himself could talk to Aileen personally and
explain just how things were, he felt sure he could make her see
that it would be to their mutual advantage, for the present at
least, to have the matter amicably settled.  The thing to do was
to make Butler wait somewhere--here, possibly--while he went and
talked to her.  When she learned how things were she would probably
acquiesce.

"The best thing that I can do under the circumstances," he said,
after a time, "would be to see Aileen in two or three days, and
ask her what she wishes to do.  I can explain the matter to her,
and if she wants to go back, she can.  I will promise to tell her
anything that you say."

"Two or three days!" exclaimed Butler, irritably.  "Two or three
fiddlesticks! She must come home to-night.  Her mother doesn't
know she's left the place yet.  To-night is the time! I'll go and
fetch her meself to-night."

"No, that won't do," said Cowperwood.  "I shall have to go myself.
If you wish to wait here I will see what can be done, and let you
know."

"Very well," grunted Butler, who was now walking up and down with
his hands behind his back.  "But for Heaven's sake be quick about
it.  There's no time to lose."  He was thinking of Mrs. Butler.
Cowperwood called the servant, ordered his runabout, and told
George to see that his private office was not disturbed.  Then,
as Butler strolled to and fro in this, to him, objectionable room,
Cowperwood drove rapidly away.





Chapter XLVII




Although it was nearly eleven o'clock when he arrived at the
Calligans', Aileen was not yet in bed.  In her bedroom upstairs
she was confiding to Mamie and Mrs. Calligan some of her social
experiences when the bell rang, and Mrs. Calligan went down and
opened the door to Cowperwood.

"Miss Butler is here, I believe," he said.  "Will you tell her
that there is some one here from her father?" Although Aileen had
instructed that her presence here was not to be divulged even to
the members of her family the force of Cowperwood's presence and
the mention of Butler's name cost Mrs. Calligan her presence of
mind.  "Wait a moment," she said; "I'll see."

She stepped back, and Cowperwood promptly stepped in, taking off
his hat with the air of one who was satisfied that Aileen was
there.  "Say to her that I only want to speak to her for a few
moments," he called, as Mrs. Calligan went up-stairs, raising his
voice in the hope that Aileen might hear.  She did, and came down
promptly.  She was very much astonished to think that he should
come so soon, and fancied, in her vanity, that there must be great
excitement in her home.  She would have greatly grieved if there
had not been.

The Calligans would have been pleased to hear, but Cowperwood was
cautious.  As she came down the stairs he put his finger to his
lips in sign for silence, and said, "This is Miss Butler, I
believe."

"Yes," replied Aileen, with a secret smile.  Her one desire was
to kiss him.  "What's the trouble darling?" she asked, softly.

"You'll have to go back, dear, I'm afraid," whispered Cowperwood.
"You'll have everything in a turmoil if you don't.  Your mother
doesn't know yet, it seems, and your father is over at my place
now, waiting for you.  It may be a good deal of help to me if you
do.  Let me tell you--" He went off into a complete description
of his conversation with Butler and his own views in the matter.
Aileen's expression changed from time to time as the various phases
of the matter were put before her; but, persuaded by the clearness
with which he put the matter, and by his assurance that they could
continue their relations as before uninterrupted, once this was
settled, she decided to return.  In a way, her father's surrender
was a great triumph.  She made her farewells to the Calligans,
saying, with a smile, that they could not do without her at home,
and that she would send for her belongings later, and returned
with Cowperwood to his own door.  There he asked her to wait in
the runabout while he sent her father down.

"Well?" said Butler, turning on him when he opened the door, and
not seeing Aileen.

"You'll find her outside in my runabout," observed Cowperwood.
"You may use that if you choose.  I will send my man for it."

"No, thank you; we'll walk," said Butler.

Cowperwood called his servant to take charge of the vehicle, and
Butler stalked solemnly out.

He had to admit to himself that the influence of Cowperwood over
his daughter was deadly, and probably permanent.  The best he
could do would be to keep her within the precincts of the home,
where she might still, possibly, be brought to her senses.  He
held a very guarded conversation with her on his way home, for
fear that she would take additional offense.  Argument was out of
the question.

"Ye might have talked with me once more, Aileen," he said, "before
ye left.  Yer mother would be in a terrible state if she knew ye
were gone.  She doesn't know yet.  Ye'll have to say ye stayed
somewhere to dinner."

"I was at the Calligans," replied Aileen.  "That's easy enough.
Mama won't think anything about it."

"It's a sore heart I have, Aileen.  I hope ye'll think over your
ways and do better.  I'll not say anythin' more now."

Aileen returned to her room, decidedly triumphant in her mood for
the moment, and things went on apparently in the Butler household
as before.  But those who imagine that this defeat permanently
altered the attitude of Butler toward Cowperwood are mistaken.

In the meanwhile between the day of his temporary release and the
hearing of his appeal which was two months off, Cowperwood was
going on doing his best to repair his shattered forces.  He took
up his work where he left off; but the possibility of reorganizing
his business was distinctly modified since his conviction.  Because
of his action in trying to protect his largest creditors at the
time of his failure, he fancied that once he was free again, if
ever he got free, his credit, other things being equal, would be
good with those who could help him most--say, Cooke & Co., Clark
& Co., Drexel & Co., and the Girard National Bank--providing his
personal reputation had not been too badly injured by his sentence.
Fortunately for his own hopefulness of mind, he failed fully to
realize what a depressing effect a legal decision of this character,
sound or otherwise, had on the minds of even his most enthusiastic
supporters.

His best friends in the financial world were by now convinced that
his was a sinking ship.  A student of finance once observed that
nothing is so sensitive as money, and the financial mind partakes
largely of the quality of the thing in which it deals.  There was
no use trying to do much for a man who might be going to prison
for a term of years.  Something might be done for him possibly in
connection with the governor, providing he lost his case before
the Supreme Court and was actually sentenced to prison; but that
was two months off, or more, and they could not tell what the
outcome of that would be.  So Cowperwood's repeated appeals for
assistance, extension of credit, or the acceptance of some plan
he had for his general rehabilitation, were met with the kindly
evasions of those who were doubtful.  They would think it over.
They would see about it.  Certain things were standing in the way.
And so on, and so forth, through all the endless excuses of those
who do not care to act.  In these days he went about the money
world in his customary jaunty way, greeting all those whom he
had known there many years and pretending, when asked, to be very
hopeful, to be doing very well; but they did not believe him, and
he really did not care whether they did or not.  His business was
to persuade or over-persuade any one who could really be of
assistance to him, and at this task he worked untiringly, ignoring
all others.

"Why, hello, Frank," his friends would call, on seeing him.  "How
are you getting on?"

"Fine! Fine!" he would reply, cheerfully.  "Never better," and he
would explain in a general way how his affairs were being handled.
He conveyed much of his own optimism to all those who knew him and
were interested in his welfare, but of course there were many who
were not.

In these days also, he and Steger were constantly to be met with
in courts of law, for he was constantly being reexamined in some
petition in bankruptcy.  They were heartbreaking days, but he did
not flinch.  He wanted to stay in Philadelphia and fight the thing
to a finish--putting himself where he had been before the fire;
rehabilitating himself in the eyes of the public.  He felt that
he could do it, too, if he were not actually sent to prison for a
long term; and even then, so naturally optimistic was his mood,
when he got out again.  But, in so far as Philadelphia was concerned,
distinctly he was dreaming vain dreams.

One of the things militating against him was the continued opposition
of Butler and the politicians.  Somehow--no one could have said
exactly why--the general political feeling was that the financier
and the former city treasurer would lose their appeals and eventually
be sentenced together.  Stener, in spite of his original intention
to plead guilty and take his punishment without comment, had been
persuaded by some of his political friends that it would be better
for his future's sake to plead not guilty and claim that his offense
had been due to custom, rather than to admit his guilt outright
and so seem not to have had any justification whatsoever.  This
he did, but he was convicted nevertheless.  For the sake of
appearances, a trumped-up appeal was made which was now before the
State Supreme Court.

Then, too, due to one whisper and another, and these originating
with the girl who had written Butler and Cowperwood's wife, there
was at this time a growing volume of gossip relating to the alleged
relations of Cowperwood with Butler's daughter, Aileen.  There had
been a house in Tenth Street.  It had been maintained by Cowperwood
for her.  No wonder Butler was so vindictive.  This, indeed,
explained much.  And even in the practical, financial world,
criticism was now rather against Cowperwood than his enemies.  For,
was it not a fact, that at the inception of his career, he had
been befriended by Butler? And what a way to reward that friendship!
His oldest and firmest admirers wagged their heads.  For they
sensed clearly that this was another illustration of that innate
"I satisfy myself" attitude which so regulated Cowperwood's conduct.
He was a strong man, surely--and a brilliant one.  Never had
Third Street seen a more pyrotechnic, and yet fascinating and
financially aggressive, and at the same time, conservative person.
Yet might one not fairly tempt Nemesis by a too great daring and
egotism? Like Death, it loves a shining mark.  He should not,
perhaps, have seduced Butler's daughter; unquestionably he should
not have so boldly taken that check, especially after his quarrel
and break with Stener.  He was a little too aggressive.  Was it not
questionable whether--with such a record--he could be restored to
his former place here? The bankers and business men who were
closest to him were decidedly dubious.

But in so far as Cowperwood and his own attitude toward life was
concerned, at this time--the feeling he had--"to satisfy myself"--
when combined with his love of beauty and love and women, still
made him ruthless and thoughtless.  Even now, the beauty and
delight of a girl like Aileen Butler were far more important to
him than the good-will of fifty million people, if he could evade
the necessity of having their good-will.  Previous to the Chicago
fire and the panic, his star had been so rapidly ascending that
in the helter-skelter of great and favorable events he had scarcely
taken thought of the social significance of the thing he was doing.
Youth and the joy of life were in his blood.  He felt so young, so
vigorous, so like new grass looks and feels.  The freshness of
spring evenings was in him, and he did not care.  After the crash,
when one might have imagined he would have seen the wisdom of
relinquishing Aileen for the time being, anyhow, he did not care
to.  She represented the best of the wonderful days that had gone
before.  She was a link between him and the past and a still-to-be
triumphant future.

His worst anxiety was that if he were sent to the penitentiary,
or adjudged a bankrupt, or both, he would probably lose the
privilege of a seat on 'change, and that would close to him the
most distinguished avenue of his prosperity here in Philadelphia
for some time, if not forever.  At present, because of his
complications, his seat had been attached as an asset, and he could
not act.  Edward and Joseph, almost the only employees he could
afford, were still acting for him in a small way; but the other
members on 'change naturally suspected his brothers as his agents,
and any talk that they might raise of going into business for
themselves merely indicated to other brokers and bankers that
Cowperwood was contemplating some concealed move which would not
necessarily be advantageous to his creditors, and against the law
anyhow.  Yet he must remain on 'change, whatever happened,
potentially if not actively; and so in his quick mental searchings
he hit upon the idea that in order to forfend against the event
of his being put into prison or thrown into bankruptcy, or both,
he ought to form a subsidiary silent partnership with some man who
was or would be well liked on 'change, and whom he could use as a
cat's-paw and a dummy.

Finally he hit upon a man who he thought would do.  He did not
amount to much--had a small business; but he was honest, and he
liked Cowperwood.  His name was Wingate--Stephen Wingate--and he
was eking out a not too robust existence in South Third Street as
a broker.  He was forty-five years of age, of medium height, fairly
thick-set, not at all unprepossessing, and rather intelligent and
active, but not too forceful and pushing in spirit.  He really
needed a man like Cowperwood to make him into something, if ever
he was to be made.  He had a seat on 'change, and was well thought
of; respected, but not so very prosperous.  In times past he had
asked small favors of Cowperwood--the use of small loans at a
moderate rate of interest, tips, and so forth; and Cowperwood,
because he liked him and felt a little sorry for him, had granted
them.  Now Wingate was slowly drifting down toward a none too
successful old age, and was as tractable as such a man would
naturally be.  No one for the time being would suspect him of being
a hireling of Cowperwood's, and the latter could depend on him to
execute his orders to the letter.  He sent for him and had a long
conversation with him.  He told him just what the situation was,
what he thought he could do for him as a partner, how much of his
business he would want for himself, and so on, and found him
agreeable.

"I'll be glad to do anything you say, Mr. Cowperwood," he assured
the latter.  "I know whatever happens that you'll protect me, and
there's nobody in the world I would rather work with or have greater
respect for.  This storm will all blow over, and you'll be all right.
We can try it, anyhow.  If it don't work out you can see what you
want to do about it later."

And so this relationship was tentatively entered into and Cowperwood
began to act in a small way through Wingate.





Chapter XLVIII




By the time the State Supreme Court came to pass upon Cowperwood's
plea for a reversal of the lower court and the granting of a new
trial, the rumor of his connection with Aileen had spread far and
wide.  As has been seen, it had done and was still doing him much
damage.  It confirmed the impression, which the politicians had
originally tried to create, that Cowperwood was the true criminal
and Stener the victim.  His semi-legitimate financial subtlety,
backed indeed by his financial genius, but certainly on this account
not worse than that being practiced in peace and quiet and with
much applause in many other quarters--was now seen to be
Machiavellian trickery of the most dangerous type.  He had a wife
and two children; and without knowing what his real thoughts had
been the fruitfully imaginative public jumped to the conclusion
that he had been on the verge of deserting them, divorcing Lillian,
and marrying Aileen.  This was criminal enough in itself, from
the conservative point of view; but when taken in connection with
his financial record, his trial, conviction, and general bankruptcy
situation, the public was inclined to believe that he was all the
politicians said he was.  He ought to be convicted.  The Supreme
Court ought not to grant his prayer for a new trial.  It is thus
that our inmost thoughts and intentions burst at times via no known
material agency into public thoughts.  People know, when they
cannot apparently possibly know why they know.  There is such a
thing as thought-transference and transcendentalism of ideas.

It reached, for one thing, the ears of the five judges of the State
Supreme Court and of the Governor of the State.

During the four weeks Cowperwood had been free on a certificate
of reasonable doubt both Harper Steger and Dennis Shannon appeared
before the judges of the State Supreme Court, and argued pro and
con as to the reasonableness of granting a new trial.  Through his
lawyer, Cowperwood made a learned appeal to the Supreme Court
judges, showing how he had been unfairly indicted in the first
place, how there was no real substantial evidence on which to
base a charge of larceny or anything else.  It took Steger two
hours and ten minutes to make his argument, and District-Attorney
Shannon longer to make his reply, during which the five judges on
the bench, men of considerable legal experience but no great
financial understanding, listened with rapt attention.  Three of
them, Judges Smithson, Rainey, and Beckwith, men most amenable to
the political feeling of the time and the wishes of the bosses,
were little interested in this story of Cowperwood's transaction,
particularly since his relations with Butler's daughter and Butler's
consequent opposition to him had come to them.  They fancied that
in a way they were considering the whole matter fairly and
impartially; but the manner in which Cowperwood had treated Butler
was never out of their minds.  Two of them, Judges Marvin and
Rafalsky, who were men of larger sympathies and understanding, but
of no greater political freedom, did feel that Cowperwood had been
badly used thus far, but they did not see what they could do about
it.  He had put himself in a most unsatisfactory position, politically
and socially.  They understood and took into consideration his
great financial and social losses which Steger described accurately;
and one of them, Judge Rafalsky, because of a similar event in his
own life in so far as a girl was concerned, was inclined to argue
strongly against the conviction of Cowperwood; but, owing to his
political connections and obligations, he realized that it would
not be wise politically to stand out against what was wanted.
Still, when he and Marvin learned that Judges Smithson, Rainey, and
Beckwith were inclined to convict Cowperwood without much argument,
they decided to hand down a dissenting opinion.  The point involved
was a very knotty one.  Cowperwood might carry it to the Supreme
Court of the United States on some fundamental principle of liberty
of action.  Anyhow, other judges in other courts in Pennsylvania
and elsewhere would be inclined to examine the decision in this
case, it was so important.  The minority decided that it would not
do them any harm to hand down a dissenting opinion.  The politicians
would not mind as long as Cowperwood was convicted--would like it
better, in fact.  It looked fairer.  Besides, Marvin and Rafalsky
did not care to be included, if they could help it, with Smithson,
Rainey, and Beckwith in a sweeping condemnation of Cowperwood.
So all five judges fancied they were considering the whole matter
rather fairly and impartially, as men will under such circumstances.
Smithson, speaking for himself and Judges Rainey and Beckwith on
the eleventh of February, 1872, said:

  "The defendant, Frank A. Cowperwood, asks that the finding of
  the jury in the lower court (the State of Pennsylvania vs. Frank
  A. Cowperwood) be reversed and a new trial granted.  This court
  cannot see that any substantial injustice has been done the
  defendant.  [Here followed a rather lengthy resume of the history
  of the case, in which it was pointed out that the custom and
  precedent of the treasurer's office, to say nothing of
  Cowperwood's easy method of doing business with the city
  treasury, could have nothing to do with his responsibility for
  failure to observe both the spirit and the letter of the law.]
  The obtaining of goods under color of legal process [went on
  Judge Smithson, speaking for the majority] may amount to
  larceny.  In the present case it was the province of the jury
  to ascertain the felonious intent.  They have settled that
  against the defendant as a question of fact, and the court
  cannot say that there was not sufficient evidence to sustain
  the verdict.  For what purpose did the defendant get the check?
  He was upon the eve of failure.   He had already hypothecated
  for his own debts the loan of the city placed in his hands for
  sale--he had unlawfully obtained five hundred thousand dollars
  in cash as loans; and it is reasonable to suppose that he
  could obtain nothing more from the city treasury by any
  ordinary means.  Then it is that he goes there, and, by means
  of a falsehood implied if not actual, obtains sixty thousand
  dollars more.  The jury has found the intent with which this
  was done."

It was in these words that Cowperwood's appeal for a new trial was
denied by the majority.

For himself and Judge Rafalsky, Judge Marvin, dissenting, wrote:

  "It is plain from the evidence in the case that Mr. Cowperwood
  did not receive the check without authority as agent to do so,
  and it has not been clearly demonstrated that within his
  capacity as agent he did not perform or intend to perform the
  full measure of the obligation which the receipt of this check
  implied.  It was shown in the trial that as a matter of policy
  it was understood that purchases for the sinking-fund should
  not be known or understood in the market or by the public in
  that light, and that Mr. Cowperwood as agent was to have an
  absolutely free hand in the disposal of his assets and
  liabilities so long as the ultimate result was satisfactory.
  There was no particular time when the loan was to be bought,
  nor was there any particular amount mentioned at any time to
  be purchased.  Unless the defendant intended at the time he
  received the check fraudulently to appropriate it he could not
  be convicted even on the first count.  The verdict of the jury
  does not establish this fact; the evidence does not show
  conclusively that it could be established; and the same jury,
  upon three other counts, found the defendant guilty without
  the semblance of shadow of evidence.  How can we say that
  their conclusions upon the first count are unerring when they
  so palpably erred on the other counts? It is the opinion of
  the minority that the verdict of the jury in charging larceny
  on the first count is not valid, and that that verdict should
  be set aside and a new trial granted."

Judge Rafalsky, a meditative and yet practical man of Jewish
extraction but peculiarly American appearance, felt called upon
to write a third opinion which should especially reflect his own
cogitation and be a criticism on the majority as well as a slight
variation from and addition to the points on which he agreed with
Judge Marvin.  It was a knotty question, this, of Cowperwood's
guilt, and, aside from the political necessity of convicting him,
nowhere was it more clearly shown than in these varying opinions
of the superior court.  Judge Rafalsky held, for instance, that
if a crime had been committed at all, it was not that known as
larceny, and he went on to add:

  "It is impossible, from the evidence, to come to the
  conclusion either that Cowperwood did not intend shortly to
  deliver the loan or that Albert Stires, the chief clerk, or
  the city treasurer did not intend to part not only with the
  possession, but also and absolutely with the property in the
  check and the money represented by it.  It was testified by
  Mr. Stires that Mr. Cowperwood said he had bought certificates
  of city loan to this amount, and it has not been clearly
  demonstrated that he had not.  His non-placement of the same
  in the sinking-fund must in all fairness, the letter of the
  law to the contrary notwithstanding, be looked upon and judged
  in the light of custom.  Was it his custom so to do? In my
  judgment the doctrine now announced by the majority of the
  court extends the crime of constructive larceny to such limits
  that any business man who engages in extensive and perfectly
  legitimate stock transactions may, before he knows it, by a
  sudden panic in the market or a fire, as in this instance,
  become a felon.  When a principle is asserted which
  establishes such a precedent, and may lead to such results,
  it is, to say the least, startling."

While he was notably comforted by the dissenting opinions of the
judges in minority, and while he had been schooling himself to
expect the worst in this connection and had been arranging his
affairs as well as he could in anticipation of it, Cowperwood was
still bitterly disappointed.  It would be untrue to say that,
strong and self-reliant as he normally was, he did not suffer.
He was not without sensibilities of the highest order, only they
were governed and controlled in him by that cold iron thing, his
reason, which never forsook him.  There was no further appeal
possible save to the United States Supreme Court, as Steger pointed
out, and there only on the constitutionality of some phase of the
decision and his rights as a citizen, of which the Supreme Court
of the United States must take cognizance.  This was a tedious
and expensive thing to do.  It was not exactly obvious at the
moment on what point he could make an appeal.  It would involve
a long delay--perhaps a year and a half, perhaps longer, at the
end of which period he might have to serve his prison term anyhow,
and pending which he would certainly have to undergo incarceration
for a time.

Cowperwood mused speculatively for a few moments after hearing
Steger's presentation of the case.  Then he said: "Well, it looks
as if I have to go to jail or leave the country, and I've decided
on jail.  I can fight this out right here in Philadelphia in the
long run and win.  I can get that decision reversed in the Supreme
Court, or I can get the Governor to pardon me after a time, I
think.  I'm not going to run away, and everybody knows I'm not.
These people who think they have me down haven't got one corner
of me whipped.  I'll get out of this thing after a while, and when
I do I'll show some of these petty little politicians what it
means to put up a real fight.  They'll never get a damned dollar
out of me now--not a dollar! I did intend to pay that five hundred
thousand dollars some time if they had let me go.  Now they can
whistle!"

He set his teeth and his gray eyes fairly snapped their
determination.

"Well, I've done all I can, Frank," pleaded Steger, sympathetically.
"You'll do me the justice to say that I put up the best fight I
knew how.  I may not know how--you'll have to answer for that--
but within my limits I've done the best I can.  I can do a few
things more to carry this thing on, if you want me to, but I'm
going to leave it to you now.  Whatever you say goes."

"Don't talk nonsense at this stage, Harper," replied Cowperwood
almost testily.  "I know whether I'm satisfied or not, and I'd
soon tell you if I wasn't.  I think you might as well go on and
see if you can find some definite grounds for carrying it to the
Supreme Court, but meanwhile I'll begin my sentence.  I suppose
Payderson will be naming a day to have me brought before him now
shortly."

"It depends on how you'd like to have it, Frank.  I could get a
stay of sentence for a week maybe, or ten days, if it will do you
any good.  Shannon won't make any objection to that, I'm sure.
There's only one hitch.  Jaspers will be around here tomorrow
looking for you.  It's his duty to take you into custody again,
once he's notified that your appeal has been denied.  He'll be
wanting to lock you up unless you pay him, but we can fix that.
If you do want to wait, and want any time off, I suppose he'll
arrange to let you out with a deputy; but I'm afraid you'll have
to stay there nights.  They're pretty strict about that since that
Albertson case of a few years ago."

Steger referred to the case of a noted bank cashier who, being
let out of the county jail at night in the alleged custody of a
deputy, was permitted to escape.  There had been emphatic and
severe condemnation of the sheriff's office at the time, and since
then, repute or no repute, money or no money, convicted criminals
were supposed to stay in the county jail at night at least.

Cowperwood meditated this calmly, looking out of the lawyer's
window into Second Street.  He did not much fear anything that
might happen to him in Jaspers's charge since his first taste of
that gentleman's hospitality, although he did object to spending
nights in the county jail when his general term of imprisonment
was being reduced no whit thereby.  All that he could do now in
connection with his affairs, unless he could have months of freedom,
could be as well adjusted from a prison cell as from his Third
Street office--not quite, but nearly so.  Anyhow, why parley? He
was facing a prison term, and he might as well accept it without
further ado.  He might take a day or two finally to look after
his affairs; but beyond that, why bother?

"When, in the ordinary course of events, if you did nothing at all,
would I come up for sentence?"

"Oh, Friday or Monday, I fancy," replied Steger.  "I don't know
what move Shannon is planning to make in this matter.  I thought
I'd walk around and see him in a little while."

"I think you'd better do that," replied Cowperwood.  "Friday or
Monday will suit me, either way.  I'm really not particular.
Better make it Monday if you can.  You don't suppose there is any
way you can induce Jaspers to keep his hands off until then? He
knows I'm perfectly responsible."

"I don't know, Frank, I'm sure; I'll see.  I'll go around and talk
to him to-night.  Perhaps a hundred dollars will make him relax
the rigor of his rules that much."

Cowperwood smiled grimly.

"I fancy a hundred dollars would make Jaspers relax a whole lot of
rules," he replied, and he got up to go.

Steger arose also.  "I'll see both these people, and then I'll
call around at your house.  You'll be in, will you, after dinner?"

"Yes."

They slipped on their overcoats and went out into the cold February
day, Cowperwood back to his Third Street office, Steger to see
Shannon and Jaspers.





Chapter XLIX




The business of arranging Cowperwood's sentence for Monday was soon
disposed of through Shannon, who had no personal objection to
any reasonable delay.

Steger next visited the county jail, close on to five o'clock,
when it was already dark.  Sheriff Jaspers came lolling out from
his private library, where he had been engaged upon the work of
cleaning his pipe.

"How are you, Mr. Steger?" he observed, smiling blandly.  "How are
you? Glad to see you.  Won't you sit down? I suppose you're round
here again on that Cowperwood matter.  I just received word from
the district attorney that he had lost his case."

"That's it, Sheriff," replied Steger, ingratiatingly.  "He asked
me to step around and see what you wanted him to do in the matter.
Judge Payderson has just fixed the sentence time for Monday morning
at ten o'clock.  I don't suppose you'll be much put out if he doesn't
show up here before Monday at eight o'clock, will you, or Sunday
night, anyhow? He's perfectly reliable, as you know."  Steger was
sounding Jaspers out, politely trying to make the time of Cowperwood's
arrival a trivial matter in order to avoid paying the hundred dollars,
if possible.  But Jaspers was not to be so easily disposed of.
His fat face lengthened considerably.  How could Steger ask him
such a favor and not even suggest the slightest form of remuneration?

"It's ag'in' the law, Mr. Steger, as you know," he began, cautiously
and complainingly.  "I'd like to accommodate him, everything else
being equal, but since that Albertson case three years ago we've
had to run this office much more careful, and--"

"Oh, I know, Sheriff," interrupted Steger, blandly, "but this isn't
an ordinary case in any way, as you can see for yourself.  Mr.
Cowperwood is a very important man, and he has a great many things
to attend to.  Now if it were only a mere matter of seventy-five
or a hundred dollars to satisfy some court clerk with, or to pay
a fine, it would be easy enough, but--" He paused and looked wisely
away, and Mr. Jaspers's face began to relax at once.  The law
against which it was ordinarily so hard to offend was not now so
important.  Steger saw that it was needless to introduce any
additional arguments.

"It's a very ticklish business, this, Mr. Steger," put in the
sheriff, yieldingly, and yet with a slight whimper in his voice.
"If anything were to happen, it would cost me my place all right.
I don't like to do it under any circumstances, and I wouldn't,
only I happen to know both Mr. Cowperwood and Mr. Stener, and I
like 'em both.  I don' think they got their rights in this matter,
either.  I don't mind making an exception in this case if Mr.
Cowperwood don't go about too publicly.  I wouldn't want any of
the men in the district attorney's office to know this.  I don't
suppose he'll mind if I keep a deputy somewhere near all the time
for looks' sake.  I have to, you know, really, under the law.  He
won't bother him any.  Just keep on guard like."  Jaspers looked
at Mr. Steger very flatly and wisely--almost placatingly under the
circumstances--and Steger nodded.

"Quite right, Sheriff, quite right.  You're quite right," and he
drew out his purse while the sheriff led the way very cautiously
back into his library.

"I'd like to show you the line of law-books I'm fixing up for
myself in here, Mr. Steger," he observed, genially, but meanwhile
closing his fingers gently on the small roll of ten-dollar bills
Steger was handing him.  "We have occasional use for books of that
kind here, as you see.  I thought it a good sort of thing to have
them around."  He waved one arm comprehensively at the line of
State reports, revised statutes, prison regulations, etc., the
while he put the money in his pocket and Steger pretended to look.

"A good idea, I think, Sheriff.  Very good, indeed.  So you think
if Mr. Cowperwood gets around here very early Monday morning, say
eight or eight-thirty, that it will be all right?"

"I think so," replied the sheriff, curiously nervous, but agreeable,
anxious to please.  "I don't think that anything will come up that
will make me want him earlier.  If it does I'll let you know, and
you can produce him.  I don't think so, though, Mr. Steger; I
think everything will be all right."  They were once more in the
main hall now.  "Glad to have seen you again, Mr. Steger--very
glad," he added.  "Call again some day."

Waving the sheriff a pleasant farewell, he hurried on his way to
Cowperwood's house.

You would not have thought, seeing Cowperwood mount the front
steps of his handsome residence in his neat gray suit and well-cut
overcoat on his return from his office that evening, that he was
thinking that this might be his last night here.  His air and walk
indicated no weakening of spirit.  He entered the hall, where an
early lamp was aglow, and encountered "Wash" Sims, an old negro
factotum, who was just coming up from the basement, carrying a
bucket of coal for one of the fireplaces.

"Mahty cold out, dis evenin', Mistah Coppahwood," said Wash, to
whom anything less than sixty degrees was very cold.  His one
regret was that Philadelphia was not located in North Carolina,
from whence he came.

"'Tis sharp, Wash," replied Cowperwood, absentmindedly.  He was
thinking for the moment of the house and how it had looked, as he
came toward it west along Girard Avenue--what the neighbors were
thinking of him, too, observing him from time to time out of their
windows.  It was clear and cold.  The lamps in the reception-hall
and sitting-room had been lit, for he had permitted no air of
funereal gloom to settle down over this place since his troubles
had begun.  In the far west of the street a last tingling gleam
of lavender and violet was showing over the cold white snow of
the roadway.  The house of gray-green stone, with its lighted
windows, and cream-colored lace curtains, had looked especially
attractive.  He had thought for the moment of the pride he had
taken in putting all this here, decorating and ornamenting it,
and whether, ever, he could secure it for himself again.  "Where
is your mistress?" he added to Wash, when he bethought himself.

"In the sitting-room, Mr. Coppahwood, ah think."

Cowperwood ascended the stairs, thinking curiously that Wash would
soon be out of a job now, unless Mrs. Cowperwood, out of all the
wreck of other things, chose to retain him, which was not likely.
He entered the sitting-room, and there sat his wife by the oblong
center-table, sewing a hook and eye on one of Lillian, second's,
petticoats.  She looked up, at his step, with the peculiarly
uncertain smile she used these days--indication of her pain, fear,
suspicion--and inquired, "Well, what is new with you, Frank?" Her
smile was something like a hat or belt or ornament which one puts
on or off at will.

"Nothing in particular," he replied, in his offhand way, "except
that I understand I have lost that appeal of mine.  Steger is coming
here in a little while to let me know.  I had a note from him, and
I fancy it's about that."

He did not care to say squarely that he had lost.  He knew that
she was sufficiently distressed as it was, and he did not care to
be too abrupt just now.

"You don't say!" replied Lillian, with surprise and fright in her
voice, and getting up.

She had been so used to a world where prisons were scarcely thought
of, where things went on smoothly from day to day without any
noticeable intrusion of such distressing things as courts, jails,
and the like, that these last few months had driven her nearly mad.
Cowperwood had so definitely insisted on her keeping in the
background--he had told her so very little that she was all at sea
anyhow in regard to the whole procedure.  Nearly all that she had
had in the way of intelligence had been from his father and mother
and Anna, and from a close and almost secret scrutiny of the
newspapers.

At the time he had gone to the county jail she did not even know
anything about it until his father had come back from the court-room
and the jail and had broken the news to her.  It had been a terrific
blow to her.  Now to have this thing suddenly broken to her in this
offhand way, even though she had been expecting and dreading it
hourly, was too much.

She was still a decidedly charming-looking woman as she stood
holding her daughter's garment in her hand, even if she was forty
years old to Cowperwood's thirty-five.  She was robed in one of
the creations of their late prosperity, a cream-colored gown of
rich silk, with dark brown trimmings--a fetching combination for
her.  Her eyes were a little hollow, and reddish about the rims,
but otherwise she showed no sign of her keen mental distress.
There was considerable evidence of the former tranquil sweetness
that had so fascinated him ten years before.

"Isn't that terrible?" she said, weakly, her hands trembling in
a nervous way.  "Isn't it dreadful? Isn't there anything more you
can do, truly?" You won't really have to go to prison, will you?"
He objected to her distress and her nervous fears.  He preferred
a stronger, more self-reliant type of woman, but still she was his
wife, and in his day he had loved her much.

"It looks that way, Lillian," he said, with the first note of real
sympathy he had used in a long while, for he felt sorry for her
now.  At the same time he was afraid to go any further along that
line, for fear it might give her a false sense as to his present
attitude toward her which was one essentially of indifference.
But she was not so dull but what she could see that the consideration
in his voice had been brought about by his defeat, which meant hers
also.  She choked a little--and even so was touched.  The bare
suggestion of sympathy brought back the old days so definitely
gone forever.  If only they could be brought back!

"I don't want you to feel distressed about me, though," he went
on, before she could say anything to him.  "I'm not through with
my fighting.  I'll get out of this.  I have to go to prison, it
seems, in order to get things straightened out properly.  What I
would like you to do is to keep up a cheerful appearance in front
of the rest of the family--father and mother particularly.  They
need to be cheered up."  He thought once of taking her hand, then
decided not.  She noted mentally his hesitation, the great difference
between his attitude now and that of ten or twelve years before.
It did not hurt her now as much as she once would have thought.  She
looked at him, scarcely knowing what to say.  There was really not
so much to say.

"Will you have to go soon, if you do have to go?" she ventured,
wearily.

"I can't tell yet.  Possibly to-night.  Possibly Friday.  Possibly
not until Monday.  I'm waiting to hear from Steger.  I expect him
here any minute."

To prison! To prison! Her Frank Cowperwood, her husband--the
substance of their home here--and all their soul destruction going
to prison.  And even now she scarcely grasped why! She stood there
wondering what she could do

"Is there anything I can get for you?" she asked, starting forward
as if out of a dream.  "Do you want me to do anything? Don't you
think perhaps you had better leave Philadelphia, Frank? You needn't
go to prison unless you want to."

She was a little beside herself, for the first time in her life
shocked out of a deadly calm.

He paused and looked at her for a moment in his direct, examining
way, his hard commercial business judgment restored on the instant.

"That would be a confession of guilt, Lillian, and I'm not guilty,"
he replied, almost coldly.  "I haven't done anything that warrants
my running away or going to prison, either.  I'm merely going
there to save time at present.  I can't be litigating this thing
forever.  I'll get out--be pardoned out or sued out in a reasonable
length of time.  Just now it's better to go, I think.  I wouldn't
think of running away from Philadelphia.  Two of five judges found
for me in the decision.  That's pretty fair evidence that the State
has no case against me."

His wife saw she had made a mistake.  It clarified her judgment
on the instant.  "I didn't mean in that way, Frank," she replied,
apologetically.  "You know I didn't.  Of course I know you're not
guilty.  Why should I think you were, of all people?"

She paused, expecting some retort, some further argument--a kind
word maybe.  A trace of the older, baffling love, but he had
quietly turned to his desk and was thinking of other things.

At this point the anomaly of her own state came over her again.
It was all so sad and so hopeless.  And what was she to do in the
future? And what was he likely to do? She paused half trembling
and yet decided, because of her peculiarly nonresisting nature--
why trespass on his time? Why bother? No good would really come
of it.  He really did not care for her any more--that was it.
Nothing could make him, nothing could bring them together again,
not even this tragedy.  He was interested in another woman--Aileen--
and so her foolish thoughts and explanations, her fear, sorrow,
distress, were not important to him.  He could take her agonized
wish for his freedom as a comment on his probable guilt, a doubt
of his innocence, a criticism of him! She turned away for a minute,
and he started to leave the room.

"I'll be back again in a few moments," he volunteered.  "Are the
children here?"

"Yes, they're up in the play-room," she answered, sadly, utterly
nonplussed and distraught.

"Oh, Frank!" she had it on her lips to cry, but before she could
utter it he had bustled down the steps and was gone.  She turned
back to the table, her left hand to her mouth, her eyes in a queer,
hazy, melancholy mist.  Could it be, she thought, that life could
really come to this--that love could so utterly, so thoroughly die?
Ten years before--but, oh, why go back to that? Obviously it could,
and thoughts concerning that would not help now.  Twice now in her
life her affairs had seemed to go to pieces--once when her first
husband had died, and now when her second had failed her, had
fallen in love with another and was going to be sent off to prison.
What was it about her that caused such things? Was there anything
wrong with her? What was she going to do? Where go? She had no
idea, of course, for how long a term of years he would be sent away.
It might be one year or it might be five years, as the papers had
said.  Good heavens! The children could almost come to forget him
in five years.  She put her other hand to her mouth, also, and
then to her forehead, where there was a dull ache.  She tried to
think further than this, but somehow, just now, there was no further
thought.  Suddenly quite outside of her own volition, with no
thought that she was going to do such a thing, her bosom began to
heave, her throat contracted in four or five short, sharp, aching
spasms, her eyes burned, and she shook in a vigorous, anguished,
desperate, almost one might have said dry-eyed, cry, so hot and
few were the tears.  She could not stop for the moment, just stood
there and shook, and then after a while a dull ache succeeded, and
she was quite as she had been before.

"Why cry?" she suddenly asked herself, fiercely--for her.  "Why
break down in this stormy, useless way? Would it help?"

But, in spite of her speculative, philosophic observations to
herself, she still felt the echo, the distant rumble, as it were,
of the storm in her own soul.  "Why cry? Why not cry?" She might
have said--but wouldn't, and in spite of herself and all her logic,
she knew that this tempest which had so recently raged over her
was now merely circling around her soul's horizon and would return
to break again.





Chapter L




The arrival of Steger with the information that no move of any
kind would be made by the sheriff until Monday morning, when
Cowperwood could present himself, eased matters.  This gave him
time to think--to adjust home details at his leisure.  He broke
the news to his father and mother in a consoling way and talked
with his brothers and father about getting matters immediately
adjusted in connection with the smaller houses to which they were
now shortly to be compelled to move.  There was much conferring
among the different members of this collapsing organization in
regard to the minor details; and what with his conferences with
Steger, his seeing personally Davison, Leigh, Avery Stone, of Jay
Cooke & Co., George Waterman (his old-time employer Henry was dead),
ex-State Treasurer Van Nostrand, who had gone out with the last
State administration, and others, he was very busy.  Now that he
was really going into prison, he wanted his financial friends to
get together and see if they could get him out by appealing to the
Governor.  The division of opinion among the judges of the State
Supreme Court was his excuse and strong point.  He wanted Steger
to follow this up, and he spared no pains in trying to see all
and sundry who might be of use to him--Edward Tighe, of Tighe &
Co., who was still in business in Third Street; Newton Targool;
Arthur Rivers; Joseph Zimmerman, the dry-goods prince, now a
millionaire; Judge Kitchen; Terrence Relihan, the former
representative of the money element at Harrisburg; and many others.

Cowperwood wanted Relihan to approach the newspapers and see if
he could not readjust their attitude so as to work to get him out,
and he wanted Walter Leigh to head the movement of getting up a
signed petition which should contain all the important names of
moneyed people and others, asking the Governor to release him.
Leigh agreed to this heartily, as did Relihan, and many others.

And, afterwards there was really nothing else to do, unless it
was to see Aileen once more, and this, in the midst of his other
complications and obligations, seemed all but impossible at times--
and yet he did achieve that, too--so eager was he to be soothed
and comforted by the ignorant and yet all embracing volume of her
love.  Her eyes these days! The eager, burning quest of him and
his happiness that blazed in them.  To think that he should be
tortured so--her Frank! Oh, she knew--whatever he said, and however
bravely and jauntily he talked.  To think that her love for him
should have been the principal cause of his being sent to jail,
as she now believed.  And the cruelty of her father! And the
smallness of his enemies--that fool Stener, for instance, whose
pictures she had seen in the papers.  Actually, whenever in the
presence of her Frank, she fairly seethed in a chemic agony for
him--her strong, handsome lover--the strongest, bravest, wisest,
kindest, handsomest man in the world.  Oh, didn't she know! And
Cowperwood, looking in her eyes and realizing this reasonless, if
so comforting fever for him, smiled and was touched.  Such love!
That of a dog for a master; that of a mother for a child.  And
how had he come to evoke it? He could not say, but it was beautiful.

And so, now, in these last trying hours, he wished to see her much--
and did--meeting her at least four times in the month in which he
had been free, between his conviction and the final dismissal of
his appeal.  He had one last opportunity of seeing her--and she
him--just before his entrance into prison this last time--on the
Saturday before the Monday of his sentence.  He had not come in
contact with her since the decision of the Supreme Court had been
rendered, but he had had a letter from her sent to a private mail-box,
and had made an appointment for Saturday at a small hotel in Camden,
which, being across the river, was safer, in his judgment, than
anything in Philadelphia.  He was a little uncertain as to how she
would take the possibility of not seeing him soon again after
Monday, and how she would act generally once he was where she could
not confer with him as often as she chose.  And in consequence, he
was anxious to talk to her.  But on this occasion, as he anticipated,
and even feared, so sorry for her was he, she was not less emphatic
in her protestations than she had ever been; in fact, much more so.
When she saw him approaching in the distance, she went forward to
meet him in that direct, forceful way which only she could attempt
with him, a sort of mannish impetuosity which he both enjoyed and
admired, and slipping her arms around his neck, said: "Honey, you
needn't tell me.  I saw it in the papers the other morning.  Don't
you mind, honey.  I love you.  I'll wait for you.  I'll be with you
yet, if it takes a dozen years of waiting.  It doesn't make any
difference to me if it takes a hundred, only I'm so sorry for you,
sweetheart.  I'll be with you every day through this, darling,
loving you with all my might."

She caressed him while he looked at her in that quiet way which
betokened at once his self-poise and yet his interest and satisfaction
in her.  He couldn't help loving Aileen, he thought who could? She
was so passionate, vibrant, desireful.  He couldn't help admiring
her tremendously, now more than ever, because literally, in spite
of all his intellectual strength, he really could not rule her.
She went at him, even when he stood off in a calm, critical way,
as if he were her special property, her toy.  She would talk to
him always, and particularly when she was excited, as if he were
just a baby, her pet; and sometimes he felt as though she would
really overcome him mentally, make him subservient to her, she was
so individual, so sure of her importance as a woman.

Now on this occasion she went babbling on as if he were broken-hearted,
in need of her greatest care and tenderness, although he really
wasn't at all; and for the moment she actually made him feel as
though he was.

"It isn't as bad as that, Aileen," he ventured to say, eventually;
and with a softness and tenderness almost unusual for him, even
where she was concerned, but she went on forcefully, paying no heed
to him.

"Oh, yes, it is, too, honey.  I know.  Oh, my poor Frank! But I'll
see you.  I know how to manage, whatever happens.  How often do
they let visitors come out to see the prisoners there?"

"Only once in three months, pet, so they say, but I think we can
fix that after I get there; only do you think you had better try
to come right away, Aileen? You know what the feeling now is.
Hadn't you better wait a while? Aren't you in danger of stirring
up your father? He might cause a lot of trouble out there if he
were so minded."

"Only once in three months!" she exclaimed, with rising emphasis,
as he began this explanation.  "Oh, Frank, no! Surely not! Once
in three months! Oh, I can't stand that! I won't! I'll go and see
the warden myself.  He'll let me see you.   I'm sure he will, if
I talk to him."

She fairly gasped in her excitement, not willing to pause in her
tirade, but Cowperwood interposed with her, "You're not thinking
what you're saying, Aileen.  You're not thinking.  Remember your
father! Remember your family! Your father may know the warden out
there.  You don't want it to get all over town that you're running
out there to see me, do you? Your father might cause you trouble.
Besides you don't know the small party politicians as I do.  They
gossip like a lot of old women.  You'll have to be very careful
what you do and how you do it.  I don't want to lose you.  I want
to see you.  But you'll have to mind what you're doing.  Don't try
to see me at once.  I want you to, but I want to find out how the
land lies, and I want you to find out too.  You won't lose me.
I'll be there, well enough."

He paused as he thought of the long tier of iron cells which must
be there, one of which would be his--for how long?--and of Aileen
seeing him through the door of it or in it.  At the same time he
was thinking, in spite of all his other calculations, how charming
she was looking to-day.  How young she kept, and how forceful!
While he was nearing his full maturity she was a comparatively
young girl, and as beautiful as ever.  She was wearing a
black-and-white-striped silk in the curious bustle style of the
times, and a set of sealskin furs, including a little sealskin cap
set jauntily on top her red-gold hair.

"I know, I know," replied Aileen, firmly.  "But think of three
months! Honey, I can't! I won't! It's nonsense.  Three months! I
know that my father wouldn't have to wait any three months if he
wanted to see anybody out there, nor anybody else that he wanted
to ask favors for.  And I won't, either.  I'll find some way."

Cowperwood had to smile.  You could not defeat Aileen so easily.

"But you're not your father, honey; and you don't want him to know."

"I know I don't, but they don't need to know who I am.  I can go
heavily veiled.  I don't think that the warden knows my father.
He may.  Anyhow, he doesn't know me; and he wouldn't tell on me
if he did if I talked to him."

Her confidence in her charms, her personality, her earthly
privileges was quite anarchistic.  Cowperwood shook his head.

"Honey, you're about the best and the worst there is when it comes
to a woman," he observed, affectionately, pulling her head down
to kiss her, "but you'll have to listen to me just the same.  I
have a lawyer, Steger--you know him.  He's going to take up this
matter with the warden out there--is doing it today.  He may be
able to fix things, and he may not.  I'll know to-morrow or Sunday,
and I'll write you.  But don't go and do anything rash until you
hear.  I'm sure I can cut that visiting limit in half, and perhaps
down to once a month or once in two weeks even.  They only allow me
to write one letter in three months"--Aileen exploded again--"and
I'm sure I can have that made different--some; but don't write me
until you hear, or at least don't sign any name or put any address
in.  They open all mail and read it.  If you see me or write me
you'll have to be cautious, and you're not the most cautious person
in the world.  Now be good, will you?"

They talked much more--of his family, his court appearance Monday,
whether he would get out soon to attend any of the suits still
pending, or be pardoned.  Aileen still believed in his future.
She had read the opinions of the dissenting judges in his favor,
and that of the three agreed judges against him.  She was sure his
day was not over in Philadelphia, and that he would some time
reestablish himself and then take her with him somewhere else.
She was sorry for Mrs. Cowperwood, but she was convinced that she
was not suited to him--that Frank needed some one more like herself,
some one with youth and beauty and force--her, no less.  She clung
to him now in ecstatic embraces until it was time to go.  So far
as a plan of procedure could have been adjusted in a situation so
incapable of accurate adjustment, it had been done.  She was
desperately downcast at the last moment, as was he, over their
parting; but she pulled herself together with her usual force and
faced the dark future with a steady eye.





Chapter LI




Monday came and with it his final departure.  All that could be
done had been done.  Cowperwood said his farewells to his mother
and father, his brothers and sister.  He had a rather distant but
sensible and matter-of-fact talk with his wife.  He made no special
point of saying good-by to his son or his daughter; when he came
in on Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday evenings, after he
had learned that he was to depart Monday, it was with the thought
of talking to them a little in an especially affectionate way.
He realized that his general moral or unmoral attitude was perhaps
working them a temporary injustice.  Still he was not sure.  Most
people did fairly well with their lives, whether coddled or deprived
of opportunity.  These children would probably do as well as most
children, whatever happened--and then, anyhow, he had no intention
of forsaking them financially, if he could help it.  He did not
want to separate his wife from her children, nor them from her.
She should keep them.  He wanted them to be comfortable with her.
He would like to see them, wherever they were with her, occasionally.
Only he wanted his own personal freedom, in so far as she and they
were concerned, to go off and set up a new world and a new home
with Aileen.  So now on these last days, and particularly this
last Sunday night, he was rather noticeably considerate of his boy
and girl, without being too openly indicative of his approaching
separation from them.

"Frank," he said to his notably lackadaisical son on this occasion,
"aren't you going to straighten up and be a big, strong, healthy
fellow? You don't play enough.  You ought to get in with a gang
of boys and be a leader.  Why don't you fit yourself up a gymnasium
somewhere and see how strong you can get?"

They were in the senior Cowperwood's sitting-room, where they had
all rather consciously gathered on this occasion.

Lillian, second, who was on the other side of the big library
table from her father, paused to survey him and her brother with
interest.  Both had been carefully guarded against any real
knowledge of their father's affairs or his present predicament.
He was going away on a journey for about a month or so they
understood.  Lillian was reading in a Chatterbox book which had
been given her the previous Christmas.

"He won't do anything," she volunteered, looking up from her reading
in a peculiarly critical way for her.  "Why, he won't ever run
races with me when I want him to."

"Aw, who wants to run races with you, anyhow?" returned Frank,
junior, sourly.  "You couldn't run if I did want to run with you."

"Couldn't I?" she replied.  "I could beat you, all right."

"Lillian!" pleaded her mother, with a warning sound in her voice.

Cowperwood smiled, and laid his hand affectionately on his son's
head.  "You'll be all right, Frank," he volunteered, pinching his
ear lightly.  "Don't worry--just make an effort."

The boy did not respond as warmly as he hoped.  Later in the
evening Mrs. Cowperwood noticed that her husband squeezed his
daughter's slim little waist and pulled her curly hair gently.
For the moment she was jealous of her daughter.

"Going to be the best kind of a girl while I'm away?" he said to
her, privately.

"Yes, papa," she replied, brightly.

"That's right," he returned, and leaned over and kissed her mouth
tenderly.  "Button Eyes," he said.

Mrs. Cowperwood sighed after he had gone.  "Everything for the
children, nothing for me," she thought, though the children had
not got so vastly much either in the past.

Cowperwood's attitude toward his mother in this final hour was
about as tender and sympathetic as any he could maintain in this
world.  He understood quite clearly the ramifications of her
interests, and how she was suffering for him and all the others
concerned.  He had not forgotten her sympathetic care of him in
his youth; and if he could have done anything to have spared her
this unhappy breakdown of her fortunes in her old age, he would
have done so.  There was no use crying over spilled milk.  It was
impossible at times for him not to feel intensely in moments of
success or failure; but the proper thing to do was to bear up,
not to show it, to talk little and go your way with an air not so
much of resignation as of self-sufficiency, to whatever was awaiting
you.  That was his attitude on this morning, and that was what he
expected from those around him--almost compelled, in fact, by his
own attitude.

"Well, mother," he said, genially, at the last moment--he would
not let her nor his wife nor his sister come to court, maintaining
that it would make not the least difference to him and would only
harrow their own feelings uselessly--"I'm going now.  Don't worry.
Keep up your spirits."

He slipped his arm around his mother's waist, and she gave him a
long, unrestrained, despairing embrace and kiss.

"Go on, Frank," she said, choking, when she let him go.  "God
bless you.  I'll pray for you."  He paid no further attention to
her.  He didn't dare.

"Good-by, Lillian," he said to his wife, pleasantly, kindly.  "I'll
be back in a few days, I think.  I'll be coming out to attend some
of these court proceedings."

To his sister he said: "Good-by, Anna.  Don't let the others get
too down-hearted."

"I'll see you three afterward," he said to his father and brothers;
and so, dressed in the very best fashion of the time, he hurried
down into the reception-hall, where Steger was waiting, and was
off.  His family, hearing the door close on him, suffered a poignant
sense of desolation.  They stood there for a moment, his mother
crying, his father looking as though he had lost his last friend
but making a great effort to seem self-contained and equal to his
troubles, Anna telling Lillian not to mind, and the latter staring
dumbly into the future, not knowing what to think.  Surely a
brilliant sun had set on their local scene, and in a very pathetic
way.





Chapter LII




When Cowperwood reached the jail, Jaspers was there, glad to see
him but principally relieved to feel that nothing had happened to
mar his own reputation as a sheriff.  Because of the urgency of
court matters generally, it was decided to depart for the courtroom
at nine o'clock.  Eddie Zanders was once more delegated to see
that Cowperwood was brought safely before Judge Payderson and
afterward taken to the penitentiary.  All of the papers in the
case were put in his care to be delivered to the warden.

"I suppose you know," confided Sheriff Jaspers to Steger, "that
Stener is here.  He ain't got no money now, but I gave him a
private room just the same.  I didn't want to put a man like him
in no cell."  Sheriff Jaspers sympathized with Stener.

"That's right.  I'm glad to hear that," replied Steger, smiling
to himself.

"I didn't suppose from what I've heard that Mr. Cowperwood would
want to meet Stener here, so I've kept 'em apart.  George just
left a minute ago with another deputy."

"That's good.  That's the way it ought to be," replied Steger.
He was glad for Cowperwood's sake that the sheriff had so much
tact.  Evidently George and the sheriff were getting along in a
very friendly way, for all the former's bitter troubles and lack
of means.

The Cowperwood party walked, the distance not being great, and as
they did so they talked of rather simple things to avoid the more
serious.

"Things aren't going to be so bad," Edward said to his father.
"Steger says the Governor is sure to pardon Stener in a year or
less, and if he does he's bound to let Frank out too."

Cowperwood, the elder, had heard this over and over, but he was
never tired of hearing it.  It was like some simple croon with
which babies are hushed to sleep.  The snow on the ground, which
was enduring remarkably well for this time of year, the fineness
of the day, which had started out to be clear and bright, the
hope that the courtroom might not be full, all held the attention
of the father and his two sons.  Cowperwood, senior, even commented
on some sparrows fighting over a piece of bread, marveling how
well they did in winter, solely to ease his mind.  Cowperwood,
walking on ahead with Steger and Zanders, talked of approaching
court proceedings in connection with his business and what ought
to be done.

When they reached the court the same little pen in which Cowperwood
had awaited the verdict of his jury several months before was
waiting to receive him.

Cowperwood, senior, and his other sons sought places in the
courtroom proper.  Eddie Zanders remained with his charge.  Stener
and a deputy by the name of Wilkerson were in the room; but he and
Cowperwood pretended now not to see each other.  Frank had no
objection to talking to his former associate, but he could see
that Stener was diffident and ashamed.  So he let the situation
pass without look or word of any kind.  After some three-quarters
of an hour of dreary waiting the door leading into the courtroom
proper opened and a bailiff stepped in.

"All prisoners up for sentence," he called.

There were six, all told, including Cowperwood and Stener.  Two
of them were confederate housebreakers who had been caught red-handed
at their midnight task.

Another prisoner was no more and no less than a plain horse-thief,
a young man of twenty-six, who had been convicted by a jury of
stealing a grocer's horse and selling it.  The last man was a
negro, a tall, shambling, illiterate, nebulous-minded black, who
had walked off with an apparently discarded section of lead pipe
which he had found in a lumber-yard.  His idea was to sell or
trade it for a drink.  He really did not belong in this court at
all; but, having been caught by an undersized American watchman
charged with the care of the property, and having at first refused
to plead guilty, not quite understanding what was to be done with
him, he had been perforce bound over to this court for trial.
Afterward he had changed his mind and admitted his guilt, so he
now had to come before Judge Payderson for sentence or dismissal.
The lower court before which he had originally been brought had
lost jurisdiction by binding him over to to higher court for trial.
Eddie Zanders, in his self-appointed position as guide and mentor
to Cowperwood, had confided nearly all of this data to him as he
stood waiting.

The courtroom was crowded.  It was very humiliating to Cowperwood
to have to file in this way along the side aisle with these others,
followed by Stener, well dressed but sickly looking and disconsolate.

The negro, Charles Ackerman, was the first on the list.

"How is it this man comes before me?" asked Payderson, peevishly,
when he noted the value of the property Ackerman was supposed to
have stolen.

"Your honor," the assistant district attorney explained, promptly,
"this man was before a lower court and refused, because he was
drunk, or something, to plead guilty.  The lower court, because
the complainant would not forego the charge, was compelled to
bind him over to this court for trial.  Since then he has changed
his mind and has admitted his guilt to the district attorney.  He
would not be brought before you except we have no alternative.
He has to be brought here now in order to clear the calendar."

Judge Payderson stared quizzically at the negro, who, obviously
not very much disturbed by this examination, was leaning comfortably
on the gate or bar before which the average criminal stood erect
and terrified.  He had been before police-court magistrates before
on one charge and another--drunkenness, disorderly conduct, and
the like--but his whole attitude was one of shambling, lackadaisical,
amusing innocence.

"Well, Ackerman," inquired his honor, severely, "did you or did
you not steal this piece of lead pipe as charged here--four dollars
and eighty cents' worth?"

"Yassah, I did," he began.  "I tell you how it was, jedge.  I was
a-comin' along past dat lumber-yard one Saturday afternoon, and
I hadn't been wuckin', an' I saw dat piece o' pipe thoo de fence,
lyin' inside, and I jes' reached thoo with a piece o' boad I
found dey and pulled it over to me an' tuck it.  An' aftahwahd dis
Mistah Watchman man"--he waved his hand oratorically toward the
witness-chair, where, in case the judge might wish to ask him some
questions, the complainant had taken his stand--"come around tuh
where I live an' accused me of done takin' it."

"But you did take it, didn't you?"

"Yassah, I done tuck it."

"What did you do with it?"

"I traded it foh twenty-five cents."

"You mean you sold it," corrected his honor.

"Yassah, I done sold it."

"Well, don't you know it's wrong to do anything like that? Didn't
you know when you reached through that fence and pulled that pipe
over to you that you were stealing? Didn't you?"

"Yassah, I knowed it was wrong," replied Ackerman, sheepishly.
"I didn' think 'twuz stealin' like zackly, but I done knowed it
was wrong.  I done knowed I oughtn' take it, I guess."

"Of course you did.  Of course you did.  That's just it.  You
knew you were stealing, and still you took it.  Has the man to
whom this negro sold the lead pipe been apprehended yet?" the
judge inquired sharply of the district attorney.  "He should be,
for he's more guilty than this negro, a receiver of stolen goods."

"Yes, sir," replied the assistant.  "His case is before Judge
Yawger."

"Quite right.  It should be," replied Payderson, severely.  "This
matter of receiving stolen property is one of the worst offenses,
in my judgment."

He then turned his attention to Ackerman again.  "Now, look here,
Ackerman," he exclaimed, irritated at having to bother with such
a pretty case, "I want to say something to you, and I want you to
pay strict attention to me.  Straighten up, there! Don't lean on
that gate! You are in the presence of the law now."  Ackerman had
sprawled himself comfortably down on his elbows as he would have
if he had been leaning over a back-fence gate talking to some one,
but he immediately drew himself straight, still grinning foolishly
and apologetically, when he heard this.  "You are not so dull but
that you can understand what I am going to say to you.  The offense
you have committed--stealing a piece of lead pipe--is a crime.  Do
you hear me? A criminal offense--one that I could punish you very
severely for.  I could send you to the penitentiary for one year
if I chose--the law says I may--one year at hard labor for stealing
a piece of lead pipe.  Now, if you have any sense you will pay
strict attention to what I am going to tell you.  I am not going
to send you to the penitentiary right now.  I'm going to wait a
little while.  I am going to sentence you to one year in the
penitentiary--one year.  Do you understand?" Ackerman blanched a
little and licked his lips nervously.  "And then I am going to
suspend that sentence--hold it over your head, so that if you are
ever caught taking anything else you will be punished for this
offense and the next one also at one and the same time.  Do you
understand that? Do you know what I mean? Tell me.  Do you?"

"Yessah! I does, sir," replied the negro.  "You'se gwine to let
me go now--tha's it."

The audience grinned, and his honor made a wry face to prevent
his own grim grin.

"I'm going to let you go only so long as you don't steal anything
else," he thundered.  "The moment you steal anything else, back
you come to this court, and then you go to the penitentiary for a
year and whatever more time you deserve.  Do you understand that?
Now, I want you to walk straight out of this court and behave
yourself.  Don't ever steal anything.  Get something to do! Don't
steal, do you hear? Don't touch anything that doesn't belong to
you! Don't come back here! If you do, I'll send you to the
penitentiary, sure."

"Yassah! No, sah, I won't," replied Ackerman, nervously.  "I won't
take nothin' more that don't belong tuh me."

He shuffled away, after a moment, urged along by the guiding hand
of a bailiff, and was put safely outside the court, amid a mixture
of smiles and laughter over his simplicity and Payderson's undue
severity of manner.  But the next case was called and soon engrossed
the interest of the audience.

It was that of the two housebreakers whom Cowperwood had been and
was still studying with much curiosity.  In all his life before
he had never witnessed a sentencing scene of any kind.  He had
never been in police or criminal courts of any kind--rarely in any
of the civil ones.  He was glad to see the negro go, and gave
Payderson credit for having some sense and sympathy--more than he
had expected.

He wondered now whether by any chance Aileen was here.  He had
objected to her coming, but she might have done so.  She was, as
a matter of fact, in the extreme rear, pocketed in a crowd near
the door, heavily veiled, but present.  She had not been able to
resist the desire to know quickly and surely her beloved's fate--
to be near him in his hour of real suffering, as she thought.  She
was greatly angered at seeing him brought in with a line of ordinary
criminals and made to wait in this, to her, shameful public manner,
but she could not help admiring all the more the dignity and
superiority of his presence even here.  He was not even pale, as
she saw, just the same firm, calm soul she had always known him
to be.  If he could only see her now; if he would only look so she
could lift her veil and smile! He didn't, though; he wouldn't.  He
didn't want to see her here.  But she would tell him all about it
when she saw him again just the same.

The two burglars were quickly disposed of by the judge, with a
sentence of one year each, and they were led away, uncertain, and
apparently not knowing what to think of their crime or their future.

When it came to Cowperwood's turn to be called, his honor himself
stiffened and straightened up, for this was a different type of
man and could not be handled in the usual manner.  He knew exactly
what he was going to say.  When one of Mollenhauer's agents, a
close friend of Butler's, had suggested that five years for both
Cowperwood and Stener would be about right, he knew exactly what
to do.  "Frank Algernon Cowperwood," called the clerk.

Cowperwood stepped briskly forward, sorry for himself, ashamed of
his position in a way, but showing it neither in look nor manner.
Payderson eyed him as he had the others.

"Name?" asked the bailiff, for the benefit of the court stenographer.

"Frank Algernon Cowperwood."

"Residence?"

"1937 Girard Avenue."

"Occupation?"

"Banker and broker."

Steger stood close beside him, very dignified, very forceful, ready
to make a final statement for the benefit of the court and the
public when the time should come.  Aileen, from her position in
the crowd near the door, was for the first time in her life biting
her fingers nervously and there were great beads of perspiration
on her brow.  Cowperwood's father was tense with excitement and
his two brothers looked quickly away, doing their best to hide
their fear and sorrow.

"Ever convicted before?"

"Never," replied Steger for Cowperwood, quietly.

"Frank Algernon Cowperwood," called the clerk, in his nasal,
singsong way, coming forward, "have you anything to say why judgment
should not now be pronounced upon you? If so, speak."

Cowperwood started to say no, but Steger put up his hand.

"If the court pleases, my client, Mr. Cowperwood, the prisoner at
the bar, is neither guilty in his own estimation, nor in that of
two-fifths of the Pennsylvania State Supreme Court--the court of
last resort in this State," he exclaimed, loudly and clearly, so
that all might hear.

One of the interested listeners and spectators at this point was
Edward Malia Butler, who had just stepped in from another courtroom
where he had been talking to a judge.  An obsequious court attendant
had warned him that Cowperwood was about to be sentenced.  He had
really come here this morning in order not to miss this sentence,
but he cloaked his motive under the guise of another errand.  He
did not know that Aileen was there, nor did he see her.

"As he himself testified at the time of his trial," went on Steger,
"and as the evidence clearly showed, he was never more than an
agent for the gentleman whose offense was subsequently adjudicated
by this court; and as an agent he still maintains, and two-fifths
of the State Supreme Court agree with him, that he was strictly
within his rights and privileges in not having deposited the sixty
thousand dollars' worth of city loan certificates at the time, and
in the manner which the people, acting through the district attorney,
complained that he should have.  My client is a man of rare financial
ability.  By the various letters which have been submitted to your
honor in his behalf, you will see that he commands the respect and
the sympathy of a large majority of the most forceful and eminent
men in his particular world.  He is a man of distinguished social
standing and of notable achievements.  Only the most unheralded
and the unkindest thrust of fortune has brought him here before
you today--a fire and its consequent panic which involved a financial
property of the most thorough and stable character.  In spite of
the verdict of the jury and the decision of three-fifths of the
State Supreme Court, I maintain that my client is not an embezzler,
that he has not committed larceny, that he should never have been
convicted, and that he should not now be punished for something
of which he is not guilty.

"I trust that your honor will not misunderstand me or my motives
when I point out in this situation that what I have said is true.
I do not wish to cast any reflection on the integrity of the court,
nor of any court, nor of any of the processes of law.  But I do
condemn and deplore the untoward chain of events which has built
up a seeming situation, not easily understood by the lay mind, and
which has brought my distinguished client within the purview of
the law.  I think it is but fair that this should be finally and
publicly stated here and now.  I ask that your honor be lenient,
and that if you cannot conscientiously dismiss this charge you
will at least see that the facts, as I have indicated them, are
given due weight in the measure of the punishment inflicted."

Steger stepped back and Judge Payderson nodded, as much as to say
he had heard all the distinguished lawyer had to say, and would
give it such consideration as it deserved--no more.  Then he turned
to Cowperwood, and, summoning all his judicial dignity to his aid,
he began:

"Frank Algernon Cowperwood, you have been convicted by a jury of
your own selection of the offense of larceny.  The motion for a
new trial, made in your behalf by your learned counsel, has been
carefully considered and overruled, the majority of the court being
entirely satisfied with the propriety of the conviction, both upon
the law and the evidence.  Your offense was one of more than usual
gravity, the more so that the large amount of money which you
obtained belonged to the city.  And it was aggravated by the fact
that you had in addition thereto unlawfully used and converted to
your own use several hundred thousand dollars of the loan and money
of the city.  For such an offense the maximum punishment affixed
by the law is singularly merciful.  Nevertheless, the facts in
connection with your hitherto distinguished position, the
circumstances under which your failure was brought about, and the
appeals of your numerous friends and financial associates, will
be given due consideration by this court.  It is not unmindful of
any important fact in your career."  Payderson paused as if in
doubt, though he knew very well how he was about to proceed.  He
knew what his superiors expected of him.

"If your case points no other moral," he went on, after a moment,
toying with the briefs, "it will at least teach the lesson much
needed at the present time, that the treasury of the city is not
to be invaded and plundered with impunity under the thin disguise
of a business transaction, and that there is still a power in the
law to vindicate itself and to protect the public.

"The sentence of the court," he added, solemnly, the while Cowperwood
gazed unmoved, "is, therefore, that you pay a fine of five thousand
dollars to the commonwealth for the use of the county, that you
pay the costs of prosecution, and that you undergo imprisonment
in the State Penitentiary for the Eastern District by separate or
solitary confinement at labor for a period of four years and three
months, and that you stand committed until this sentence is complied
with."

Cowperwood's father, on hearing this, bowed his head to hide his
tears.  Aileen bit her lower lip and clenched her hands to keep
down her rage and disappointment and tears.  Four years and three
months! That would make a terrible gap in his life and hers.  Still,
she could wait.  It was better than eight or ten years, as she
had feared it might be.  Perhaps now, once this was really over
and he was in prison, the Governor would pardon him.

The judge now moved to pick up the papers in connection with
Stener's case, satisfied that he had given the financiers no
chance to say he had not given due heed to their plea in Cowperwood's
behalf and yet certain that the politicians would be pleased
that he had so nearly given Cowperwood the maximum while appearing
to have heeded the pleas for mercy.  Cowperwood saw through the
trick at once, but it did not disturb him.  It struck him as rather
weak and contemptible.  A bailiff came forward and started to hurry
him away.

"Allow the prisoner to remain for a moment," called the judge.

The name, of George W. Stener had been called by the clerk and
Cowperwood did not quite understand why he was being detained, but
he soon learned.  It was that he might hear the opinion of the
court in connection with his copartner in crime.  The latter's
record was taken.  Roger O'Mara, the Irish political lawyer who
had been his counsel all through his troubles, stood near him, but
had nothing to say beyond asking the judge to consider Stener's
previously honorable career.

"George W. Stener," said his honor, while the audience, including
Cowperwood, listened attentively.  "The motion for a new trial as
well as an arrest of judgment in your case having been overruled,
it remains for the court to impose such sentence as the nature of
your offense requires.  I do not desire to add to the pain of your
position by any extended remarks of my own; but I cannot let the
occasion pass without expressing my emphatic condemnation of your
offense.  The misapplication of public money has become the great
crime of the age.  If not promptly and firmly checked, it will
ultimately destroy our institutions.  When a republic becomes
honeycombed with corruption its vitality is gone.  It must crumble
upon the first pressure.

"In my opinion, the public is much to blame for your offense and
others of a similar character.  Heretofore, official fraud has
been regarded with too much indifference.  What we need is a higher
and purer political morality--a state of public opinion which would
make the improper use of public money a thing to be execrated.  It
was the lack of this which made your offense possible.  Beyond that
I see nothing of extenuation in your case."  Judge Payderson paused
for emphasis.  He was coming to his finest flight, and he wanted
it to sink in.

"The people had confided to you the care of their money," he went
on, solemnly.  "It was a high, a sacred trust.  You should have
guarded the door of the treasury even as the cherubim protected
the Garden of Eden, and should have turned the flaming sword of
impeccable honesty against every one who approached it improperly.
Your position as the representative of a great community warranted
that.

"In view of all the facts in your case the court can do no less
than impose a major penalty.  The seventy-fourth section of the
Criminal Procedure Act provides that no convict shall be sentenced
by the court of this commonwealth to either of the penitentiaries
thereof, for any term which shall expire between the fifteenth of
November and the fifteenth day of February of any year, and this
provision requires me to abate three months from the maximum of
time which I would affix in your case--namely, five years.  The
sentence of the court is, therefore, that you pay a fine of five
thousand dollars to the commonwealth for the use of the county"--
Payderson knew well enough that Stener could never pay that sum--
"and that you undergo imprisonment in the State Penitentiary for
the Eastern District, by separate and solitary confinement at labor,
for the period of four years and nine months, and that you stand
committed until this sentence is complied with."  He laid down
the briefs and rubbed his chin reflectively while both Cowperwood
and Stener were hurried out.  Butler was the first to leave after
the sentence--quite satisfied.  Seeing that all was over so far
as she was concerned, Aileen stole quickly out; and after her, in
a few moments, Cowperwood's father and brothers.  They were to
await him outside and go with him to the penitentiary.  The remaining
members of the family were at home eagerly awaiting intelligence
of the morning's work, and Joseph Cowperwood was at once despatched
to tell them.

The day had now become cloudy, lowery, and it looked as if there
might be snow.  Eddie Zanders, who had been given all the papers
in the case, announced that there was no need to return to the
county jail.  In consequence the five of them--Zanders, Steger,
Cowperwood, his father, and Edward--got into a street-car which
ran to within a few blocks of the prison.  Within half an hour
they were at the gates of the Eastern Penitentiary.  





Chapter LIII




The Eastern District Penitentiary of Pennsylvania, standing at
Fairmount Avenue and Twenty-first Street in Philadelphia, where
Cowperwood was now to serve his sentence of four years and three
months, was a large, gray-stone structure, solemn and momentous
in its mien, not at all unlike the palace of Sforzas at Milan,
although not so distinguished.  It stretched its gray length for
several blocks along four different streets, and looked as lonely
and forbidding as a prison should.  The wall which inclosed its
great area extending over ten acres and gave it so much of its
solemn dignity was thirty-five feet high and some seven feet thick.
The prison proper, which was not visible from the outside,
consisted of seven arms or corridors, ranged octopus-like around
a central room or court, and occupying in their sprawling length
about two-thirds of the yard inclosed within the walls, so that
there was but little space for the charm of lawn or sward.  The
corridors, forty-two feet wide from outer wall to outer wall,
were one hundred and eighty feet in length, and in four instances
two stories high, and extended in their long reach in every direction.
There were no windows in the corridors, only narrow slits of
skylights, three and one-half feet long by perhaps eight inches
wide, let in the roof; and the ground-floor cells were accompanied
in some instances by a small yard ten by sixteen--the same size
as the cells proper--which was surrounded by a high brick wall in
every instance.  The cells and floors and roofs were made of stone,
and the corridors, which were only ten feet wide between the cells,
and in the case of the single-story portion only fifteen feet high,
were paved with stone.  If you stood in the central room, or rotunda,
and looked down the long stretches which departed from you in every
direction, you had a sense of narrowness and confinement not
compatible with their length.  The iron doors, with their outer
accompaniment of solid wooden ones, the latter used at times to
shut the prisoner from all sight and sound, were grim and unpleasing
to behold.  The halls were light enough, being whitewashed frequently
and set with the narrow skylights, which were closed with frosted
glass in winter; but they were, as are all such matter-of-fact
arrangements for incarceration, bare--wearisome to look upon.  Life
enough there was in all conscience, seeing that there were four
hundred prisoners here at that time, and that nearly every cell
was occupied; but it was a life of which no one individual was
essentially aware as a spectacle.  He was of it; but he was not.
Some of the prisoners, after long service, were used as "trusties"
or "runners," as they were locally called; but not many.  There
was a bakery, a machine-shop, a carpenter-shop, a store-room, a
flour-mill, and a series of gardens, or truck patches; but the
manipulation of these did not require the services of a large number.

The prison proper dated from 1822, and it had grown, wing by wing,
until its present considerable size had been reached.  Its population
consisted of individuals of all degrees of intelligence and crime,
from murderers to minor practitioners of larceny.  It had what was
known as the "Pennsylvania System" of regulation for its inmates,
which was nothing more nor less than solitary confinement for all
concerned--a life of absolute silence and separate labor in separate
cells.

Barring his comparatively recent experience in the county jail,
which after all was far from typical, Cowperwood had never been
in a prison in his life.  Once, when a boy, in one of his perambulations
through several of the surrounding towns, he had passed a village
"lock-up," as the town prisons were then called--a small, square,
gray building with long iron-barred windows, and he had seen, at
one of these rather depressing apertures on the second floor, a
none too prepossessing drunkard or town ne'er-do-well who looked
down on him with bleary eyes, unkempt hair, and a sodden, waxy,
pallid face, and called--for it was summer and the jail window
was open:

"Hey, sonny, get me a plug of tobacco, will you?"

Cowperwood, who had looked up, shocked and disturbed by the man's
disheveled appearance, had called back, quite without stopping to
think:

"Naw, I can't."

"Look out you don't get locked up yourself sometime, you little
runt," the man had replied, savagely, only half recovered from his
debauch of the day before.

He had not thought of this particular scene in years, but now
suddenly it came back to him.  Here he was on his way to be locked
up in this dull, somber prison, and it was snowing, and he was
being cut out of human affairs as much as it was possible for him
to be cut out.

No friends were permitted to accompany him beyond the outer gate--
not even Steger for the time being, though he might visit him
later in the day.  This was an inviolable rule.  Zanders being
known to the gate-keeper, and bearing his commitment paper, was
admitted at once.  The others turned solemnly away.  They bade a
gloomy if affectionate farewell to Cowperwood, who, on his part,
attempted to give it all an air of inconsequence--as, in part and
even here, it had for him.

"Well, good-by for the present," he said, shaking hands.  "I'll
be all right and I'll get out soon.  Wait and see.  Tell Lillian
not to worry."

He stepped inside, and the gate clanked solemnly behind him.
Zanders led the way through a dark, somber hall, wide and high-ceiled,
to a farther gate, where a second gateman, trifling with a large
key, unlocked a barred door at his bidding.  Once inside the prison
yard, Zanders turned to the left into a small office, presenting
his prisoner before a small, chest-high desk, where stood a prison
officer in uniform of blue.  The latter, the receiving overseer
of the prison--a thin, practical, executive-looking person with
narrow gray eyes and light hair, took the paper which the sheriff's
deputy handed him and read it.  This was his authority for receiving
Cowperwood.  In his turn he handed Zanders a slip, showing that
he had so received the prisoner; and then Zanders left, receiving
gratefully the tip which Cowperwood pressed in his hand.

"Well, good-by, Mr. Cowperwood," he said, with a peculiar twist of
his detective-like head.  "I'm sorry.  I hope you won't find it
so bad here."

He wanted to impress the receiving overseer with his familiarity
with this distinguished prisoner, and Cowperwood, true to his
policy of make-believe, shook hands with him cordially.

"I'm much obliged to you for your courtesy, Mr. Zanders," he said,
then turned to his new master with the air of a man who is determined
to make a good impression.  He was now in the hands of petty
officials, he knew, who could modify or increase his comfort at
will.  He wanted to impress this man with his utter willingness
to comply and obey--his sense of respect for his authority--without
in any way demeaning himself.  He was depressed but efficient,
even here in the clutch of that eventual machine of the law, the
State penitentiary, which he had been struggling so hard to evade.

The receiving overseer, Roger Kendall, though thin and clerical,
was a rather capable man, as prison officials go--shrewd, not
particularly well educated, not over-intelligent naturally, not
over-industrious, but sufficiently energetic to hold his position.
He knew something about convicts--considerable--for he had been
dealing with them for nearly twenty-six years.  His attitude toward
them was cold, cynical, critical.

He did not permit any of them to come into personal contact with
him, but he saw to it that underlings in his presence carried out
the requirements of the law.

When Cowperwood entered, dressed in his very good clothing--a
dark gray-blue twill suit of pure wool, a light, well-made gray
overcoat, a black derby hat of the latest shape, his shoes new
and of good leather, his tie of the best silk, heavy and conservatively
colored, his hair and mustache showing the attention of an intelligent
barber, and his hands well manicured--the receiving overseer saw
at once that he was in the presence of some one of superior
intelligence and force, such a man as the fortune of his trade
rarely brought into his net.

Cowperwood stood in the middle of the room without apparently
looking at any one or anything, though he saw all.  "Convict number
3633," Kendall called to a clerk, handing him at the same time a
yellow slip of paper on which was written Cowperwood's full name
and his record number, counting from the beginning of the
penitentiary itself.

The underling, a convict, took it and entered it in a book, reserving
the slip at the same time for the penitentiary "runner" or "trusty,"
who would eventually take Cowperwood to the "manners" gallery.

"You will have to take off your clothes and take a bath," said
Kendall to Cowperwood, eyeing him curiously.  "I don't suppose you
need one, but it's the rule."

"Thank you," replied Cowperwood, pleased that his personality was
counting for something even here.  "Whatever the rules are, I want
to obey."

When he started to take off his coat, however, Kendall put up his
hand delayingly and tapped a bell.  There now issued from an
adjoining room an assistant, a prison servitor, a weird-looking
specimen of the genus "trusty."  He was a small, dark, lopsided
individual, one leg being slightly shorter, and therefore one
shoulder lower, than the other.  He was hollow-chested, squint-eyed,
and rather shambling, but spry enough withal.  He was dressed in
a thin, poorly made, baggy suit of striped jeans, the prison
stripes of the place, showing a soft roll-collar shirt underneath,
and wearing a large, wide-striped cap, peculiarly offensive in its
size and shape to Cowperwood.  He could not help thinking how
uncanny the man's squint eyes looked under its straight outstanding
visor.  The trusty had a silly, sycophantic manner of raising one
hand in salute.  He was a professional "second-story man," "up"
for ten years, but by dint of good behavior he had attained to the
honor of working about this office without the degrading hood
customary for prisoners to wear over the cap.  For this he was
properly grateful.  He now considered his superior with nervous
dog-like eyes, and looked at Cowperwood with a certain cunning
appreciation of his lot and a show of initial mistrust.

One prisoner is as good as another to the average convict; as a
matter of fact, it is their only consolation in their degradation
that all who come here are no better than they.  The world may
have misused them; but they misuse their confreres in their thoughts.
The "holier than thou" attitude, intentional or otherwise, is quite
the last and most deadly offense within prison walls.  This
particular "trusty" could no more understand Cowperwood than could
a fly the motions of a fly-wheel; but with the cocky superiority
of the underling of the world he did not hesitate to think that
he could.  A crook was a crook to him--Cowperwood no less than the
shabbiest pickpocket.  His one feeling was that he would like to
demean him, to pull him down to his own level.

"You will have to take everything you have out of your pockets,"
Kendall now informed Cowperwood.  Ordinarily he would have said,
"Search the prisoner."

Cowperwood stepped forward and laid out a purse with twenty-five
dollars in it, a pen-knife, a lead-pencil, a small note-book, and
a little ivory elephant which Aileen had given him once, "for luck,"
and which he treasured solely because she gave it to him.  Kendall
looked at the latter curiously.  "Now you can go on," he said to
the "trusty," referring to the undressing and bathing process which
was to follow.

"This way," said the latter, addressing Cowperwood, and preceding
him into an adjoining room, where three closets held three
old-fashioned, iron-bodied, wooden-top bath-tubs, with their
attendant shelves for rough crash towels, yellow soap, and the
like, and hooks for clothes.

"Get in there," said the trusty, whose name was Thomas Kuby,
pointing to one of the tubs.

Cowperwood realized that this was the beginning of petty official
supervision; but he deemed it wise to appear friendly even here.

"I see," he said.  "I will."

"That's right," replied the attendant, somewhat placated.  "What
did you bring?"

Cowperwood looked at him quizzically.  He did not understand.  The
prison attendant realized that this man did not know the lingo of
the place.  "What did you bring?" he repeated.  "How many years
did you get?"

"Oh!" exclaimed Cowperwood, comprehendingly.  "I understand.  Four
and three months."

He decided to humor the man.  It would probably be better so.

"What for?" inquired Kuby, familiarly.

Cowperwood's blood chilled slightly.  "Larceny," he said.

"Yuh got off easy," commented Kuby.  "I'm up for ten.  A rube judge
did that to me."

Kuby had never heard of Cowperwood's crime.  He would not have
understood its subtleties if he had.  Cowperwood did not want to
talk to this man; he did not know how.  He wished he would go away;
but that was not likely.  He wanted to be put in his cell and let
alone.

"That's too bad," he answered; and the convict realized clearly
that this man was really not one of them, or he would not have
said anything like that.  Kuby went to the two hydrants opening
into the bath-tub and turned them on.  Cowperwood had been undressing
the while, and now stood naked, but not ashamed, in front of this
eighth-rate intelligence.

"Don't forget to wash your head, too," said Kuby, and went away.

Cowperwood stood there while the water ran, meditating on his
fate.  It was strange how life had dealt with him of late--so
severely.  Unlike most men in his position, he was not suffering
from a consciousness of evil.  He did not think he was evil.  As
he saw it, he was merely unfortunate.  To think that he should be
actually in this great, silent penitentiary, a convict, waiting
here beside this cheap iron bathtub, not very sweet or hygienic
to contemplate, with this crackbrained criminal to watch over him!

He stepped into the tub and washed himself briskly with the biting
yellow soap, drying himself on one of the rough, only partially
bleached towels.  He looked for his underwear, but there was none.
At this point the attendant looked in again.  "Out here," he said,
inconsiderately.

Cowperwood followed, naked.  He was led through the receiving
overseer's office into a room, where were scales, implements of
measurement, a record-book, etc.  The attendant who stood guard
at the door now came over, and the clerk who sat in a corner
automatically took down a record-blank.  Kendall surveyed Cowperwood's
decidedly graceful figure, already inclining to a slight thickening
around the waist, and approved of it as superior to that of most who
came here.  His skin, as he particularly noted, was especially
white.

"Step on the scale," said the attendant, brusquely.

Cowperwood did so, The former adjusted the weights and scanned the
record carefully.

"Weight, one hundred and seventy-five," he called.  "Now step over
here."

He indicated a spot in the side wall where was fastened in a thin
slat--which ran from the floor to about seven and one half feet
above, perpendicularly--a small movable wooden indicator, which,
when a man was standing under it, could be pressed down on his
head.  At the side of the slat were the total inches of height,
laid off in halves, quarters, eighths, and so on, and to the right
a length measurement for the arm.  Cowperwood understood what was
wanted and stepped under the indicator, standing quite straight.

"Feet level, back to the wall," urged the attendant.  "So.  Height,
five feet nine and ten-sixteenths," he called.  The clerk in the
corner noted it.  He now produced a tape-measure and began measuring
Cowperwood's arms, legs, chest, waist, hips, etc.   He called out
the color of his eyes, his hair, his mustache, and, looking into
his mouth, exclaimed, "Teeth, all sound."

After Cowperwood had once more given his address, age, profession,
whether he knew any trade, etc.--which he did not--he was allowed
to return to the bathroom, and put on the clothing which the prison
provided for him--first the rough, prickly underwear, then the
cheap soft roll-collar, white-cotton shirt, then the thick bluish-gray
cotton socks of a quality such as he had never worn in his life,
and over these a pair of indescribable rough-leather clogs, which
felt to his feet as though they were made of wood or iron--oily
and heavy.  He then drew on the shapeless, baggy trousers with
their telltale stripes, and over his arms and chest the loose-cut
shapeless coat and waistcoat.  He felt and knew of course that he
looked very strange, wretched.  And as he stepped out into the
overseer's room again he experienced a peculiar sense of depression,
a gone feeling which before this had not assailed him and which
now he did his best to conceal.  This, then, was what society did
to the criminal, he thought to himself.  It took him and tore away
from his body and his life the habiliments of his proper state and
left him these.  He felt sad and grim, and, try as he would--he
could not help showing it for a moment.  It was always his business
and his intention to conceal his real feelings, but now it was
not quite possible.  He felt degraded, impossible, in these clothes,
and he knew that he looked it.  Nevertheless, he did his best to
pull himself together and look unconcerned, willing, obedient,
considerate of those above him.  After all, he said to himself,
it was all a play of sorts, a dream even, if one chose to view it
so, a miasma even, from which, in the course of time and with a
little luck one might emerge safely enough.  He hoped so.  It could
not last.  He was only acting a strange, unfamiliar part on the
stage, this stage of life that he knew so well.

Kendall did not waste any time looking at him, however.  He merely
said to his assistant, "See if you can find a cap for him," and the
latter, going to a closet containing numbered shelves, took down
a cap--a high-crowned, straight-visored, shabby, striped affair
which Cowperwood was asked to try on.  It fitted well enough,
slipping down close over his ears, and he thought that now his
indignities must be about complete.  What could be added? There
could be no more of these disconcerting accoutrements.  But he was
mistaken. "Now, Kuby, you take him to Mr. Chapin," said Kendall. 

Kuby understood.  He went back into the wash-room and produced
what Cowperwood had heard of but never before seen--a
blue-and-white-striped cotton bag about half the length of an
ordinary pillow-case and half again as wide, which Kuby now unfolded
and shook out as he came toward him.  It was a custom.  The use
of this hood, dating from the earliest days of the prison, was
intended to prevent a sense of location and direction and thereby
obviate any attempt to escape.  Thereafter during all his stay he
was not supposed to walk with or talk to or see another prisoner--
not even to converse with his superiors, unless addressed.  It was
a grim theory, and yet one definitely enforced here, although as
he was to learn later even this could be modified here.

"You'll have to put this on," Kuby said, and opened it in such a
way that it could be put over Cowperwood's head.

Cowperwood understood.  He had heard of it in some way, in times
past.  He was a little shocked--looked at it first with a touch
of real surprise, but a moment after lifted his hands and helped
pull it down.

"Never mind," cautioned the guard, "put your hands down.  I'll
get it over."

Cowperwood dropped his arms.  When it was fully on, it came to
about his chest, giving him little means of seeing anything.  He
felt very strange, very humiliated, very downcast.  This simple
thing of a blue-and-white striped bag over his head almost cost
him his sense of self-possession.  Why could not they have spared
him this last indignity, he thought?

"This way," said his attendant, and he was led out to where he
could not say.

"If you hold it out in front you can see to walk," said his guide;
and Cowperwood pulled it out, thus being able to discern his feet
and a portion of the floor below.  He was thus conducted--seeing
nothing in his transit--down a short walk, then through a long
corridor, then through a room of uniformed guards, and finally up
a narrow flight of iron steps, leading to the overseer's office
on the second floor of one of the two-tier blocks.  There, he
heard the voice of Kuby saying: "Mr. Chapin, here's another prisoner
for you from Mr. Kendall."

"I'll be there in a minute," came a peculiarly pleasant voice from
the distance.  Presently a big, heavy hand closed about his arm,
and he was conducted still further.

"You hain't got far to go now," the voice said, "and then I'll take
that bag off," and Cowperwood felt for some reason a sense of
sympathy, perhaps--as though he would choke.  The further steps
were not many.

A cell door was reached and unlocked by the inserting of a great
iron key.  It was swung open, and the same big hand guided him
through.  A moment later the bag was pulled easily from his head,
and he saw that he was in a narrow, whitewashed cell, rather dim,
windowless, but lighted from the top by a small skylight of frosted
glass three and one half feet long by four inches wide.  For a
night light there was a tin-bodied lamp swinging from a hook near
the middle of one of the side walls.  A rough iron cot, furnished
with a straw mattress and two pairs of dark blue, probably unwashed
blankets, stood in one corner.  There was a hydrant and small sink
in another.  A small shelf occupied the wall opposite the bed.  A
plain wooden chair with a homely round back stood at the foot of
the bed, and a fairly serviceable broom was standing in one corner.
There was an iron stool or pot for excreta, giving, as he could
see, into a large drain-pipe which ran along the inside wall, and
which was obviously flushed by buckets of water being poured into
it.  Rats and other vermin infested this, and it gave off an
unpleasant odor which filled the cell.  The floor was of stone.
Cowperwood's clear-seeing eyes took it all in at a glance.  He
noted the hard cell door, which was barred and cross-barred with
great round rods of steel, and fastened with a thick, highly
polished lock.  He saw also that beyond this was a heavy wooden
door, which could shut him in even more completely than the iron
one.  There was no chance for any clear, purifying sunlight here.
Cleanliness depended entirely on whitewash, soap and water and
sweeping, which in turn depended on the prisoners themselves.

He also took in Chapin, the homely, good-natured, cell overseer
whom he now saw for the first time--a large, heavy, lumbering man,
rather dusty and misshapen-looking, whose uniform did not fit him
well, and whose manner of standing made him look as though he would
much prefer to sit down.  He was obviously bulky, but not strong,
and his kindly face was covered with a short growth of grayish-brown
whiskers.  His hair was cut badly and stuck out in odd strings or
wisps from underneath his big cap.  Nevertheless, Cowperwood was
not at all unfavorably impressed--quite the contrary--and he felt
at once that this man might be more considerate of him than the
others had been.  He hoped so, anyhow.  He did not know that he
was in the presence of the overseer of the "manners squad," who
would have him in charge for two weeks only, instructing him in
the rules of the prison, and that he was only one of twenty-six,
all told, who were in Chapin's care.

That worthy, by way of easy introduction, now went over to the bed
and seated himself on it.  He pointed to the hard wooden chair,
which Cowperwood drew out and sat on.

"Well, now you're here, hain't yuh?" he asked, and answered himself
quite genially, for he was an unlettered man, generously disposed,
of long experience with criminals, and inclined to deal kindly with
kindly temperament and a form of religious belief--Quakerism--had
inclined him to be merciful, and yet his official duties, as
Cowperwood later found out, seemed to have led him to the conclusion
that most criminals were innately bad.  Like Kendall, he regarded
them as weaklings and ne'er-do-wells with evil streaks in them,
and in the main he was not mistaken.  Yet he could not help being
what he was, a fatherly, kindly old man, having faith in those
shibboleths of the weak and inexperienced mentally--human justice
and human decency.

"Yes, I'm here, Mr. Chapin," Cowperwood replied, simply, remembering
his name from the attendant, and flattering the keeper by the use
of it.

To old Chapin the situation was more or less puzzling.  This was
the famous Frank A. Cowperwood whom he had read about, the noted
banker and treasury-looter.  He and his co-partner in crime, Stener,
were destined to serve, as he had read, comparatively long terms
here.  Five hundred thousand dollars was a large sum of money in
those days, much more than five million would have been forty years
later.  He was awed by the thought of what had become of it--how
Cowperwood managed to do all the things the papers had said he had
done.  He had a little formula of questions which he usually went
through with each new prisoner--asking him if he was sorry now for
the crime he had committed, if he meant to do better with a new
chance, if his father and mother were alive, etc.; and by the
manner in which they answered these questions--simply, regretfully,
defiantly, or otherwise--he judged whether they were being adequately
punished or not.  Yet he could not talk to Cowperwood as he now
saw or as he would to the average second-story burglar, store-looter,
pickpocket, and plain cheap thief and swindler.  And yet he scarcely
knew how else to talk.

"Well, now," he went on, "I don't suppose you ever thought you'd
get to a place like this, did you, Mr. Cowperwood?"

"I never did," replied Frank, simply.  "I wouldn't have believed
it a few months ago, Mr. Chapin.  I don't think I deserve to be
here now, though of course there is no use of my telling you that."

He saw that old Chapin wanted to moralize a little, and he was
only too glad to fall in with his mood.  He would soon be alone
with no one to talk to perhaps, and if a sympathetic understanding
could be reached with this man now, so much the better.  Any port
in a storm; any straw to a drowning man.

"Well, no doubt all of us makes mistakes," continued Mr. Chapin,
superiorly, with an amusing faith in his own value as a moral guide
and reformer.  "We can't just always tell how the plans we think
so fine are coming out, can we? You're here now, an' I suppose you're
sorry certain things didn't come out just as you thought; but if
you had a chance I don't suppose you'd try to do just as you did
before, now would yuh?"

"No, Mr. Chapin, I wouldn't, exactly," said Cowperwood, truly
enough, "though I believed I was right in everything I did.  I
don't think legal justice has really been done me."

"Well, that's the way," continued Chapin, meditatively, scratching
his grizzled head and looking genially about.  "Sometimes, as I
allers says to some of these here young fellers that comes in here,
we don't know as much as we thinks we does.  We forget that others
are just as smart as we are, and that there are allers people that
are watchin' us all the time.  These here courts and jails and
detectives--they're here all the time, and they get us.  I gad"--
Chapin's moral version of "by God"--"they do, if we don't behave."

"Yes," Cowperwood replied, "that's true enough, Mr. Chapin."

"Well," continued the old man after a time, after he had made a
few more solemn, owl-like, and yet well-intentioned remarks, "now
here's your bed, and there's your chair, and there's your wash-stand,
and there's your water-closet.  Now keep 'em all clean and use 'em
right."  (You would have thought he was making Cowperwood a present
of a fortune.)  "You're the one's got to make up your bed every
mornin' and keep your floor swept and your toilet flushed and your
cell clean.  There hain't anybody here'll do that for yuh.  You
want to do all them things the first thing in the mornin' when you
get up, and afterward you'll get sumpin' to eat, about six-thirty.
You're supposed to get up at five-thirty."

"Yes, Mr. Chapin," Cowperwood said, politely.  "You can depend on
me to do all those things promptly."

"There hain't so much more," added Chapin.  "You're supposed to
wash yourself all over once a week an' I'll give you a clean towel
for that.  Next you gotta wash this floor up every Friday mornin'."
Cowperwood winced at that.  "You kin have hot water for that if
you want it.  I'll have one of the runners bring it to you.  An'
as for your friends and relations"--he got up and shook himself
like a big Newfoundland dog.  "You gotta wife, hain't you?"

"Yes," replied Cowperwood.

"Well, the rules here are that your wife or your friends kin come
to see you once in three months, and your lawyer--you gotta lawyer
hain't yuh?"

"Yes, sir," replied Cowperwood, amused.

"Well, he kin come every week or so if he likes--every day, I
guess--there hain't no rules about lawyers.  But you kin only
write one letter once in three months yourself, an' if you want
anything like tobaccer or the like o' that, from the store-room,
you gotta sign an order for it, if you got any money with the
warden, an' then I can git it for you."

The old man was really above taking small tips in the shape of
money.  He was a hold-over from a much more severe and honest
regime, but subsequent presents or constant flattery were not amiss
in making him kindly and generous.  Cowperwood read him accurately.

"Very well, Mr. Chapin; I understand," he said, getting up as the
old man did.

"Then when you have been here two weeks," added Chapin, rather
ruminatively (he had forgot to state this to Cowperwood before),
"the warden 'll come and git yuh and give yuh yer regular cell
summers down-stairs.  Yuh kin make up yer mind by that time what
y'u'd like tuh do, what y'u'd like to work at.  If you behave
yourself proper, more'n like they'll give yuh a cell with a yard.
Yuh never can tell."

He went out, locking the door with a solemn click; and Cowperwood
stood there, a little more depressed than he had been, because of
this latest intelligence.  Only two weeks, and then he would be
transferred from this kindly old man's care to another's, whom he
did not know and with whom he might not fare so well.

"If ever you want me for anything--if ye're sick or sumpin' like
that," Chapin now returned to say, after he had walked a few paces
away, "we have a signal here of our own.  Just hang your towel
out through these here bars.  I'll see it, and I'll stop and find
out what yuh want, when I'm passin'."

Cowperwood, whose spirits had sunk, revived for the moment.

"Yes, sir," he replied; "thank you, Mr. Chapin."

The old man walked away, and Cowperwood heard his steps dying down
the cement-paved hall.  He stood and listened, his ears being
greeted occasionally by a distant cough, a faint scraping of some
one's feet, the hum or whir of a machine, or the iron scratch of
a key in a lock.  None of the noises was loud.  Rather they were
all faint and far away.  He went over and looked at the bed, which
was not very clean and without linen, and anything but wide or
soft, and felt it curiously.  So here was where he was to sleep
from now on--he who so craved and appreciated luxury and refinement.
If Aileen or some of his rich friends should see him here.  Worse,
he was sickened by the thought of possible vermin.  How could he
tell? How would he do? The one chair was abominable.  The skylight
was weak.  He tried to think of himself as becoming accustomed to
the situation, but he re-discovered the offal pot in one corner,
and that discouraged him.  It was possible that rats might come
up here--it looked that way.  No pictures, no books, no scene, no
person, no space to walk--just the four bare walls and silence,
which he would be shut into at night by the thick door.  What a
horrible fate!

He sat down and contemplated his situation.  So here he was at
last in the Eastern Penitentiary, and doomed, according to the
judgment of the politicians (Butler among others), to remain here
four long years and longer.  Stener, it suddenly occurred to him,
was probably being put through the same process he had just gone
through.  Poor old Stener! What a fool he had made of himself.
But because of his foolishness he deserved all he was now getting.
But the difference between himself and Stener was that they would
let Stener out.  It was possible that already they were easing his
punishment in some way that he, Cowperwood, did not know.  He put
his hand to his chin, thinking--his business, his house, his
friends, his family, Aileen.  He felt for his watch, but remembered
that they had taken that.  There was no way of telling the time.
Neither had he any notebook, pen, or pencil with which to amuse
or interest himself.  Besides he had had nothing to eat since
morning.  Still, that mattered little.  What did matter was that
he was shut up here away from the world, quite alone, quite lonely,
without knowing what time it was, and that he could not attend to
any of the things he ought to be attending to--his business affairs,
his future.  True, Steger would probably come to see him after a
while.  That would help a little.  But even so--think of his
position, his prospects up to the day of the fire and his state
now.  He sat looking at his shoes; his suit.  God! He got up and
walked to and fro, to and fro, but his own steps and movements
sounded so loud.  He walked to the cell door and looked out through
the thick bars, but there was nothing to see--nothing save a
portion of two cell doors opposite, something like his own.  He
came back and sat in his single chair, meditating, but, getting
weary of that finally, stretched himself on the dirty prison bed
to try it.  It was not uncomfortable entirely.  He got up after a
while, however, and sat, then walked, then sat.  What a narrow
place to walk, he thought.  This was horrible--something like a
living tomb.  And to think he should be here now, day after day
and day after day, until--until what?
Until the Governor pardoned him or his time was up, or his fortune
eaten away--or--

So he cogitated while the hours slipped by.  It was nearly five
o'clock before Steger was able to return, and then only for a
little while.  He had been arranging for Cowperwood's appearance
on the following Thursday, Friday, and Monday in his several court
proceedings.  When he was gone, however, and the night fell and
Cowperwood had to trim his little, shabby oil-lamp and to drink
the strong tea and eat the rough, poor bread made of bran and white
flour, which was shoved to him through the small aperture in the
door by the trencher trusty, who was accompanied by the overseer
to see that it was done properly, he really felt very badly.  And
after that the center wooden door of his cell was presently closed
and locked by a trusty who slammed it rudely and said no word.
Nine o'clock would be sounded somewhere by a great bell, he
understood, when his smoky oil-lamp would have to be put out
promptly and he would have to undress and go to bed.  There were
punishments, no doubt, for infractions of these rules--reduced
rations, the strait-jacket, perhaps stripes--he scarcely knew what.
He felt disconsolate, grim, weary.  He had put up such a long,
unsatisfactory fight.  After washing his heavy stone cup and tin
plate at the hydrant, he took off the sickening uniform and shoes
and even the drawers of the scratching underwear, and stretched
himself wearily on the bed.  The place was not any too warm, and
he tried to make himself comfortable between the blankets--but it
was of little use.  His soul was cold.

"This will never do," he said to himself.  "This will never do.
I'm not sure whether I can stand much of this or not."  Still he
turned his face to the wall, and after several hours sleep
eventually came.





Chapter LIV




Those who by any pleasing courtesy of fortune, accident of birth,
inheritance, or the wisdom of parents or friends, have succeeded
in avoiding making that anathema of the prosperous and comfortable,
"a mess of their lives," will scarcely understand the mood of
Cowperwood, sitting rather gloomily in his cell these first days,
wondering what, in spite of his great ingenuity, was to become of
him.  The strongest have their hours of depression.  There are
times when life to those endowed with the greatest intelligence--
perhaps mostly to those--takes on a somber hue.  They see so many
phases of its dreary subtleties.  It is only when the soul of man
has been built up into some strange self-confidence, some curious
faith in its own powers, based, no doubt, on the actual presence
of these same powers subtly involved in the body, that it fronts
life unflinchingly.  It would be too much to say that Cowperwood's
mind was of the first order.  It was subtle enough in all conscience--
and involved, as is common with the executively great, with a strong
sense of personal advancement.  It was a powerful mind, turning,
like a vast searchlight, a glittering ray into many a dark corner;
but it was not sufficiently disinterested to search the ultimate
dark.  He realized, in a way, what the great astronomers,
sociologists, philosophers, chemists, physicists, and physiologists
were meditating; but he could not be sure in his own mind that,
whatever it was, it was important for him.  No doubt life held
many strange secrets.  Perhaps it was essential that somebody
should investigate them.  However that might be, the call of his
own soul was in another direction.  His business was to make money--
to organize something which would make him much money, or, better
yet, save the organization he had begun.

But this, as he now looked upon it, was almost impossible.  It had
been too disarranged and complicated by unfortunate circumstances.
He might, as Steger pointed out to him, string out these bankruptcy
proceedings for years, tiring out one creditor and another, but in
the meantime the properties involved were being seriously damaged.
Interest charges on his unsatisfied loans were making heavy inroads;
court costs were mounting up; and, to cap it all, he had discovered
with Steger that there were a number of creditors--those who had
sold out to Butler, and incidentally to Mollenhauer--who would
never accept anything except the full value of their claims.  His
one hope now was to save what he could by compromise a little later,
and to build up some sort of profitable business through Stephen
Wingate.  The latter was coming in a day or two, as soon as Steger
had made some working arrangement for him with Warden Michael
Desmas who came the second day to have a look at the new prisoner.

Desmas was a large man physically--Irish by birth, a politician by
training--who had been one thing and another in Philadelphia from
a policeman in his early days and a corporal in the Civil War to
a ward captain under Mollenhauer.  He was a canny man, tall,
raw-boned, singularly muscular-looking, who for all his fifty-seven
years looked as though he could give a splendid account of himself
in a physical contest.  His hands were large and bony, his face
more square than either round or long, and his forehead high.  He
had a vigorous growth of short-clipped, iron-gray hair, and a
bristly iron-gray mustache, very short, keen, intelligent blue-gray
eyes; a florid complexion; and even-edged, savage-looking teeth,
which showed the least bit in a slightly wolfish way when he smiled.
However, he was not as cruel a person as he looked to be;
temperamental, to a certain extent hard, and on occasions savage,
but with kindly hours also.  His greatest weakness was that he was
not quite mentally able to recognize that there were mental and
social differences between prisoners, and that now and then one
was apt to appear here who, with or without political influences,
was eminently worthy of special consideration.  What he could
recognize was the differences pointed out to him by the politicians
in special cases, such as that of Stener--not Cowperwood.  However,
seeing that the prison was a public institution apt to be visited
at any time by lawyers, detectives, doctors, preachers, propagandists,
and the public generally, and that certain rules and regulations
had to be enforced (if for no other reason than to keep a moral
and administrative control over his own help), it was necessary
to maintain--and that even in the face of the politician--a certain
amount of discipline, system, and order, and it was not possible
to be too liberal with any one.  There were, however, exceptional
cases--men of wealth and refinement, victims of those occasional
uprisings which so shocked the political leaders generally--who
had to be looked after in a friendly way.

Desmas was quite aware, of course, of the history of Cowperwood
and Stener.  The politicians had already given him warning that
Stener, because of his past services to the community, was to be
treated with special consideration.  Not so much was said about
Cowperwood, although they did admit that his lot was rather hard.
Perhaps he might do a little something for him but at his own risk.

"Butler is down on him," Strobik said to Desmas, on one occasion.
"It's that girl of his that's at the bottom of it all.  If you
listened to Butler you'd feed him on bread and water, but he isn't
a bad fellow.  As a matter of fact, if George had had any sense
Cowperwood wouldn't be where he is to-day.  But the big fellows
wouldn't let Stener alone.  They wouldn't let him give Cowperwood
any money."

Although Strobik had been one of those who, under pressure from
Mollenhauer, had advised Stener not to let Cowperwood have any
more money, yet here he was pointing out the folly of the victim's
course.  The thought of the inconsistency involved did not trouble
him in the least.

Desmas decided, therefore, that if Cowperwood were persona non
grata to the "Big Three," it might be necessary to be indifferent
to him, or at least slow in extending him any special favors.  For
Stener a good chair, clean linen, special cutlery and dishes, the
daily papers, privileges in the matter of mail, the visits of
friends, and the like.  For Cowperwood--well, he would have to
look at Cowperwood and see what he thought.  At the same time,
Steger's intercessions were not without their effect on Desmas.
So the morning after Cowperwood's entrance the warden received a
letter from Terrence Relihan, the Harrisburg potentate, indicating
that any kindness shown to Mr. Cowperwood would be duly appreciated
by him.  Upon the receipt of this letter Desmas went up and looked
through Cowperwood's iron door.  On the way he had a brief talk
with Chapin, who told him what a nice man he thought Cowperwood
was.

Desmas had never seen Cowperwood before, but in spite of the shabby
uniform, the clog shoes, the cheap shirt, and the wretched cell,
he was impressed.  Instead of the weak, anaemic body and the shifty
eyes of the average prisoner, he saw a man whose face and form
blazed energy and power, and whose vigorous erectness no wretched
clothes or conditions could demean.  He lifted his head when Desmas
appeared, glad that any form should have appeared at his door, and
looked at him with large, clear, examining eyes--those eyes that
in the past had inspired so much confidence and surety in all those
who had known him.  Desmas was stirred.  Compared with Stener,
whom he knew in the past and whom he had met on his entry, this
man was a force.  Say what you will, one vigorous man inherently
respects another.  And Desmas was vigorous physically.  He eyed
Cowperwood and Cowperwood eyed him.  Instinctly Desmas liked him.
He was like one tiger looking at another.

Instinctively Cowperwood knew that he was the warden.  This is Mr.
Desmas, isn't it?" he asked, courteously and pleasantly.

"Yes, sir, I'm the man," replied Desmas interestedly.  "These rooms
are not as comfortable as they might be, are they?" The warden's
even teeth showed in a friendly, yet wolfish, way.

"They certainly are not, Mr. Desmas," replied Cowperwood, standing
very erect and soldier-like.  "I didn't imagine I was coming to a
hotel, however."  He smiled.

"There isn't anything special I can do for you, is there, Mr.
Cowperwood?" began Desmas curiously, for he was moved by a thought
that at some time or other a man such as this might be of service
to him.  "I've been talking to your lawyer."  Cowperwood was
intensely gratified by the Mr.  So that was the way the wind was
blowing.  Well, then, within reason, things might not prove so bad
here.  He would see.  He would sound this man out.

"I don't want to be asking anything, Warden, which you cannot
reasonably give," he now returned politely.  "But there are a few
things, of course, that I would change if I could.  I wish I might
have sheets for my bed, and I could afford better underwear if you
would let me wear it.  This that I have on annoys me a great deal."

"They're not the best wool, that's true enough," replied Desmas,
solemnly.  "They're made for the State out here in Pennsylvania
somewhere.  I suppose there's no objection to your wearing your
own underwear if you want to.  I'll see about that.  And the sheets,
too.  We might let you use them if you have them.  We'll have to
go a little slow about this.  There are a lot of people that take
a special interest in showing the warden how to tend to his business."

"I can readily understand that, Warden," went on Cowperwood briskly,
"and I'm certainly very much obliged to you.  You may be sure that
anything you do for me here will be appreciated, and not misused,
and that I have friends on the outside who can reciprocate for me
in the course of time."  He talked slowly and emphatically, looking
Desmas directly in the eye all of the time.  Desmas was very much
impressed.

"That's all right," he said, now that he had gone so far as to be
friendly.  "I can't promise much.  Prison rules are prison rules.
But there are some things that can be done, because it's the rule
to do them for other men when they behave themselves.  You can
have a better chair than that, if you want it, and something to
read too.  If you're in business yet, I wouldn't want to do anything
to stop that.  We can't have people running in and out of here every
fifteen minutes, and you can't turn a cell into a business office--
that's not possible.  It would break up the order of the place.
Still, there's no reason why you shouldn't see some of your friends
now and then.  As for your mail--well, that will have to be opened
in the ordinary way for the time being, anyhow.  I'll have to see
about that.  I can't promise too much.  You'll have to wait until
you come out of this block and down-stairs.  Some of the cells
have a yard there; if there are any empty--" The warden cocked his
eye wisely, and Cowperwood saw that his tot was not to be as bad
as he had anticipated--though bad enough.  The warden spoke to him
about the different trades he might follow, and asked him to think
about the one he would prefer.  "You want to have something to
keep your hands busy, whatever else you want.  You'll find you'll
need that.  Everybody here wants to work after a time.  I notice
that."

Cowperwood understood and thanked Desmas profusely.  The horror
of idleness in silence and in a cell scarcely large enough to turn
around in comfortably had already begun to creep over him, and the
thought of being able to see Wingate and Steger frequently, and
to have his mail reach him, after a time, untampered with, was a
great relief.  He was to have his own underwear, silk and wool--
thank God!--and perhaps they would let him take off these shoes
after a while.  With these modifications and a trade, and perhaps
the little yard which Desmas had referred to, his life would be,
if not ideal, at least tolerable.  The prison was still a prison,
but it looked as though it might not be so much of a terror to him
as obviously it must be to many.

During the two weeks in which Cowperwood was in the "manners squad,"
in care of Chapin, he learned nearly as much as he ever learned of
the general nature of prison life; for this was not an ordinary
penitentiary in the sense that the prison yard, the prison squad,
the prison lock-step, the prison dining-room, and prison associated
labor make the ordinary penitentiary.  There was, for him and for
most of those confined there, no general prison life whatsoever.
The large majority were supposed to work silently in their cells
at the particular tasks assigned them, and not to know anything of
the remainder of the life which went on around them, the rule of
this prison being solitary confinement, and few being permitted
to work at the limited number of outside menial tasks provided.
Indeed, as he sensed and as old Chapin soon informed him, not more
than seventy-five of the four hundred prisoners confined here were
so employed, and not all of these regularly--cooking, gardening
in season, milling, and general cleaning being the only avenues
of escape from solitude.  Even those who so worked were strictly
forbidden to talk, and although they did not have to wear the
objectionable hood when actually employed, they were supposed to
wear it in going to and from their work.  Cowperwood saw them
occasionally tramping by his cell door, and it struck him as
strange, uncanny, grim.  He wished sincerely at times since old
Chapin was so genial and talkative that he were to be under him
permanently; but it was not to be.

His two weeks soon passed--drearily enough in all conscience but
they passed, interlaced with his few commonplace tasks of bed-making,
floor-sweeping, dressing, eating, undressing, rising at five-thirty,
and retiring at nine, washing his several dishes after each meal,
etc.  He thought he would never get used to the food.  Breakfast,
as has been said, was at six-thirty, and consisted of coarse black
bread made of bran and some white flour, and served with black
coffee.  Dinner was at eleven-thirty, and consisted of bean or
vegetable soup, with some coarse meat in it, and the same bread.
Supper was at six, of tea and bread, very strong tea and the same
bread--no butter, no milk, no sugar.  Cowperwood did not smoke,
so the small allowance of tobacco which was permitted was without
value to him.  Steger called in every day for two or three weeks,
and after the second day, Stephen Wingate, as his new business
associate, was permitted to see him also--once every day, if he
wished, Desmas stated, though the latter felt he was stretching
a point in permitting this so soon.  Both of these visits rarely
occupied more than an hour, or an hour and a half, and after that
the day was long.  He was taken out on several days on a court
order, between nine and five, to testify in the bankruptcy
proceedings against him, which caused the time in the beginning
to pass quickly.

It was curious, once he was in prison, safely shut from the world
for a period of years apparently, how quickly all thought of
assisting him departed from the minds of those who had been most
friendly.  He was done, so most of them thought.  The only thing
they could do now would be to use their influence to get him out
some time; how soon, they could not guess.  Beyond that there was
nothing.  He would really never be of any great importance to any
one any more, or so they thought.  It was very sad, very tragic,
but he was gone--his place knew him not.

"A bright young man, that," observed President Davison of the
Girard National, on reading of Cowperwood's sentence and incarceration.
"Too bad! Too bad! He made a great mistake."

Only his parents, Aileen, and his wife--the latter with mingled
feelings of resentment and sorrow--really missed him.  Aileen,
because of her great passion for him, was suffering most of all.
Four years and three months; she thought.  If he did not get out
before then she would be nearing twenty-nine and he would be nearing
forty.  Would he want her then? Would she be so attractive? And
would nearly five years change his point of view? He would have
to wear a convict suit all that time, and be known as a convict
forever after.  It was hard to think about, but only made her more
than ever determined to cling to him, whatever happened, and to
help him all she could.

Indeed the day after his incarceration she drove out and looked
at the grim, gray walls of the penitentiary.  Knowing nothing
absolutely of the vast and complicated processes of law and penal
servitude, it seemed especially terrible to her.  What might not
they be doing to her Frank? Was he suffering much? Was he thinking
of her as she was of him? Oh, the pity of it all! The pity! The
pity of herself--her great love for him! She drove home, determined
to see him; but as he had originally told her that visiting days
were only once in three months, and that he would have to write
her when the next one was, or when she could come, or when he could
see her on the outside, she scarcely knew what to do.  Secrecy was
the thing.

The next day, however, she wrote him just the same, describing the
drive she had taken on the stormy afternoon before--the terror of
the thought that he was behind those grim gray walls--and declaring
her determination to see him soon.  And this letter, under the new
arrangement, he received at once.  He wrote her in reply, giving
the letter to Wingate to mail.  It ran:

  My sweet girl:--I fancy you are a little downhearted to think
  I cannot be with you any more soon, but you mustn't be.  I
  suppose you read all about the sentence in the paper.  I came
  out here the same morning--nearly noon.  If I had time, dearest,
  I'd write you a long letter describing the situation so as to
  ease your mind; but I haven't.  It's against the rules, and I
  am really doing this secretly.  I'm here, though, safe enough,
  and wish I were out, of course.  Sweetest, you must be careful
  how you try to see me at first.  You can't do me much service
  outside of cheering me up, and you may do yourself great harm.
  Besides, I think I have done you far more harm than I can ever
  make up to you and that you had best give me up, although I know
  you do not think so, and I would be sad, if you did.  I am to be
  in the Court of Special Pleas, Sixth and Chestnut, on Friday at
  two o'clock; but you cannot see me there.  I'll be out in charge
  of my counsel.  You must be careful.  Perhaps you'll think
  better, and not come here.

This last touch was one of pure gloom, the first Cowperwood had
ever introduced into their relationship but conditions had changed
him.  Hitherto he had been in the position of the superior being,
the one who was being sought--although Aileen was and had been
well worth seeking--and he had thought that he might escape unscathed,
and so grow in dignity and power until she might not possibly be
worthy of him any longer.  He had had that thought.  But here, in
stripes, it was a different matter.  Aileen's position, reduced
in value as it was by her long, ardent relationship with him, was
now, nevertheless, superior to his--apparently so.  For after all,
was she not Edward Butler's daughter, and might she, after she had
been away from him a while, wish to become a convict's bride.  She
ought not to want to, and she might not want to, for all he knew;
she might change her mind.  She ought not to wait for him.  Her
life was not yet ruined.  The public did not know, so he thought--
not generally anyhow--that she had been his mistress.  She might
marry.  Why not, and so pass out of his life forever.  And would
not that be sad for him? And yet did he not owe it to her, to a
sense of fair play in himself to ask her to give him up, or at
least think over the wisdom of doing so?

He did her the justice to believe that she would not want to give
him up; and in his position, however harmful it might be to her,
it was an advantage, a connecting link with the finest period of
his past life, to have her continue to love him.  He could not,
however, scribbling this note in his cell in Wingate's presence,
and giving it to him to mail (Overseer Chapin was kindly keeping
a respectful distance, though he was supposed to be present),
refrain from adding, at the last moment, this little touch of doubt
which, when she read it, struck Aileen to the heart.  She read it
as gloom on his part--as great depression.  Perhaps, after all,
the penitentiary and so soon, was really breaking his spirit, and
he had held up so courageously so long.  Because of this, now she
was madly eager to get to him, to console him, even though it was
difficult, perilous.  She must, she said.

In regard to visits from the various members of his family--his
mother and father, his brother, his wife, and his sister--Cowperwood
made it plain to them on one of the days on which he was out
attending a bankruptcy hearing, that even providing it could be
arranged he did not think they should come oftener than once in
three months, unless he wrote them or sent word by Steger.  The
truth was that he really did not care to see much of any of them
at present.  He was sick of the whole social scheme of things.
In fact he wanted to be rid of the turmoil he had been in, seeing
it had proved so useless.  He had used nearly fifteen thousand
dollars thus far in defending himself--court costs, family
maintenance, Steger, etc.; but he did not mind that.  He expected
to make some little money working through Wingate.  His family
were not utterly without funds, sufficient to live on in a small
way.  He had advised them to remove into houses more in keeping
with their reduced circumstances, which they had done--his mother
and father and brothers and sister to a three-story brick house
of about the caliber of the old Buttonwood Street house, and his
wife to a smaller, less expensive two-story one on North Twenty-first
Street, near the penitentiary, a portion of the money saved out
of the thirty-five thousand dollars extracted from Stener under
false pretenses aiding to sustain it.  Of course all this was a
terrible descent from the Girard Avenue mansion for the elder
Cowperwood; for here was none of the furniture which characterized
the other somewhat gorgeous domicile--merely store-bought, ready-made
furniture, and neat but cheap hangings and fixtures generally.
The assignees, to whom all Cowperwood's personal property belonged,
and to whom Cowperwood, the elder, had surrendered all his holdings,
would not permit anything of importance to be removed.  It had all
to be sold for the benefit of creditors.  A few very small things,
but only a few, had been kept, as everything had been inventoried
some time before.  One of the things which old Cowperwood wanted
was his own desk which Frank had had designed for him; but as it
was valued at five hundred dollars and could not be relinquished
by the sheriff except on payment of that sum, or by auction, and
as Henry Cowperwood had no such sum to spare, he had to let the
desk go.  There were many things they all wanted, and Anna Adelaide
had literally purloined a few though she did not admit the fact
to her parents until long afterward.

There came a day when the two houses in Girard Avenue were the
scene of a sheriffs sale, during which the general public, without
let or hindrance, was permitted to tramp through the rooms and
examine the pictures, statuary, and objects of art generally,
which were auctioned off to the highest bidder.  Considerable fame
had attached to Cowperwood's activities in this field, owing in
the first place to the real merit of what he had brought together,
and in the next place to the enthusiastic comment of such men as
Wilton Ellsworth, Fletcher Norton, Gordon Strake--architects and
art dealers whose judgment and taste were considered important in
Philadelphia.  All of the lovely things by which he had set great
store--small bronzes, representative of the best period of the
Italian Renaissance; bits of Venetian glass which he had collected
with great care--a full curio case; statues by Powers, Hosmer,
and Thorwaldsen--things which would be smiled at thirty years
later, but which were of high value then; all of his pictures by
representative American painters from Gilbert to Eastman Johnson,
together with a few specimens of the current French and English
schools, went for a song.  Art judgment in Philadelphia at this
time was not exceedingly high; and some of the pictures, for lack
of appreciative understanding, were disposed of at much too low a
figure.  Strake, Norton, and Ellsworth were all present and bought
liberally.  Senator Simpson, Mollenhauer, and Strobik came to see
what they could see.  The small-fry politicians were there, en
masse.  But Simpson, calm judge of good art, secured practically
the best of all that was offered.  To him went the curio case of
Venetian glass; one pair of tall blue-and-white Mohammedan cylindrical
vases; fourteen examples of Chinese jade, including several artists'
water-dishes and a pierced window-screen of the faintest tinge of
green.  To Mollenhauer went the furniture and decorations of the
entry-hall and reception-room of Henry Cowperwood's house, and to
Edward Strobik two of Cowperwood's bird's-eye maple bedroom suites
for the most modest of prices.  Adam Davis was present and secured
the secretaire of buhl which the elder Cowperwood prized so highly.
To Fletcher Norton went the four Greek vases--a kylix, a water-jar,
and two amphorae--which he had sold to Cowperwood and which he
valued highly.  Various objects of art, including a Sevres dinner
set, a Gobelin tapestry, Barye bronzes and pictures by Detaille,
Fortuny, and George Inness, went to Walter Leigh, Arthur Rivers,
Joseph Zimmerman, Judge Kitchen, Harper Steger, Terrence Relihan,
Trenor Drake, Mr. and Mrs. Simeon Jones, W. C. Davison, Frewen
Kasson, Fletcher Norton, and Judge Rafalsky.

Within four days after the sale began the two houses were bare of
their contents.  Even the objects in the house at 931 North Tenth
Street had been withdrawn from storage where they had been placed
at the time it was deemed advisable to close this institution, and
placed on sale with the other objects in the two homes.  It was
at this time that the senior Cowperwoods first learned of something
which seemed to indicate a mystery which had existed in connection
with their son and his wife.  No one of all the Cowperwoods was
present during all this gloomy distribution; and Aileen, reading
of the disposition of all the wares, and knowing their value to
Cowperwood, to say nothing of their charm for her, was greatly
depressed; yet she was not long despondent, for she was convinced
that Cowperwood would some day regain his liberty and attain a
position of even greater significance in the financial world.  She
could not have said why but she was sure of it.





Chapter LV




In the meanwhile Cowperwood had been transferred to a new overseer
and a new cell in Block 3 on the ground door, which was like all
the others in size, ten by sixteen, but to which was attached the
small yard previously mentioned.  Warden Desmas came up two days
before he was transferred, and had another short conversation with
him through his cell door.

"You'll be transferred on Monday," he said, in his reserved, slow
way.  "They'll give you a yard, though it won't be much good to
you--we only allow a half-hour a day in it.  I've told the overseer
about your business arrangements.  He'll treat you right in that
matter.  Just be careful not to take up too much time that way, and
things will work out.  I've decided to let you learn caning chairs.
That'll be the best for you.  It's easy, and it'll occupy your
mind."

The warden and some allied politicians made a good thing out of
this prison industry.  It was really not hard labor--the tasks set
were simple and not oppressive, but all of the products were
promptly sold, and the profits pocketed.  It was good, therefore,
to see all the prisoners working, and it did them good.  Cowperwood
was glad of the chance to do something, for he really did not care
so much for books, and his connection with Wingate and his old
affairs were not sufficient to employ his mind in a satisfactory
way.  At the same time, he could not help thinking, if he seemed
strange to himself, now, how much stranger he would seem then,
behind these narrow bars working at so commonplace a task as caning
chairs.  Nevertheless, he now thanked Desmas for this, as well as
for the sheets and the toilet articles which had just been brought
in.

"That's all right," replied the latter, pleasantly and softly, by
now much intrigued by Cowperwood.  "I know that there are men and
men here, the same as anywhere.  If a man knows how to use these
things and wants to be clean, I wouldn't be one to put anything in
his way."

The new overseer with whom Cowperwood had to deal was a very
different person from Elias Chapin.  His name was Walter Bonhag,
and he was not more than thirty-seven years of age--a big, flabby
sort of person with a crafty mind, whose principal object in life
was to see that this prison situation as he found it should furnish
him a better income than his normal salary provided.  A close study
of Bonhag would have seemed to indicate that he was a stool-pigeon
of Desmas, but this was really not true except in a limited way.
Because Bonhag was shrewd and sycophantic, quick to see a point
in his or anybody else's favor, Desmas instinctively realized
that he was the kind of man who could be trusted to be lenient on
order or suggestion.  That is, if Desmas had the least interest
in a prisoner he need scarcely say so much to Bonhag; he might
merely suggest that this man was used to a different kind of life,
or that, because of some past experience, it might go hard with
him if be were handled roughly; and Bonhag would strain himself
to be pleasant.  The trouble was that to a shrewd man of any
refinement his attentions were objectionable, being obviously
offered for a purpose, and to a poor or ignorant man they were
brutal and contemptuous.  He had built up an extra income for
himself inside the prison by selling the prisoners extra allowances
of things which he secretly brought into the prison.  It was
strictly against the rules, in theory at least, to bring in anything
which was not sold in the store-room--tobacco, writing paper, pens,
ink, whisky, cigars, or delicacies of any kind.  On the other hand,
and excellently well for him, it was true that tobacco of an
inferior grade was provided, as well as wretched pens, ink and
paper, so that no self-respecting man, if he could help it, would
endure them.  Whisky was not allowed at all, and delicacies were
abhorred as indicating rank favoritism; nevertheless, they were
brought in.  If a prisoner had the money and was willing to see
that Bonhag secured something for his trouble, almost anything
would be forthcoming.  Also the privilege of being sent into the
general yard as a "trusty," or being allowed to stay in the little
private yard which some cells possessed, longer than the half-hour
ordinarily permitted, was sold.

One of the things curiously enough at this time, which worked in
Cowperwood's favor, was the fact that Bonhag was friendly with the
overseer who had Stener in charge, and Stener, because of his
political friends, was being liberally treated, and Bonhag knew of
this.  He was not a careful reader of newspapers, nor had he any
intellectual grasp of important events; but he knew by now that
both Stener and Cowperwood were, or had been, individuals of great
importance in the community; also that Cowperwood had been the
more important of the two.  Better yet, as Bonhag now heard,
Cowperwood still had money.  Some prisoner, who was permitted to
read the paper, told him so.  And so, entirely aside from Warden
Desmas's recommendation, which was given in a very quiet, noncommittal
way, Bonhag was interested to see what he could do for Cowperwood
for a price.

The day Cowperwood was installed in his new cell, Bonhag lolled
up to the door, which was open, and said, in a semipatronizing way,
"Got all your things over yet?" It was his business to lock the
door once Cowperwood was inside it.

"Yes, sir," replied Cowperwood, who had been shrewd enough to get
the new overseer's name from Chapin; "this is Mr. Bonhag, I presume?"

"That's me," replied Bonhag, not a little flattered by the recognition,
but still purely interested by the practical side of this encounter.
He was anxious to study Cowperwood, to see what type of man he was.

"You'll find it a little different down here from up there," observed
Bonhag.  "It ain't so stuffy.  These doors out in the yards make
a difference."

"Oh, yes," said Cowperwood, observantly and shrewdly, "that is the
yard Mr. Desmas spoke of."

At the mention of the magic name, if Bonhag had been a horse, his
ears would have been seen to lift.  For, of course, if Cowperwood
was so friendly with Desmas that the latter had described to him
the type of cell he was to have beforehand, it behooved Bonhag to
be especially careful.

"Yes, that's it, but it ain't much," he observed.  "They only allow
a half-hour a day in it.  Still it would be all right if a person
could stay out there longer."

This was his first hint at graft, favoritism; and Cowperwood
distinctly caught the sound of it in his voice.

"That's too bad," he said.  "I don't suppose good conduct helps
a person to get more."  He waited to hear a reply, but instead
Bonhag continued with: "I'd better teach you your new trade now.
You've got to learn to cane chairs, so the warden says.  If you
want, we can begin right away."  But without waiting for Cowperwood
to acquiesce, he went off, returning after a time with three
unvarnished frames of chairs and a bundle of cane strips or withes,
which he deposited on the floor.  Having so done--and with a
flourish--he now continued: "Now I'll show you if you'll watch me,"
and he began showing Cowperwood how the strips were to be laced
through the apertures on either side, cut, and fastened with little
hickory pegs.  This done, he brought a forcing awl, a small hammer,
a box of pegs, and a pair of clippers.  After several brief
demonstrations with different strips,  as to how the geometric
forms were designed, he allowed Cowperwood to take the matter in
hand, watching over his shoulder.  The financier, quick at anything,
manual or mental, went at it in his customary energetic fashion,
and in five minutes demonstrated to Bonhag that, barring skill and
speed, which could only come with practice, he could do it as well
as another.  "You'll make out all right," said Bonhag.  "You're
supposed to do ten of those a day.  We won't count the next few
days, though, until you get your hand in.  After that I'll come
around and see how you're getting along.  You understand about
the towel on the door, don't you?" he inquired.

"Yes, Mr. Chapin explained that to me," replied Cowperwood.  "I
think I know what most of the rules are now.  I'll try not to
break any of them."

The days which followed brought a number of modifications of his
prison lot, but not sufficient by any means to make it acceptable
to him.  Bonhag, during the first few days in which he trained
Cowperwood in the art of caning chairs, managed to make it perfectly
clear that there were a number of things he would be willing to
do for him.  One of the things that moved him to this, was that
already he had been impressed by the fact that Stener's friends
were coming to see him in larger numbers than Cowperwood's,
sending him an occasional basket of fruit, which he gave to the
overseers, and that his wife and children had been already permitted
to visit him outside the regular visiting-day.  This was a cause
for jealousy on Bonhag's part.  His fellow-overseer was lording
it over him--telling him, as it were, of the high jinks in Block
4.  Bonhag really wanted Cowperwood to spruce up and show what he
could do, socially or otherwise.

And so now he began with: "I see you have your lawyer and your
partner here every day.  There ain't anybody else you'd like to
have visit you, is there? Of course, it's against the rules to
have your wife or sister or anybody like that, except on visiting
days--" And here he paused and rolled a large and informing eye
on Cowperwood--such an eye as was supposed to convey dark and
mysterious things.  "But all the rules ain't kept around here by
a long shot."

Cowperwood was not the man to lose a chance of this kind.  He
smiled a little--enough to relieve himself, and to convey to Bonhag
that he was gratified by the information, but vocally he observed:
"I'll tell you how it is, Mr. Bonhag.  I believe you understand
my position better than most men would, and that I can talk to you.
There are people who would like to come here, but I have been
afraid to let them come.  I did not know that it could be arranged.
If it could be, I would be very grateful.  You and I are practical
men--I know that if any favors are extended some of those who help
to bring them about must be looked after.  If you can do anything
to make it a little more comfortable for me here I will show you
that I appreciate it.  I haven't any money on my person, but I can
always get it, and I will see that you are properly looked after."

Bonhag's short, thick ears tingled.  This was the kind of talk he
liked to hear.  "I can fix anything like that, Mr. Cowperwood,"
he replied, servilely.  "You leave it to me.  If there's any one
you want to see at any time, just let me know.  Of course I have
to be very careful, and so do you, but that's all right, too.  If
you want to stay out in that yard a little longer in the mornings
or get out there afternoons or evenings, from now on, why, go ahead.
It's all right.  I'll just leave the door open.  If the warden or
anybody else should be around, I'll just scratch on your door with
my key, and you come in and shut it.  If there's anything you want
from the outside I can get it for you--jelly or eggs or butter or
any little thing like that.  You might like to fix up your meals a
little that way."

"I'm certainly most grateful, Mr. Bonhag," returned Cowperwood in
his grandest manner, and with a desire to smile, but he kept a
straight face.

"In regard to that other matter," went on Bonhag, referring to
the matter of extra visitors, "I can fix that any time you want
to.  I know the men out at the gate.  If you want anybody to come
here, just write 'em a note and give it to me, and tell 'em to
ask for me when they come.  That'll get 'em in all right.  When
they get here you can talk to 'em in your cell.  See! Only when
I tap they have to come out.  You want to remember that.  So just
you let me know."

Cowperwood was exceedingly grateful.  He said so in direct, choice
language.  It occurred to him at once that this was Aileen's
opportunity, and that he could now notify her to come.  If she
veiled herself sufficiently she would probably be safe enough.
He decided to write her, and when Wingate came he gave him a letter
to mail.

Two days later, at three o'clock in the afternoon--the time appointed
by him--Aileen came to see him.  She was dressed in gray broadcloth
with white-velvet trimmings and cut-steel buttons which glistened
like silver, and wore, as additional ornaments, as well as a
protection against the cold, a cap, stole, and muff of snow-white
ermine.  Over this rather striking costume she had slipped a long
dark circular cloak, which she meant to lay off immediately upon
her arrival.  She had made a very careful toilet as to her shoes,
gloves, hair, and the gold ornaments which she wore.  Her face was
concealed by a thick green veil, as Cowperwood had suggested; and
she arrived at an hour when, as near as he had been able to
prearrange, he would be alone.  Wingate usually came at four,
after business, and Steger in the morning, when he came at all.
She was very nervous over this strange adventure, leaving the
street-car in which she had chosen to travel some distance away
and walking up a side street.  The cold weather and the gray walls
under a gray sky gave her a sense of defeat, but she had worked
very hard to look nice in order to cheer her lover up.  She knew
how readily he responded to the influence of her beauty when
properly displayed.

Cowperwood, in view of her coming, had made his cell as acceptable
as possible.  It was clean, because he had swept it himself and
made his own bed; and besides he had shaved and combed his hair,
and otherwise put himself to rights.  The caned chairs on which
he was working had been put in the corner at the end of the bed.
His few dishes were washed and hung up, and his clogs brushed with
a brush which he now kept for the purpose.  Never before, he thought
to himself, with a peculiar feeling of artistic degradation, had
Aileen seen him like this.  She had always admired his good taste
in clothes, and the way he carried himself in them; and now she
was to see him in garments which no dignity of body could make
presentable.  Only a stoic sense of his own soul-dignity aided him
here.  After all, as he now thought, he was Frank A. Cowperwood,
and that was something, whatever he wore.  And Aileen knew it.
Again, he might be free and rich some day, and he knew that she
believed that.  Best of all, his looks under these or any other
circumstances, as he knew, would make no difference to Aileen.
She would only love him the more.  It was her ardent sympathy that
he was afraid of.  He was so glad that Bonhag had suggested that
she might enter the cell, for it would be a grim procedure talking
to her through a barred door.

When Aileen arrived she asked for Mr. Bonhag, and was permitted
to go to the central rotunda, where he was sent for.  When he
came she murmured: "I wish to see Mr. Cowperwood, if you please";
and he exclaimed, "Oh, yes, just come with me."  As he came across
the rotunda floor from his corridor he was struck by the evident
youth of Aileen, even though he could not see her face.  This now
was something in accordance with what he had expected of Cowperwood.
A man who could steal five hundred thousand dollars and set a
whole city by the ears must have wonderful adventures of all kinds,
and Aileen looked like a true adventure.  He led her to the little
room where he kept his desk and detained visitors, and then bustled
down to Cowperwood's cell, where the financier was working on one
of his chairs and scratching on the door with his key, called:
"There's a young lady here to see you.  Do you want to let her
come inside?"

"Thank you, yes," replied Cowperwood; and Bonhag hurried away,
unintentionally forgetting, in his boorish incivility, to unlock
the cell door, so that he had to open it in Aileen's presence.
The long corridor, with its thick doors, mathematically spaced
gratings and gray-stone pavement, caused Aileen to feel faint at
heart.  A prison, iron cells! And he was in one of them.  It
chilled her usually courageous spirit.  What a terrible place for
her Frank to be! What a horrible thing to have put him here! Judges,
juries, courts, laws, jails seemed like so many foaming ogres
ranged about the world, glaring down upon her and her love-affair.
The clank of the key in the lock, and the heavy outward swinging
of the door, completed her sense of the untoward.  And then she
saw Cowperwood.

Because of the price he was to receive, Bonhag, after admitting
her, strolled discreetly away.  Aileen looked at Cowperwood from
behind her veil, afraid to speak until she was sure Bonhag had
gone.  And Cowperwood, who was retaining his self-possession by
an effort, signaled her but with difficulty after a moment or two.
"It's all right," he said.  "He's gone away."  She lifted her veil,
removed her cloak, and took in, without seeming to, the stuffy,
narrow thickness of the room, his wretched shoes, the cheap,
misshapen suit, the iron door behind him leading out into the
little yard attached to his cell.  Against such a background,
with his partially caned chairs visible at the end of the bed,
he seemed unnatural, weird even.  Her Frank! And in this condition.
She trembled and it was useless for her to try to speak.  She could
only put her arms around him and stroke his head, murmuring: "My
poor boy--my darling.  Is this what they have done to you? Oh, my
poor darling."  She held his head while Cowperwood, anxious to
retain his composure, winced and trembled, too.  Her love was so
full--so genuine.  It was so soothing at the same time that it was
unmanning, as now he could see, making of him a child again.  And
for the first time in his life, some inexplicable trick of chemistry--
that chemistry of the body, of blind forces which so readily
supersedes reason at times--he lost his self-control.  The depth
of Aileen's feelings, the cooing sound of her voice, the velvety
tenderness of her hands, that beauty that had drawn him all the
time--more radiant here perhaps within these hard walls, and in
the face of his physical misery, than it had ever been before--
completely unmanned him.  He did not understand how it could; he
tried to defy the moods, but he could not.  When she held his head
close and caressed it, of a sudden, in spite of himself, his breast
felt thick and stuffy, and his throat hurt him.  He felt, for him,
an astonishingly strange feeling, a desire to cry, which he did
his best to overcome; it shocked him so.  There then combined and
conspired to defeat him a strange, rich picture of the great world
he had so recently lost, of the lovely, magnificent world which
he hoped some day to regain.  He felt more poignantly at this
moment than ever he had before the degradation of the clog shoes,
the cotton shirt, the striped suit, the reputation of a convict,
permanent and not to be laid aside.  He drew himself quickly away
from her, turned his back, clinched his hands, drew his muscles
taut; but it was too late.  He was crying, and he could not stop.

"Oh, damn it!" he exclaimed, half angrily, half self-commiseratingly,
in combined rage and shame.  "Why should I cry? What the devil's
the matter with me, anyhow?"

Aileen saw it.  She fairly flung herself in front of him, seized
his head with one hand, his shabby waist with the other, and held
him tight in a grip that he could not have readily released.

"Oh, honey, honey, honey!" she exclaimed, pityingly feverishly.
"I love you, I adore you.  They could cut my body into bits if it
would do you any good.  To think that they should make you cry!
Oh, my sweet, my sweet, my darling boy!"

She pulled his still shaking body tighter, and with her free hand
caressed his head.  She kissed his eyes, his hair, his cheeks.  He
pulled himself loose again after a moment, exclaiming, "What the
devil's got into me?" but she drew him back.

"Never mind, honey darling, don't you be ashamed to cry.  Cry here
on my shoulder.  Cry here with me.  My baby--my honey pet!"

He quieted down after a few moments, cautioning her against
Bonhag, and regaining his former composure, which he was so ashamed
to have lost.

"You're a great girl, pet," he said, with a tender and yet apologetic
smile.  "You're all right--all that I need--a great help to me;
but don't worry any longer about me, dear.  I'm all right.  It
isn't as bad as you think.  How are you?"

Aileen on her part was not to be soothed so easily.  His many woes,
including his wretched position here, outraged her sense of justice
and decency.  To think her fine, wonderful Frank should be compelled
to come to this--to cry.  She stroked his head, tenderly, while
wild, deadly, unreasoning opposition to life and chance and untoward
opposition surged in her brain.  Her father--damn him! Her family--
pooh! What did she care? Her Frank--her Frank.  How little all
else mattered where he was concerned.  Never, never, never would
she desert him--never--come what might.  And now she clung to him
in silence while she fought in her brain an awful battle with
life and law and fate and circumstance.  Law--nonsense! People--
they were brutes, devils, enemies, hounds! She was delighted, eager,
crazy to make a sacrifice of herself.  She would go anywhere for
or with her Frank now.  She would do anything for him.  Her family
was nothing--life nothing, nothing, nothing.  She would do anything
he wished, nothing more, nothing less; anything she could do to
save him, to make his life happier, but nothing for any one else.





Chapter LVI




The days passed.   Once the understanding with Bonhag was reached,
Cowperwood's wife, mother and sister were allowed to appear on
occasions.  His wife and the children were now settled in the
little home for which he was paying, and his financial obligations
to her were satisfied by Wingate, who paid her one hundred and
twenty five dollars a month for him.  He realized that he owed
her more, but he was sailing rather close to the wind financially,
these days.  The final collapse of his old interests had come in
March, when he had been legally declared a bankrupt, and all his
properties forfeited to satisfy the claims against him.  The city's
claim of five hundred thousand dollars would have eaten up more
than could have been realized at the time, had not a pro rata
payment of thirty cents on the dollar been declared.  Even then
the city never received its due, for by some hocus-pocus it was
declared to have forfeited its rights.  Its claims had not been
made at the proper time in the proper way.  This left larger
portions of real money for the others.

Fortunately by now Cowperwood had begun to see that by a little
experimenting his business relations with Wingate were likely to
prove profitable.  The broker had made it clear that he intended
to be perfectly straight with him.  He had employed Cowperwood's
two brothers, at very moderate salaries--one to take care of the
books and look after the office, and the other to act on 'change
with him, for their seats in that organization had never been sold.
And also, by considerable effort, he had succeeded in securing
Cowperwood, Sr., a place as a clerk in a bank.  For the latter,
since the day of his resignation from the Third National had been
in a deep, sad quandary as to what further to do with his life.
His son's disgrace! The horror of his trial and incarceration.
Since the day of Frank's indictment and more so, since his sentence
and commitment to the Eastern Penitentiary, he was as one who
walked in a dream.  That trial! That charge against Frank! His own
son, a convict in stripes--and after he and Frank had walked so
proudly in the front rank of the successful and respected here.
Like so many others in his hour of distress, he had taken to reading
the Bible, looking into its pages for something of that mind
consolation that always, from youth up, although rather casually
in these latter years, he had imagined was to be found there.  The
Psalms, Isaiah, the Book of Job, Ecclesiastes.  And for the most
part, because of the fraying nature of his present ills, not finding
it.

But day after day secreting himself in his room--a little hall-bedroom
office in his newest home, where to his wife, he pretended that
he had some commercial matters wherewith he was still concerned--
and once inside, the door locked, sitting and brooding on all that
had befallen him--his losses; his good name.  Or, after months of
this, and because of the new position secured for him by Wingate--
a bookkeeping job in one of the outlying banks--slipping away
early in the morning, and returning late at night, his mind a
gloomy epitome of all that had been or yet might be.

To see him bustling off from his new but very much reduced home
at half after seven in the morning in order to reach the small
bank, which was some distance away and not accessible by street-car
line, was one of those pathetic sights which the fortunes of trade
so frequently offer.  He carried his lunch in a small box because
it was inconvenient to return home in the time allotted for this
purpose, and because his new salary did not permit the extravagance
of a purchased one.  It was his one ambition now to eke out a
respectable but unseen existence until he should die, which he
hoped would not be long.  He was a pathetic figure with his thin
legs and body, his gray hair, and his snow-white side-whiskers.
He was very lean and angular, and, when confronted by a difficult
problem, a little uncertain or vague in his mind.  An old habit
which had grown on him in the years of his prosperity of putting
his hand to his mouth and of opening his eyes in an assumption of
surprise, which had no basis in fact, now grew upon him.  He really
degenerated, although he did not know it, into a mere automaton.
Life strews its shores with such interesting and pathetic wrecks.

One of the things that caused Cowperwood no little thought at this
time, and especially in view of his present extreme indifference
to her, was how he would bring up this matter of his indifference
to his wife and his desire to end their relationship.  Yet apart
from the brutality of the plain truth, he saw no way.  As he could
plainly see, she was now persisting in her pretense of devotion,
uncolored, apparently, by any suspicion of what had happened.
Yet since his trial and conviction, she had been hearing from one
source and another that he was still intimate with Aileen, and it
was only her thought of his concurrent woes, and the fact that he
might possibly be spared to a successful financial life, that now
deterred her from speaking.  He was shut up in a cell, she said
to herself, and she was really very sorry for him, but she did not
love him as she once had.  He was really too deserving of reproach
for his general unseemly conduct, and no doubt this was what was
intended, as well as being enforced, by the Governing Power of the
world.

One can imagine how much such an attitude as this would appeal to
Cowperwood, once he had detected it.  By a dozen little signs,
in spite of the fact that she brought him delicacies, and commiserated
on his fate, he could see that she felt not only sad, but reproachful,
and if there was one thing that Cowperwood objected to at all times
it was the moral as well as the funereal air.  Contrasted with the
cheerful combative hopefulness and enthusiasm of Aileen, the wearied
uncertainty of Mrs. Cowperwood was, to say the least, a little
tame.  Aileen, after her first burst of rage over his fate, which
really did not develop any tears on her part, was apparently convinced
that he would get out and be very successful again.  She talked
success and his future all the time because she believed in it.
Instinctively she seemed to realize that prison walls could not
make a prison for him.  Indeed, on the first day she left she
handed Bonhag ten dollars, and after thanking him in her attractive
voice--without showing her face, however--for his obvious kindness
to her, bespoke his further favor for Cowperwood--"a very great man,"
as she described him, which sealed that ambitious materialist's
fate completely.  There was nothing the overseer would not do for
the young lady in the dark cloak.  She might have stayed in
Cowperwood's cell for a week if the visiting-hours of the penitentiary
had not made it impossible.

The day that Cowperwood decided to discuss with his wife the
weariness of his present married state and his desire to be free
of it was some four months after he had entered the prison.  By
that time he had become inured to his convict life.  The silence
of his cell and the menial tasks he was compelled to perform,
which had at first been so distressing, banal, maddening, in their
pointless iteration, had now become merely commonplace--dull, but
not painful.  Furthermore he had learned many of the little
resources of the solitary convict, such as that of using his lamp
to warm up some delicacy which he had saved from a previous meal
or from some basket which had been sent him by his wife or Aileen.
He had partially gotten rid of the sickening odor of his cell by
persuading Bonhag to bring him small packages of lime; which he
used with great freedom.  Also he succeeded in defeating some of
the more venturesome rats with traps; and with Bonhag's permission,
after his cell door had been properly locked at night, and sealed
with the outer wooden door, he would take his chair, if it were
not too cold, out into the little back yard of his cell and look
at the sky, where, when the nights were clear, the stars were to
be seen.  He had never taken any interest in astronomy as a
scientific study, but now the Pleiades, the belt of Orion, the Big
Dipper and the North Star, to which one of its lines pointed,
caught his attention, almost his fancy.  He wondered why the stars
of the belt of Orion came to assume the peculiar mathematical
relation to each other which they held, as far as distance and
arrangement were concerned, and whether that could possibly have
any intellectual significance.  The nebulous conglomeration of
the suns in Pleiades suggested a soundless depth of space, and he
thought of the earth floating like a little ball in immeasurable
reaches of ether.  His own life appeared very trivial in view of
these things, and he found himself asking whether it was all really
of any significance or importance.  He shook these moods off with
ease, however, for the man was possessed of a sense of grandeur,
largely in relation to himself and his affairs; and his temperament
was essentially material and vital.  Something kept telling him
that whatever his present state he must yet grow to be a significant
personage, one whose fame would be heralded the world over--who
must try, try, try.  It was not given ail men to see far or to do
brilliantly; but to him it was given, and he must be what he was
cut out to be.  There was no more escaping the greatness that was
inherent in him than there was for so many others the littleness
that was in them.

Mrs. Cowperwood came in that afternoon quite solemnly, bearing
several changes of linen, a pair of sheets, some potted meat and
a pie.  She was not exactly doleful, but Cowperwood thought that
she was tending toward it, largely because of her brooding over
his relationship to Aileen, which he knew that she knew.  Something
in her manner decided him to speak before she left; and after
asking her how the children were, and listening to her inquiries
in regard to the things that he needed, he said to her, sitting
on his single chair while she sat on his bed:

"Lillian, there's something I've been wanting to talk with you
about for some time.  I should have done it before, but it's better
late than never.  I know that you know that there is something
between Aileen Butler and me, and we might as well have it open
and aboveboard.  It's true I am very fond of her and she is very
devoted to me, and if ever I get out of here I want to arrange it
so that I can marry her.  That means that you will have to give
me a divorce, if you will; and I want to talk to you about that
now.  This can't be so very much of a surprise to you, because
you must have seen this long while that our relationship hasn't
been all that it might have been, and under the circumstances this
can't prove such a very great hardship to you--I am sure."  He
paused, waiting, for Mrs. Cowperwood at first said nothing.

Her thought, when he first broached this, was that she ought to
make some demonstration of astonishment or wrath: but when she
looked into his steady, examining eyes, so free from the illusion
of or interest in demonstrations of any kind, she realized how
useless it would be.  He was so utterly matter-of-fact in what
seemed to her quite private and secret affairs--very shameless.
She had never been able to understand quite how he could take the
subtleties of life as he did, anyhow.  Certain things which she
always fancied should be hushed up he spoke of with the greatest
nonchalance.  Her ears tingled sometimes at his frankness in
disposing of a social situation; but she thought this must be
characteristic of notable men, and so there was nothing to be said
about it.  Certain men did as they pleased; society did not seem
to be able to deal with them in any way.  Perhaps God would,
later--she was not sure.  Anyhow, bad as he was, direct as he
was, forceful as he was, he was far more interesting than most of
the more conservative types in whom the social virtues of polite
speech and modest thoughts were seemingly predominate.

"I know," she said, rather peacefully, although with a touch of
anger and resentment in her voice.  "I've known all about it all
this time.  I expected you would say something like this to me
some day.  It's a nice reward for all my devotion to you; but
it's just like you, Frank.  When you are set on something, nothing
can stop you.  It wasn't enough that you were getting along so
nicely and had two children whom you ought to love, but you had
to take up with this Butler creature until her name and yours are
a by-word throughout the city.  I know that she comes to this
prison.  I saw her out here one day as I was coming in, and I
suppose every one else knows it by now.  She has no sense of
decency and she does not care--the wretched, vain thing--but I
would have thought that you would be ashamed, Frank, to go on the
way that you have, when you still have me and the children and
your father and mother and when you are certain to have such a
hard fight to get yourself on your feet, as it is.  If she had any
sense of decency she would not have anything to do with you--the
shameless thing."

Cowperwood looked at his wife with unflinching eyes.  He read in
her remarks just what his observation had long since confirmed--
that she was sympathetically out of touch with him.  She was no
longer so attractive physically, and intellectually she was not
Aileen's equal.  Also that contact with those women who had deigned
to grace his home in his greatest hour of prosperity had proved
to him conclusively she was lacking in certain social graces.
Aileen was by no means so vastly better, still she was young and
amenable and adaptable, and could still be improved.  Opportunity
as he now chose to think, might make Aileen, whereas for Lillian--
or at least, as he now saw it--it could do nothing.

"I'll tell you how it is, Lillian," he said; "I'm not sure that
you are going to get what I mean exactly, but you and I are not
at all well suited to each other any more."

"You didn't seem to think that three or four years ago," interrupted
his wife, bitterly.

"I married you when I was twenty-one," went on Cowperwood, quite
brutally, not paying any attention to her interruption, "and I
was really too young to know what I was doing.  I was a mere boy.
It doesn't make so much difference about that.  I am not using
that as an excuse.  The point that I am trying to make is this--
that right or wrong, important or not important, I have changed
my mind since.  I don't love you any more, and I don't feel that
I want to keep up a relationship, however it may look to the public,
that is not satisfactory to me.  You have one point of view about
life, and I have another.  You think your point of view is the
right one, and there are thousands of people who will agree with
you; but I don't think so.  We have never quarreled about these
things, because I didn't think it was important to quarrel about
them.  I don't see under the circumstances that I am doing you any
great injustice when I ask you to let me go.  I don't intend to
desert you or the children--you will get a good living-income
from me as long as I have the money to give it to you--but I want
my personal freedom when I come out of here, if ever I do, and I
want you to let me have it.  The money that you had and a great
deal more, once I am out of here, you will get back when I am on
my feet again.  But not if you oppose me--only if you help me.  I
want, and intend to help you always--but in my way."

He smoothed the leg of his prison trousers in a thoughtful way,
and plucked at the sleeve of his coat.  Just now he looked very
much like a highly intelligent workman as he sat here, rather than
like the important personage that he was.  Mrs. Cowperwood was
very resentful.

"That's a nice way to talk to me, and a nice way to treat me!"
she exclaimed dramatically, rising and walking the short space--
some two steps--that lay between the wall and the bed.  "I might
have known that you were too young to know your own mind when you
married me.  Money, of course, that's all you think of and your
own gratification.  I don't believe you have any sense of justice
in you.  I don't believe you ever had.  You only think of yourself,
Frank.  I never saw such a man as you.  You have treated me like
a dog all through this affair; and all the while you have been
running with that little snip of an Irish thing, and telling her
all about your affairs, I suppose.  You let me go on believing
that you cared for me up to the last moment, and then you suddenly
step up and tell me that you want a divorce.  I'll not do it.
I'll not give you a divorce, and you needn't think it."

Cowperwood listened in silence.  His position, in so far as this
marital tangle was concerned, as he saw, was very advantageous.
He was a convict, constrained by the exigencies of his position
to be out of personal contact with his wife for a long period of
time to come, which should naturally tend to school her to do
without him.  When he came out, it would be very easy for her to
get a divorce from a convict, particularly if she could allege
misconduct with another woman, which he would not deny.  At the
same time, he hoped to keep Aileen's name out of it.  Mrs.
Cowperwood, if she would, could give any false name if he made no
contest.  Besides, she was not a very strong person, intellectually
speaking.  He could bend her to his will.  There was no need of
saying much more now; the ice had been broken, the situation had
been put before her, and time should do the rest.

"Don't be dramatic, Lillian," he commented, indifferently.  "I'm
not such a loss to you if you have enough to live on.  I don't
think I want to live in Philadelphia if ever I come out of here.
My idea now is to go west, and I think I want to go alone.  I
sha'n't get married right away again even if you do give me a
divorce.  I don't care to take anybody along.  It would be better
for the children if you would stay here and divorce me.  The
public would think better of them and you."

"I'll not do it," declared Mrs. Cowperwood, emphatically.  "I'll
never do it, never; so there! You can say what you choose.  You
owe it to me to stick by me and the children after all I've done
for you, and I'll not do it.  You needn't ask me any more; I'll
not do it."

"Very well," replied Cowperwood, quietly, getting up.  "We needn't
talk about it any more now.  Your time is nearly up, anyhow."
(Twenty minutes was supposed to be the regular allotment for
visitors.)  "Perhaps you'll change your mind sometime."

She gathered up her muff and the shawl-strap in which she had
carried her gifts, and turned to go.  It had been her custom to
kiss Cowperwood in a make-believe way up to this time, but now she
was too angry to make this pretense.  And yet she was sorry, too--
sorry for herself and, she thought, for him.

"Frank," she declared, dramatically, at the last moment, "I never
saw such a man as you.  I don't believe you have any heart.  You're
not worthy of a good wife.  You're worthy of just such a woman as
you're getting.  The idea!" Suddenly tears came to her eyes, and
she flounced scornfully and yet sorrowfully out.

Cowperwood stood there.  At least there would be no more useless
kissing between them, he congratulated himself.  It was hard in
a way, but purely from an emotional point of view.  He was not
doing her any essential injustice, he reasoned--not an economic
one--which was the important thing.  She was angry to-day, but
she would get over it, and in time might come to see his point of
view.  Who could tell? At any rate he had made it plain to her
what he intended to do and that was something as he saw it.  He
reminded one of nothing so much, as he stood there, as of a young
chicken picking its way out of the shell of an old estate.  Although
he was in a cell of a penitentiary, with nearly four years more
to serve, yet obviously he felt, within himself, that the whole
world was still before him.  He could go west if he could not
reestablish himself in Philadelphia; but he must stay here long
enough to win the approval of those who had known him formerly--
to obtain, as it were, a letter of credit which he could carry
to other parts.

"Hard words break no bones," he said to himself, as his wife went
out.  "A man's never done till he's done.  I'll show some of these
people yet."  Of Bonhag, who came to close the cell door, he
asked whether it was going to rain, it looked so dark in the hall.

"It's sure to before night," replied Bonhag, who was always wondering
over Cowperwood's tangled affairs as he heard them retailed here
and there.





Chapter LVII




The time that Cowperwood spent in the Eastern Penitentiary of
Pennsylvania was exactly thirteen months from the day of his entry
to his discharge.  The influences which brought about this result
were partly of his willing, and partly not.  For one thing, some
six months after his incarceration, Edward Malia Butler died,
expired sitting in his chair in his private office at his home.
The conduct of Aileen had been a great strain on him.  From the
time Cowperwood had been sentenced, and more particularly after
the time he had cried on Aileen's shoulder in prison, she had
turned on her father in an almost brutal way.  Her attitude,
unnatural for a child, was quite explicable as that of a tortured
sweetheart.  Cowperwood had told her that he thought Butler was
using his influence to withhold a pardon for him, even though one
were granted to Stener, whose life in prison he had been following
with considerable interest; and this had enraged her beyond measure.
She lost no chance of being practically insulting to her father,
ignoring him on every occasion, refusing as often as possible to
eat at the same table, and when she did, sitting next her mother
in the place of Norah, with whom she managed to exchange.  She
refused to sing or play any more when he was present, and persistently
ignored the large number of young political aspirants who came to
the house, and whose presence in a way had been encouraged for her
benefit.  Old Butler realized, of course, what it was all about.
He said nothing.  He could not placate her.

Her mother and brothers did not understand it at all at first.
(Mrs. Butler never understood.)  But not long after Cowperwood's
incarceration Callum and Owen became aware of what the trouble was.
Once, when Owen was coming away from a reception at one of the
houses where his growing financial importance made him welcome, he
heard one of two men whom he knew casually, say to the other, as
they stood at the door adjusting their coats, "You saw where this
fellow Cowperwood got four years, didn't you?"

"Yes," replied the other.  "A clever devil that--wasn't he? I
knew that girl he was in with, too--you know who I mean.  Miss
Butler--wasn't that her name?"

Owen was not sure that he had heard right.  He did not get the
connection until the other guest, opening the door and stepping
out, remarked: "Well, old Butler got even, apparently.  They say
he sent him up."

Owen's brow clouded.  A hard, contentious look came into his eyes.
He had much of his father's force.  What in the devil were they
talking about? What Miss Butler did they have in mind? Could this
be Aileen or Norah, and how could Cowperwood come to be in with
either of them? It could not possibly be Norah, he reflected;
she was very much infatuated with a young man whom he knew, and
was going to marry him.  Aileen had been most friendly with the
Cowperwoods, and had often spoken well of the financier.  Could
it be she? He could not believe it.  He thought once of overtaking
the two acquaintances and demanding to know what they meant, but
when he came out on the step they were already some distance down
the street and in the opposite direction from that in which he
wished to go.  He decided to ask his father about this.

On demand, old Butler confessed at once, but insisted that his
son keep silent about it.

"I wish I'd have known," said Owen, grimly.  "I'd have shot the
dirty dog."

"Aisy, aisy," said Butler.  "Yer own life's worth more than his,
and ye'd only be draggin' the rest of yer family in the dirt with
him.  He's had somethin' to pay him for his dirty trick, and he'll
have more.  Just ye say nothin' to no one.  Wait.  He'll be wantin'
to get out in a year or two.  Say nothin' to her aither.  Talkin'
won't help there.  She'll come to her sinses when he's been away
long enough, I'm thinkin'."  Owen had tried to be civil to his
sister after that, but since he was a stickler for social perfection
and advancement, and so eager to get up in the world himself, he
could not understand how she could possibly have done any such
thing.  He resented bitterly the stumbling-block she had put in
his path.  Now, among other things, his enemies would have this
to throw in his face if they wanted to--and they would want to,
trust life for that.

Callum reached his knowledge of the matter in quite another manner,
but at about the same time.  He was a member of an athletic club
which had an attractive building in the city, and a fine country
club, where he went occasionally to enjoy the swimming-pool and
the Turkish bath connected with it.  One of his friends approached
him there in the billiard-room one evening and said, "Say, Butler,
you know I'm a good friend of yours, don't you?"

"Why, certainly, I know it," replied Callum.  "What's the matter?"

"Well, you know," said the young individual, whose name was Richard
Pethick, looking at Callum with a look of almost strained affection,
"I wouldn't come to you with any story that I thought would hurt
your feelings or that you oughtn't to know about, but I do think
you ought to know about this."  He pulled at a high white collar
which was choking his neck.

"I know you wouldn't, Pethick," replied Callum; very much interested.
"What is it? What's the point?"

"Well, I don't like to say anything," replied Pethick, "but that
fellow Hibbs is saying things around here about your sister."

"What's that?" exclaimed Callum, straightening up in the most
dynamic way and bethinking him of the approved social procedure
in all such cases.  He should be very angry.  He should demand
and exact proper satisfaction in some form or other--by blows
very likely if his honor had been in any way impugned.  "What is
it he says about my sister? What right has he to mention her name
here, anyhow? He doesn't know her."

Pethick affected to be greatly concerned lest he cause trouble
between Callum and Hibbs.  He protested that he did not want to,
when, in reality, he was dying to tell.  At last he came out with,
"Why, he's circulated the yarn that your sister had something to
do with this man Cowperwood, who was tried here recently, and
that that's why he's just gone to prison."

"What's that?" exclaimed Callum, losing the make-believe of the
unimportant, and taking on the serious mien of some one who feels
desperately.  "He says that, does he? Where is he? I want to see
if he'll say that to me."

Some of the stern fighting ability of his father showed in his
slender, rather refined young face.

"Now, Callum," insisted Pethick, realizing the genuine storm he
had raised, and being a little fearful of the result, "do be
careful what you say.  You mustn't have a row in here.  You know
it's against the rules.  Besides he may be drunk.  It's just some
foolish talk he's heard, I'm sure.  Now, for goodness' sake, don't
get so excited."  Pethick, having evoked the storm, was not a
little nervous as to its results in his own case.  He, too, as
well as Callum, himself as the tale-bearer, might now be involved.

But Callum by now was not so easily restrained.  His face was quite
pale, and he was moving toward the old English grill-room, where
Hibbs happened to be, consuming a brandy-and-soda with a friend
of about his own age.  Callum entered and called him.

"Oh, Hibbs!" he said.

Hibbs, hearing his voice and seeing him in the door, arose and
came over.  He was an interesting youth of the collegiate type,
educated at Princeton.  He had heard the rumor concerning Aileen
from various sources--other members of the club, for one--and had
ventured to repeat it in Pethick's presence.

"What's that you were just saying about my sister?" asked Callum,
grimly, looking Hibbs in the eye.

"Why--I--" hesitated Hibbs, who sensed trouble and was eager to
avoid it.  He was not exceptionally brave and looked it.  His hair
was straw-colored, his eyes blue, and his cheeks pink.  "Why--
nothing in particular.  Who said I was talking about her?" He
looked at Pethick, whom he knew to be the tale-bearer, and the
latter exclaimed, excitedly:

"Now don't you try to deny it, Hibbs.  You know I heard you?"

"Well, what did I say?" asked Hibbs, defiantly.

"Well, what did you say?" interrupted Callum,  grimly, transferring
the conversation to himself.  "That's just what I want to know."

"Why," stammered Hibbs, nervously, "I don't think I've said anything
that anybody else hasn't said.  I just repeated that some one said
that your sister had been very friendly with Mr. Cowperwood.  I
didn't say any more than I have heard other people say around here."

"Oh, you didn't, did you?" exclaimed Callum, withdrawing his hand
from his pocket and slapping Hibbs in the face.  He repeated the
blow with his left hand, fiercely.  "Perhaps that'll teach you to
keep my sister's name out of your mouth, you pup!"

Hibbs's arms flew up.  He was not without pugilistic training, and
he struck back vigorously, striking Callum once in the chest and
once in the neck.  In an instant the two rooms of this suite were
in an uproar.  Tables and chairs were overturned by the energy of
men attempting to get to the scene of action.  The two combatants
were quickly separated; sides were taken by the friends of each,
excited explanations attempted and defied.  Callum was examining
the knuckles of his left hand, which were cut from the blow he had
delivered.  He maintained a gentlemanly calm.  Hibbs, very much
flustered and excited, insisted that he had been most unreasonably
used.  The idea of attacking him here.  And, anyhow, as he maintained
now, Pethick had been both eavesdropping and lying about him.
Incidentally, the latter was protesting to others that he had done
the only thing which an honorable friend could do.  It was a nine
days' wonder in the club, and was only kept out of the newspapers
by the most strenuous efforts on the part of the friends of both
parties.  Callum was so outraged on discovering that there was
some foundation for the rumor at the club in a general rumor which
prevailed that he tendered his resignation, and never went there
again.

"I wish to heaven you hadn't struck that fellow," counseled Owen,
when the incident was related to him.  "It will only make more talk.
She ought to leave this place; but she won't.  She's struck on
that fellow yet, and we can't tell Norah and mother.  We will never
hear the last of this, you and I--believe me."

"Damn it, she ought to be made to go," exclaimed Callum.

"Well, she won't," replied Owen.  "Father has tried making her,
and she won't go.  Just let things stand.  He's in the penitentiary
now, and that's probably the end of him.  The public seem to think
that father put him there, and that's something.  Maybe we can
persuade her to go after a while.  I wish to God we had never had
sight of that fellow.  If ever he comes out, I've a good notion
to kill him."

"Oh, I wouldn't do anything like that," replied Callum.  "It's
useless.  It would only stir things up afresh.  He's done for,
anyhow."

They planned to urge Norah to marry as soon as possible.  And as
for their feelings toward Aileen, it was a very chilly atmosphere
which Mrs. Butler contemplated from now on, much to her confusion,
grief, and astonishment.

In this divided world it was that Butler eventually found himself,
all at sea as to what to think or what to do.  He had brooded so
long now, for months, and as yet had found no solution.  And
finally, in a form of religious despair, sitting at his desk, in
his business chair, he had collapsed--a weary and disconsolate man
of seventy.  A lesion of the left ventricle was the immediate
physical cause, although brooding over Aileen was in part the
mental one.  His death could not have been laid to his grief over
Aileen exactly, for he was a very large man--apoplectic and with
sclerotic veins and arteries.  For a great many years now he had
taken very little exercise, and his digestion had been considerably
impaired thereby.  He was past seventy, and his time had been
reached.  They found him there the next morning, his hands folded
in his lap, his head on his bosom, quite cold.

He was buried with honors out of St. Timothy's Church, the funeral
attended by a large body of politicians and city officials, who
discussed secretly among themselves whether his grief over his
daughter had anything to do with his end.  All his good deeds were
remembered, of course, and Mollenhauer and Simpson sent great
floral emblems in remembrance.  They were very sorry that he was
gone, for they had been a cordial three.  But gone he was, and
that ended their interest in the matter.  He left all of his
property to his wife in one of the shortest wills ever recorded
locally.

"I give and bequeath to my beloved wife, Norah, all my property
of whatsoever kind to be disposed of as she may see fit."

There was no misconstruing this.  A private paper drawn secretly
for her sometime before by Butler, explained how the property
should be disposed of by her at her death.  It was Butler's real
will masquerading as hers, and she would not have changed it for
worlds; but he wanted her left in undisturbed possession of
everything until she should die.  Aileen's originally assigned
portion had never been changed.   According to her father's will,
which no power under the sun could have made Mrs. Butler alter,
she was left $250,000 to be paid at Mrs. Butler's death.  Neither
this fact nor any of the others contained in the paper were
communicated by Mrs. Butler, who retained it to be left as her
will.  Aileen often wondered, but never sought to know, what had
been left her.  Nothing she fancied--but felt that she could not
help this.

Butler's death led at once to a great change in the temper of the
home.  After the funeral the family settled down to a seemingly
peaceful continuance of the old life; but it was a matter of seeming
merely.  The situation stood with Callum and Owen manifesting a
certain degree of contempt for Aileen, which she, understanding,
reciprocated.   She was very haughty.  Owen had plans of forcing
her to leave after Butler's death, but he finally asked himself
what was the use.  Mrs. Butler, who did not want to leave the old
home, was very fond of Aileen, so therein lay a reason for letting
her remain.  Besides, any move to force her out would have entailed
an explanation to her mother, which was not deemed advisable.
Owen himself was interested in Caroline Mollenhauer, whom he hoped
some day to marry--as much for her prospective wealth as for any
other reason, though he was quite fond of her.  In the January
following Butler's death, which occurred in August, Norah was
married very quietly, and the following spring Callum embarked on
a similar venture.

In the meanwhile, with Butler's death, the control of the political
situation had shifted considerably.  A certain Tom Collins,
formerly one of Butler's henchmen, but latterly a power in the
First, Second, Third, and Fourth Wards, where he had numerous
saloons and control of other forms of vice, appeared as a claimant
for political recognition.  Mollenhauer and Simpson had to consult
him, as he could make very uncertain the disposition of some hundred
and fifteen thousand votes, a large number of which were fraudulent,
but which fact did not modify their deadly character on occasion.
Butler's sons disappeared as possible political factors, and were
compelled to confine themselves to the street-railway and contracting
business.  The pardon of Cowperwood and Stener, which Butler would
have opposed, because by keeping Stener in he kept Cowperwood in,
became a much easier matter.  The scandal of the treasury defalcation
was gradually dying down; the newspapers had ceased to refer to
it in any way.  Through Steger and Wingate, a large petition signed
by all important financiers and brokers had been sent to the Governor
pointing out that Cowperwood's trial and conviction had been most
unfair, and asking that he be pardoned.  There was no need of any
such effort, so far as Stener was concerned; whenever the time
seemed ripe the politicians were quite ready to say to the Governor
that he ought to let him go.  It was only because Butler had opposed
Cowperwood's release that they had hesitated.  It was really not
possible to let out the one and ignore the other; and this petition,
coupled with Butler's death, cleared the way very nicely.

Nevertheless, nothing was done until the March following Butler's
death, when both Stener and Cowperwood had been incarcerated thirteen
months--a length of time which seemed quite sufficient to appease
the anger of the public at large.  In this period Stener had undergone
a considerable change physically and mentally.  In spite of the
fact that a number of the minor aldermen, who had profited in various
ways by his largess, called to see him occasionally, and that he
had been given, as it were, almost the liberty of the place, and
that his family had not been allowed to suffer, nevertheless he
realized that his political and social days were over.  Somebody
might now occasionally send him a basket of fruit and assure him
that he would not be compelled to suffer much longer; but when he
did get out, he knew that he had nothing to depend on save his
experience as an insurance agent and real-estate dealer.  That had
been precarious enough in the days when he was trying to get some
small political foothold.  How would it be when he was known only
as the man who had looted the treasury of five hundred thousand
dollars and been sent to the penitentiary for five years? Who would
lend him the money wherewith to get a little start, even so much as
four or five thousand dollars? The people who were calling to pay
their respects now and then, and to assure him that he had been
badly treated? Never.  All of them could honestly claim that they
had not so much to spare.  If he had good security to offer--yes;
but if he had good security he would not need to go to them at all.
The man who would have actually helped him if he had only known
was Frank A. Cowperwood.  Stener could have confessed his mistake,
as Cowperwood saw it, and Cowperwood would have given him the money
gladly, without any thought of return.  But by his poor understanding
of human nature, Stener considered that Cowperwood must be an enemy
of his, and he would not have had either the courage or the business
judgment to approach him.

During his incarceration Cowperwood had been slowly accumulating
a little money through Wingate.  He had paid Steger considerable
sums from time to time, until that worthy finally decided that it
would not be fair to take any more.

"If ever you get on your feet, Frank," he said, "you can remember
me if you want to, but I don't think you'll want to.  It's been
nothing but lose, lose, lose for you through me.  I'll undertake
this matter of getting that appeal to the Governor without any
charge on my part.  Anything I can do for you from now on is free
gratis for nothing."

"Oh, don't talk nonsense, Harper," replied Cowperwood.  "I don't
know of anybody that could have done better with my case.  Certainly
there isn't anybody that I would have trusted as much.  I don't
like lawyers you know."

"Yes--well," said Steger, "they've got nothing on financiers, so
we'll call it even."  And they shook hands.

So when it was finally decided to pardon Stener, which was in the
early part of March, 1873--Cowperwood's pardon was necessarily but
gingerly included.  A delegation, consisting of Strobik, Harmon,
and Winpenny, representing, as it was intended to appear, the
unanimous wishes of the council and the city administration, and
speaking for Mollenhauer and Simpson, who had given their consent,
visited the Governor at Harrisburg and made the necessary formal
representations which were intended to impress the public.  At the
same time, through the agency of Steger, Davison, and Walter Leigh,
the appeal in behalf of Cowperwood was made.  The Governor, who
had had instructions beforehand from sources quite superior to
this committee, was very solemn about the whole procedure.  He
would take the matter under advisement.  He would look into the
history of the crimes and the records of the two men.  He could
make no promises--he would see.  But in ten days, after allowing
the petitions to gather considerable dust in one of his pigeonholes
and doing absolutely nothing toward investigating anything, he
issued two separate pardons in writing.  One, as a matter of
courtesy, he gave into the hands of Messrs. Strobik, Harmon, and
Winpenny, to bear personally to Mr. Stener, as they desired that
he should.  The other, on Steger's request, he gave to him.  The
two committees which had called to receive them then departed; and
the afternoon of that same day saw Strobik, Harmon, and Winpenny
arrive in one group, and Steger, Wingate, and Walter Leigh in
another, at the prison gate, but at different hours.





Chapter LVIII




This matter of the pardon of Cowperwood, the exact time of it,
was kept a secret from him, though the fact that he was to be
pardoned soon, or that he had a very excellent chance of being,
had not been denied--rather had been made much of from time to
time.  Wingate had kept him accurately informed as to the progress
being made, as had Steger; but when it was actually ascertained,
from the Governor's private secretary, that a certain day would
see the pardon handed over to them, Steger, Wingate, and Walter
Leigh had agreed between themselves that they would say nothing,
taking Cowperwood by surprise.  They even went so far--that is,
Steger and Wingate did--as to indicate to Cowperwood that there
was some hitch to the proceedings and that he might not now get
out so soon.  Cowperwood was somewhat depressed, but properly
stoical; he assured himself that he could wait, and that he would
be all right sometime.  He was rather surprised therefore, one
Friday afternoon, to see Wingate, Steger, and Leigh appear at his
cell door, accompanied by Warden Desmas.

The warden was quite pleased to think that Cowperwood should finally
be going out--he admired him so much--and decided to come along to
the cell, to see how he would take his liberation.  On the way
Desmas commented on the fact that he had always been a model prisoner.
"He kept a little garden out there in that yard of his," he confided
to Walter Leigh.  "He had violets and pansies and geraniums out
there, and they did very well, too."

Leigh smiled.  It was like Cowperwood to be industrious and tasteful,
even in prison.  Such a man could not be conquered.  "A very
remarkable man, that," he remarked to Desmas.

"Very," replied the warden.  "You can tell that by looking at him."

The four looked in through the barred door where he was working,
without being observed, having come up quite silently.

"Hard at it, Frank?" asked Steger.

Cowperwood glanced over his shoulder and got up.  He had been
thinking, as always these days, of what he would do when he did
get out.

"What is this," he asked--"a political delegation?" He suspected
something on the instant.  All four smiled cheeringly, and Bonhag
unlocked the door for the warden.

"Nothing very much, Frank," replied Stager, gleefully, "only you're
a free man.  You can gather up your traps and come right along,
if you wish."

Cowperwood surveyed his friends with a level gaze.  He had not
expected this so soon after what had been told him.  He was not
one to be very much interested in the practical joke or the surprise,
but this pleased him--the sudden realization that he was free.
Still, he had anticipated it so long that the charm of it had been
discounted to a certain extent.  He had been unhappy here, and he
had not.  The shame and humiliation of it, to begin with, had been
much.  Latterly, as he had become inured to it all, the sense of
narrowness and humiliation had worn off.  Only the consciousness
of incarceration and delay irked him.  Barring his intense desire
for certain things--success and vindication, principally--he found
that he could live in his narrow cell and be fairly comfortable.
He had long since become used to the limy smell (used to defeat
a more sickening one), and to the numerous rats which he quite
regularly trapped.  He had learned to take an interest in chair-caning,
having become so proficient that he could seat twenty in a day if
he chose, and in working in the little garden in spring, summer,
and fall.  Every evening he had studied the sky from his narrow
yard, which resulted curiously in the gift in later years of a
great reflecting telescope to a famous university.  He had not
looked upon himself as an ordinary prisoner, by any means--had
not felt himself to be sufficiently punished if a real crime had
been involved.  From Bonhag he had learned the history of many
criminals here incarcerated, from murderers up and down, and many
had been pointed out to him from time to time.  He had been escorted
into the general yard by Bonhag, had seen the general food of the
place being prepared, had heard of Stener's modified life here,
and so forth.  It had finally struck him that it was not so bad,
only that the delay to an individual like himself was wasteful.
He could do so much now if he were out and did not have to fight
court proceedings.  Courts and jails! He shook his head when he
thought of the waste involved in them.

"That's all right," he said, looking around him in an uncertain
way.  "I'm ready."

He stepped out into the hall, with scarcely a farewell glance, and
to Bonhag, who was grieving greatly over the loss of so profitable
a customer, he said: "I wish you would see that some of these
things are sent over to my house, Walter.  You're welcome to the
chair, that clock, this mirror, those pictures--all of these things
in fact, except my linen, razors, and so forth."

The last little act of beneficence soothed Bonhag's lacerated soul
a little.  They went out into the receiving overseer's office,
where Cowperwood laid aside his prison suit and the soft shirt
with a considerable sense of relief.  The clog shoes had long
since been replaced by a better pair of his own.  He put on the
derby hat and gray overcoat he had worn the year before, on entering,
and expressed himself as ready.  At the entrance of the prison he
turned and looked back--one last glance--at the iron door leading
into the garden.

"You don't regret leaving that, do you, Frank?" asked Steger,
curiously.

"I do not," replied Cowperwood.  "It wasn't that I was thinking
of.  It was just the appearance of it, that's all."

In another minute they were at the outer gate, where Cowperwood
shook the warden finally by the hand.  Then entering a carriage
outside the large, impressive, Gothic entrance, the gates were
locked behind them and they were driven away.

"Well, there's an end of that, Frank," observed Steger, gayly;
"that will never bother you any more."

"Yes," replied Cowperwood.  "It's worse to see it coming than
going."

"It seems to me we ought to celebrate this occasion in some way,"
observed Walter Leigh.  "It won't do just to take Frank home.
Why don't we all go down to Green's? That's a good idea."

"I'd rather not, if you don't mind," replied Cowperwood, feelingly.
"I'll get together with you all, later.  Just now I'd like to go
home and change these clothes."

He was thinking of Aileen and his children and his mother and
father and of his whole future.  Life was going to broaden out
for him considerably from now on, he was sure of it.  He had
learned so much about taking care of himself in those thirteen
months.  He was going to see Aileen, and find how she felt about
things in general, and then he was going to resume some such duties
as he had had in his own concern, with Wingate & Co.  He was going
to secure a seat on 'change again, through his friends; and, to
escape the effect of the prejudice of those who might not care to
do business with an ex-convict, he was going to act as general
outside man, and floor man on 'charge, for Wingate & Co.  His
practical control of that could not be publicly proved.  Now for
some important development in the market--some slump or something.
He would show the world whether he was a failure or not.

They let him down in front of his wife's little cottage, and he
entered briskly in the gathering gloom.

On September 18, 1873, at twelve-fifteen of a brilliant autumn
day, in the city of Philadelphia, one of the most startling
financial tragedies that the world has ever seen had its commencement.
The banking house of Jay Cooke & Co., the foremost financial
organization of America, doing business at Number 114 South Third
Street in Philadelphia, and with branches in New York, Washington,
and London, closed its doors.  Those who know anything about the
financial crises of the United States know well the significance
of the panic which followed.  It is spoken of in all histories as
the panic of 1873, and the widespread ruin and disaster which
followed was practically unprecedented in American history.

At this time Cowperwood, once more a broker--ostensibly a broker's
agent--was doing business in South Third Street, and representing
Wingate & Co. on 'change.  During the six months which had elapsed
since he had emerged from the Eastern Penitentiary he had been
quietly resuming financial, if not social, relations with those
who had known him before.

Furthermore, Wingate & Co. were prospering, and had been for some
time, a fact which redounded to his credit with those who knew.
Ostensibly he lived with his wife in a small house on North
Twenty-first Street.  In reality he occupied a bachelor apartment
on North Fifteenth Street, to which Aileen occasionally repaired.
The difference between himself and his wife had now become a matter
of common knowledge in the family, and, although there were some
faint efforts made to smooth the matter over, no good resulted.
The difficulties of the past two years had so inured his parents
to expect the untoward and exceptional that, astonishing as this
was, it did not shock them so much as it would have years before.
They were too much frightened by life to quarrel with its weird
developments.  They could only hope and pray for the best.

The Butler family, on the other hand, what there was of it, had
become indifferent to Aileen's conduct.  She was ignored by her
brothers and Norah, who now knew all; and her mother was so taken
up with religious devotions and brooding contemplation of her loss
that she was not as active in her observation of Aileen's life as
she might have been.  Besides, Cowperwood and his mistress were
more circumspect in their conduct than they had ever been before.
Their movements were more carefully guarded, though the result was
the same.  Cowperwood was thinking of the West--of reaching some
slight local standing here in Philadelphia, and then, with perhaps
one hundred thousand dollars in capital, removing to the boundless
prairies of which he had heard so much--Chicago, Fargo, Duluth,
Sioux City, places then heralded in Philadelphia and the East as
coming centers of great life--and taking Aileen with him.  Although
the problem of marriage with her was insoluble unless Mrs.
Cowperwood should formally agree to give him up--a possibility
which was not manifest at this time, neither he nor Aileen were
deterred by that thought.  They were going to build a future
together--or so they thought, marriage or no marriage.  The only
thing which Cowperwood could see to do was to take Aileen away
with him, and to trust to time and absence to modify his wife's
point of view.

This particular panic, which was destined to mark a notable change
in Cowperwood's career, was one of those peculiar things which
spring naturally out of the optimism of the American people and
the irrepressible progress of the country.  It was the result, to
be accurate, of the prestige and ambition of Jay Cooke, whose early
training and subsequent success had all been acquired in Philadelphia,
and who had since become the foremost financial figure of his day.
It would be useless to attempt to trace here the rise of this man
to distinction; it need only be said that by suggestions which he
made and methods which he devised the Union government, in its
darkest hours, was able to raise the money wherewith to continue
the struggle against the South.  After the Civil War this man, who
had built up a tremendous banking business in Philadelphia, with
great branches in New York and Washington, was at a loss for some
time for some significant thing to do, some constructive work which
would be worthy of his genius.  The war was over; the only thing
which remained was the finances of peace, and the greatest things
in American financial enterprise were those related to the
construction of transcontinental railway lines.  The Union Pacific,
authorized in 1860, was already building; the Northern Pacific and
the Southern Pacific were already dreams in various pioneer minds.
The great thing was to connect the Atlantic and the Pacific by
steel, to bind up the territorially perfected and newly solidified
Union, or to enter upon some vast project of mining, of which gold
and silver were the most important.  Actually railway-building was
the most significant of all, and railroad stocks were far and away
the most valuable and important on every exchange in America.  Here
in Philadelphia, New York Central, Rock Island, Wabash, Central
Pacific, St. Paul, Hannibal & St. Joseph, Union Pacific, and
Ohio & Mississippi were freely traded in.  There were men who were
getting rich and famous out of handling these things; and such
towering figures as Cornelius Vanderbilt, Jay Gould, Daniel Drew,
James Fish, and others in the East, and Fair, Crocker, W. R. Hearst,
and Collis P. Huntington, in the West, were already raising their
heads like vast mountains in connection with these enterprises.
Among those who dreamed most ardently on this score was Jay Cooke,
who without the wolfish cunning of a Gould or the practical
knowledge of a Vanderbilt, was ambitious to thread the northern
reaches of America with a band of steel which should be a permanent
memorial to his name.

The project which fascinated him most was one that related to the
development of the territory then lying almost unexplored between
the extreme western shore of Lake Superior, where Duluth now stands,
and that portion of the Pacific Ocean into which the Columbia River
empties--the extreme northern one-third of the United States.
Here, if a railroad were built, would spring up great cities and
prosperous towns.  There were, it was suspected, mines of various
metals in the region of the Rockies which this railroad would
traverse, and untold wealth to be reaped from the fertile corn and
wheat lands.  Products brought only so far east as Duluth could
then be shipped to the Atlantic, via the Great Lakes and the Erie
Canal, at a greatly reduced cost.  It was a vision of empire, not
unlike the Panama Canal project of the same period, and one that
bade fair apparently to be as useful to humanity.  It had aroused
the interest and enthusiasm of Cooke.  Because of the fact that
the government had made a grant of vast areas of land on either
side of the proposed track to the corporation that should seriously
undertake it and complete it within a reasonable number of years,
and because of the opportunity it gave him of remaining a
distinguished public figure, he had eventually shouldered the
project.  It was open to many objections and criticisms; but the
genius which had been sufficient to finance the Civil War was
considered sufficient to finance the Northern Pacific Railroad.
Cooke undertook it with the idea of being able to put the merits
of the proposition before the people direct--not through the agency
of any great financial corporation--and of selling to the butcher,
the baker, and the candlestick-maker the stock or shares that he
wished to dispose of.

It was a brilliant chance.  His genius had worked out the sale of
great government loans during the Civil War to the people direct
in this fashion.  Why not Northern Pacific certificates? For several
years he conducted a pyrotechnic campaign, surveying the territory
in question, organizing great railway-construction corps, building
hundreds of miles of track under most trying conditions, and selling
great blocks of his stock, on which interest of a certain percentage
was guaranteed.  If it had not been that he knew little of
railroad-building, personally, and that the project was so vast
that it could not well be encompassed by one man, even so great a
man it might have proved successful, as under subsequent management
it did.  However, hard times, the war between France and Germany,
which tied up European capital for the time being and made it
indifferent to American projects, envy, calumny, a certain percentage
of mismanagement, all conspired to wreck it.  On September 18,
1873, at twelve-fifteen noon, Jay Cooke & Co. failed for approximately
eight million dollars and the Northern Pacific for all that had
been invested in it--some fifty million dollars more.

One can imagine what the result was--the most important financier
and the most distinguished railway enterprise collapsing at one
and the same time.  "A financial thunderclap in a clear sky," said
the Philadelphia Press.  "No one could have been more surprised,"
said the Philadelphia Inquirer, "if snow had fallen amid the
sunshine of a summer noon."  The public, which by Cooke's previous
tremendous success had been lulled into believing him invincible,
could not understand it.  It was beyond belief.  Jay Cooke fail?
Impossible, or anything connected with him.  Nevertheless, he had
failed; and the New York Stock Exchange, after witnessing a number
of crashes immediately afterward, closed for eight days.  The Lake
Shore Railroad failed to pay a call-loan of one million seven
hundred and fifty thousand dollars; and the Union Trust Company,
allied to the Vanderbilt interests, closed its doors after withstanding
a prolonged run.  The National Trust Company of New York had eight
hundred thousand dollars of government securities in its vaults,
but not a dollar could be borrowed upon them; and it suspended.
Suspicion was universal, rumor affected every one.

In Philadelphia, when the news reached the stock exchange, it came
first in the form of a brief despatch addressed to the stock board
from the New York Stock Exchange--"Rumor on street of failure of
Jay Cooke & Co.  Answer."  It was not believed, and so not replied
to.  Nothing was thought of it.  The world of brokers paid scarcely
any attention to it.  Cowperwood, who had followed the fortunes
of Jay Cooke & Co. with considerable suspicion of its president's
brilliant theory of vending his wares direct to the people--was
perhaps the only one who had suspicions.  He had once written a
brilliant criticism to some inquirer, in which he had said that
no enterprise of such magnitude as the Northern Pacific had ever
before been entirely dependent upon one house, or rather upon one
man, and that he did not like it.  "I am not sure that the lands
through which the road runs are so unparalleled in climate, soil,
timber, minerals, etc., as Mr. Cooke and his friends would have
us believe.  Neither do I think that the road can at present, or
for many years to come, earn the interest which its great issues
of stock call for.  There is great danger and risk there."  So
when the notice was posted, he looked at it, wondering what the
effect would be if by any chance Jay Cooke & Co. should fail.

He was not long in wonder.  A second despatch posted on 'change
read: "New York, September 18th.  Jay Cooke & Co. have suspended."

Cowperwood could not believe it.  He was beside himself with the
thought of a great opportunity.  In company with every other broker,
he hurried into Third Street and up to Number 114, where the famous
old banking house was located, in order to be sure.  Despite his
natural dignity and reserve, he did not hesitate to run.  If this
were true, a great hour had struck.  There would be wide-spread
panic and disaster.  There would be a terrific slump in prices of
all stocks.  He must be in the thick of it.  Wingate must be on
hand, and his two brothers.  He must tell them how to sell and
when and what to buy.  His great hour had come!





Chapter LIX




The banking house of Jay Cooke & Co., in spite of its tremendous
significance as a banking and promoting concern, was a most
unpretentious affair, four stories and a half in height of gray
stone and red brick.  It had never been deemed a handsome or
comfortable banking house.  Cowperwood had been there often.
Wharf-rats as long as the forearm of a man crept up the culverted
channels of Dock Street to run through the apartments at will.
Scores of clerks worked under gas-jets, where light and air were
not any too abundant, keeping track of the firm's vast accounts.
It was next door to the Girard National Bank, where Cowperwood's
friend Davison still flourished, and where the principal financial
business of the street converged.  As Cowperwood ran he met his
brother Edward, who was coming to the stock exchange with some
word for him from Wingate.

"Run and get Wingate and Joe," he said.  "There's something big
on this afternoon.  Jay Cooke has failed."

Edward waited for no other word, but hurried off as directed.

Cowperwood reached Cooke & Co. among the earliest.  To his utter
astonishment, the solid brown-oak doors, with which he was familiar,
were shut, and a notice posted on them, which he quickly read, ran:

                                   September 18, 1873.
  To the Public--We regret to be obliged to announce that, owing
  to unexpected demands on us, our firm has been obliged to suspend
  payment.  In a few days we will be able to present a statement
  to our creditors.  Until which time we must ask their patient
  consideration.  We believe our assets to be largely in excess
  of our liabilities.
                                       Jay Cooke & Co.

A magnificent gleam of triumph sprang into Cowperwood's eye.  In
company with many others he turned and ran back toward the exchange,
while a reporter, who had come for information knocked at the
massive doors of the banking house, and was told by a porter, who
peered out of a diamond-shaped aperture, that Jay Cooke had gone
home for the day and was not to be seen.

"Now," thought Cowperwood, to whom this panic spelled opportunity,
not ruin, "I'll get my innings.  I'll go short of this--of
everything."

Before, when the panic following the Chicago fire had occurred,
he had been long--had been compelled to stay long of many things
in order to protect himself.  To-day he had nothing to speak of--
perhaps a paltry seventy-five thousand dollars which he had managed
to scrape together.  Thank God! he had only the reputation of
Wingate's old house to lose, if he lost, which was nothing.  With
it as a trading agency behind him--with it as an excuse for his
presence, his right to buy and sell--he had everything to gain.
Where many men were thinking of ruin, he was thinking of success.
He would have Wingate and his two brothers under him to execute
his orders exactly.  He could pick up a fourth and a fifth man if
necessary.  He would give them orders to sell--everything--ten,
fifteen, twenty, thirty points off, if necessary, in order to trap
the unwary, depress the market, frighten the fearsome who would
think he was too daring; and then he would buy, buy, buy, below
these figures as much as possible, in order to cover his sales and
reap a profit.

His instinct told him how widespread and enduring this panic would
be.  The Northern Pacific was a hundred-million-dollar venture.
It involved the savings of hundreds of thousands of people--small
bankers, tradesmen, preachers, lawyers, doctors, widows, institutions
all over the land, and all resting on the faith and security of
Jay Cooke.  Once, not unlike the Chicago fire map, Cowperwood had
seen a grand prospectus and map of the location of the Northern
Pacific land-grant which Cooke had controlled, showing a vast
stretch or belt of territory extending from Duluth--"The Zenith
City of the Unsalted Seas," as Proctor Knott, speaking in the House
of Representatives, had sarcastically called it--through the
Rockies and the headwaters of the Missouri to the Pacific Ocean.
He had seen how Cooke had ostensibly managed to get control of
this government grant, containing millions upon millions of acres
and extending fourteen hundred miles in length; but it was only
a vision of empire.  There might be silver and gold and copper
mines there.  The land was usable--would some day be usable.  But
what of it now? It would do to fire the imaginations of fools
with--nothing more.  It was inaccessible, and would remain so for
years to come.  No doubt thousands had subscribed to build this
road; but, too, thousands would now fail if it had failed.  Now
the crash had come.  The grief and the rage of the public would
be intense.  For days and days and weeks and months, normal
confidence and courage would be gone.  This was his hour.  This
was his great moment.  Like a wolf prowling under glittering,
bitter stars in the night, he was looking down into the humble
folds of simple men and seeing what their ignorance and their
unsophistication would cost them.

He hurried back to the exchange, the very same room in which only
two years before he had fought his losing fight, and, finding
that his partner and his brother had not yet come, began to sell
everything in sight.  Pandemonium had broken loose.  Boys and men
were fairly tearing in from all sections with orders from panic-struck
brokers to sell, sell, sell, and later with orders to buy; the
various trading-posts were reeling, swirling masses of brokers and
their agents.  Outside in the street in front of Jay Cooke & Co.,
Clark & Co., the Girard National Bank, and other institutions,
immense crowds were beginning to form.  They were hurrying here
to learn the trouble, to withdraw their deposits, to protect their
interests generally.  A policeman arrested a boy for calling out
the failure of Jay Cooke & Co., but nevertheless the news of the
great disaster was spreading like wild-fire.

Among these panic-struck men Cowperwood was perfectly calm, deadly
cold, the same Cowperwood who had pegged solemnly at his ten chairs
each day in prison, who had baited his traps for rats, and worked
in the little garden allotted him in utter silence and loneliness.
Now he was vigorous and energetic.  He had been just sufficiently
about this exchange floor once more to have made his personality
impressive and distinguished.  He forced his way into the center
of swirling crowds of men already shouting themselves hoarse,
offering whatever was being offered in quantities which were
astonishing, and at prices which allured the few who were anxious
to make money out of the tumbling prices to buy.  New York Central
had been standing at 104 7/8 when the failure was announced; Rhode
Island at 108 7/8; Western Union at 92 1/2; Wabash at 70 1/4;
Panama at 117 3/8; Central Pacific at 99 5/8; St. Paul at 51;
Hannibal & St. Joseph at 48; Northwestern at 63; Union Pacific at
26 3/4; Ohio and Mississippi at 38 3/4.  Cowperwood's house had
scarcely any of the stocks on hand.  They were not carrying them
for any customers, and yet he sold, sold, sold, to whoever would
take, at prices which he felt sure would inspire them.

"Five thousand of New York Central at ninety-nine, ninety-eight,
ninety-seven, ninety-six, ninety-five, ninety-four, ninety-three,
ninety-two, ninety-one, ninety, eighty-nine," you might have heard
him call; and when his sales were not sufficiently brisk he would
turn to something else--Rock Island, Panama, Central Pacific,
Western Union, Northwestern, Union Pacific.  He saw his brother
and Wingate hurrying in, and stopped in his work long enough to
instruct them.  "Sell everything you can," he cautioned them
quietly, "at fifteen points off if you have to--no lower than that
now--and buy all you can below it.  Ed, you see if you cannot buy
up some local street-railways at fifteen off.  Joe, you stay near
me and buy when I tell you."

The secretary of the board appeared on his little platform.

"E. W. Clark & Company," he announced, at one-thirty, "have just
closed their doors."

"Tighe & Company," he called at one-forty-five, "announce that
they are compelled to suspend."

"The First National Bank of Philadelphia," he called, at two o'clock,
"begs to state that it cannot at present meet its obligations."

After each announcement, always, as in the past, when the gong had
compelled silence, the crowd broke into an ominous "Aw, aw, aw."

"Tighe & Company," thought Cowperwood, for a single second, when
he heard it.  "There's an end of him."  And then he returned to
his task.

When the time for closing came, his coat torn, his collar twisted
loose, his necktie ripped, his hat lost, he emerged sane, quiet,
steady-mannered.

"Well, Ed," he inquired, meeting his brother, "how'd you make
out?" The latter was equally torn, scratched, exhausted.

"Christ," he replied, tugging at his sleeves, "I never saw such
a place as this.  They almost tore my clothes off."

"Buy any local street-railways?"

"About five thousand shares."

"We'd better go down to Green's," Frank observed, referring to
the lobby of the principal hotel.  "We're not through yet.  There'll
be more trading there."

He led the way to find Wingate and his brother Joe, and together
they were off, figuring up some of the larger phases of their
purchases and sales as they went.

And, as he predicted, the excitement did not end with the coming
of the night.  The crowd lingered in front of Jay Cooke & Co.'s
on Third Street and in front of other institutions, waiting
apparently for some development which would be favorable to them.
For the initiated the center of debate and agitation was Green's
Hotel, where on the evening of the eighteenth the lobby and corridors
were crowded with bankers, brokers, and speculators.  The stock
exchange had practically adjourned to that hotel en masse.  What
of the morrow? Who would be the next to fail? From whence would
money be forthcoming? These were the topics from each mind and
upon each tongue.  From New York was coming momentarily more news
of disaster.  Over there banks and trust companies were falling
like trees in a hurricane.  Cowperwood in his perambulations, seeing
what he could see and hearing what he could hear, reaching
understandings which were against the rules of the exchange, but
which were nevertheless in accord with what every other person was
doing, saw about him men known to him as agents of Mollenhauer and
Simpson, and congratulated himself that he would have something
to collect from them before the week was over.  He might not own
a street-railway, but he would have the means to.  He learned from
hearsay, and information which had been received from New York and
elsewhere, that things were as bad as they could be, and that
there was no hope for those who expected a speedy return of normal
conditions.  No thought of retiring for the night entered until
the last man was gone.  It was then practically morning.

The next day was Friday, and suggested many ominous things.  Would
it be another Black Friday? Cowperwood was at his office before
the street was fairly awake.  He figured out his program for the
day to a nicety, feeling strangely different from the way he had
felt two years before when the conditions were not dissimilar.
Yesterday, in spite of the sudden onslaught, he had made one
hundred and fifty thousand dollars, and he expected to make as
much, if not more, to-day.  There was no telling what he could
make, he thought, if he could only keep his small organization in
perfect trim and get his assistants to follow his orders exactly.
Ruin for others began early with the suspension of Fisk & Hatch,
Jay Cooke's faithful lieutenants during the Civil War.  They had
calls upon them for one million five hundred thousand dollars in
the first fifteen minutes after opening the doors, and at once
closed them again, the failure being ascribed to Collis P. Huntington's
Central Pacific Railroad and the Chesapeake & Ohio.  There was a
long-continued run on the Fidelity Trust Company.  News of these
facts, and of failures in New York posted on 'change, strengthened
the cause Cowperwood was so much interested in; for he was selling
as high as he could and buying as low as he could on a constantly
sinking scale.  By twelve o'clock he figured with his assistants
that he had cleared one hundred thousand dollars; and by three
o'clock he had two hundred thousand dollars more.  That afternoon
between three and seven he spent adjusting his trades, and between
seven and one in the morning, without anything to eat, in gathering
as much additional information as he could and laying his plans
for the future.  Saturday morning came, and he repeated his
performance of the day before, following it up with adjustments
on Sunday and heavy trading on Monday.  By Monday afternoon at
three o'clock he figured that, all losses and uncertainties to one
side, he was once more a millionaire, and that now his future lay
clear and straight before him.

As he sat at his desk late that afternoon in his office looking
out into Third Street, where a hurrying of brokers, messengers,
and anxious depositors still maintained, he had the feeling that
so far as Philadelphia and the life here was concerned, his day
and its day with him was over.  He did not care anything about
the brokerage business here any more or anywhere.  Failures such
as this, and disasters such as the Chicago fire, that had overtaken
him two years before, had cured him of all love of the stock
exchange and all feeling for Philadelphia.  He had been very
unhappy here in spite of all his previous happiness; and his
experience as a convict had made, him, he could see quite plainly,
unacceptable to the element with whom he had once hoped to associate.
There was nothing else to do, now that he had reestablished
himself as a Philadelphia business man and been pardoned for an
offense which he hoped to make people believe he had never committed,
but to leave Philadelphia to seek a new world.

"If I get out of this safely," he said to himself, "this is the
end.  I am going West, and going into some other line of business."
He thought of street-railways, land speculation, some great
manufacturing project of some kind, even mining, on a legitimate
basis.

"I have had my lesson," he said to himself, finally getting up and
preparing to leave.  "I am as rich as I was, and only a little
older.  They caught me once, but they will not catch me again."
He talked to Wingate about following up the campaign on the lines
in which he had started, and he himself intended to follow it up
with great energy; but all the while his mind was running with
this one rich thought: "I am a millionaire.  I am a free man.  I
am only thirty-six, and my future is all before me."

It was with this thought that he went to visit Aileen, and to plan
for the future.

It was only three months later that a train, speeding through the
mountains of Pennsylvania and over the plains of Ohio and Indiana,
bore to Chicago and the West the young financial aspirant who, in
spite of youth and wealth and a notable vigor of body, was a solemn,
conservative speculator as to what his future might be.  The West,
as he had carefully calculated before leaving, held much.  He had
studied the receipts of the New York Clearing House recently and
the disposition of bank-balances and the shipment of gold, and had
seen that vast quantities of the latter metal were going to Chicago.
He understood finance accurately.  The meaning of gold shipments
was clear.  Where money was going trade was--a thriving, developing
life.  He wished to see clearly for himself what this world had
to offer.

Two years later, following the meteoric appearance of a young
speculator in Duluth, and after Chicago had seen the tentative
opening of a grain and commission company labeled Frank A. Cowperwood
& Co., which ostensibly dealt in the great wheat crops of the West,
a quiet divorce was granted Mrs. Frank A. Cowperwood in Philadelphia,
because apparently she wished it.  Time had not seemingly dealt
badly with her.  Her financial affairs, once so bad, were now
apparently all straightened out, and she occupied in West Philadelphia,
near one of her sisters, a new and interesting home which was fitted
with all the comforts of an excellent middle-class residence.  She
was now quite religious once more.  The two children, Frank and
Lillian, were in private schools, returning evenings to their mother.
"Wash" Sims was once more the negro general factotum.  Frequent
visitors on Sundays were Mr. and Mrs. Henry Worthington Cowperwood,
no longer distressed financially, but subdued and wearied, the wind
completely gone from their once much-favored sails.  Cowperwood,
senior, had sufficient money wherewith to sustain himself, and
that without slaving as a petty clerk, but his social joy in life
was gone.  He was old, disappointed, sad.  He could feel that with
his quondam honor and financial glory, he was the same--and he was
not.  His courage and his dreams were gone, and he awaited death.

Here, too, came Anna Adelaide Cowperwood on occasion, a clerk in
the city water office, who speculated much as to the strange
vicissitudes of life.  She had great interest in her brother, who
seemed destined by fate to play a conspicuous part in the world;
but she could not understand him.  Seeing that all those who were
near to him in any way seemed to rise or fall with his prosperity,
she did not understand how justice and morals were arranged in
this world.  There seemed to be certain general principles--or
people assumed there were--but apparently there were exceptions.
Assuredly her brother abided by no known rule, and yet he seemed
to be doing fairly well once more.  What did this mean? Mrs.
Cowperwood, his former wife, condemned his actions, and yet
accepted of his prosperity as her due.  What were the ethics of
that?

Cowperwood's every action was known to Aileen Butler, his present
whereabouts and prospects.  Not long after his wife's divorce,
and after many trips to and from this new world in which he was
now living, these two left Philadelphia together one afternoon in
the winter.  Aileen explained to her mother, who was willing to
go and live with Norah, that she had fallen in love with the former
banker and wished to marry him.  The old lady, gathering only a
garbled version of it at first, consented.

Thus ended forever for Aileen this long-continued relationship
with this older world.  Chicago was before her--a much more
distinguished career, Frank told her, than ever they could have
had in Philadelphia.

"Isn't it nice to be finally going?" she commented.

"It is advantageous, anyhow," he said.

                  Concerning Mycteroperca Bonaci

There is a certain fish, the scientific name of which is Mycteroperca
Bonaci, its common name Black Grouper, which is of considerable
value as an afterthought in this connection, and which deserves
to be better known.  It is a healthy creature, growing quite
regularly to a weight of two hundred and fifty pounds, and lives
a comfortable, lengthy existence because of its very remarkable
ability to adapt itself to conditions.  That very subtle thing
which we call the creative power, and which we endow with the
spirit of the beatitudes, is supposed to build this mortal life
in such fashion that only honesty and virtue shall prevail.
Witness, then, the significant manner in which it has fashioned
the black grouper.  One might go far afield and gather less
forceful indictments--the horrific spider spinning his trap for
the unthinking fly; the lovely Drosera (Sundew) using its crimson
calyx for a smothering-pit in which to seal and devour the victim
of its beauty; the rainbow-colored jellyfish that spreads its
prismed tentacles like streamers of great beauty, only to sting
and torture all that falls within their radiant folds.  Man himself
is busy digging the pit and fashioning the snare, but he will not
believe it.  His feet are in the trap of circumstance; his eyes
are on an illusion.

Mycteroperca moving in its dark world of green waters is as fine
an illustration of the constructive genius of nature, which is not
beatific, as any which the mind of man may discover.  Its great
superiority lies in an almost unbelievable power of simulation,
which relates solely to the pigmentation of its skin.  In electrical
mechanics we pride ourselves on our ability to make over one
brilliant scene into another in the twinkling of an eye, and flash
before the gaze of an onlooker picture after picture, which appear
and disappear as we look.  The directive control of Mycteroperca
over its appearance is much more significant.  You cannot look at
it long without feeling that you are witnessing something spectral
and unnatural, so brilliant is its power to deceive.  From being
black it can become instantly white; from being an earth-colored
brown it can fade into a delightful water-colored green.  Its
markings change as the clouds of the sky.  One marvels at the
variety and subtlety of its power.

Lying at the bottom of a bay, it can simulate the mud by which it
is surrounded.  Hidden in the folds of glorious leaves, it is of
the same markings.  Lurking in a flaw of light, it is like the
light itself shining dimly in water.  Its power to elude or strike
unseen is of the greatest.

What would you say was the intention of the overruling, intelligent,
constructive force which gives to Mycteroperca this ability? To
fit it to be truthful? To permit it to present an unvarying
appearance which all honest life-seeking fish may know? Or would
you say that subtlety, chicanery, trickery, were here at work? An
implement of illusion one might readily suspect it to be, a living
lie, a creature whose business it is to appear what it is not, to
simulate that with which it has nothing in common, to get its
living by great subtlety, the power of its enemies to forefend
against which is little.  The indictment is fair.

Would you say, in the face of this, that a beatific, beneficent
creative, overruling power never wills that which is either tricky
or deceptive? Or would you say that this material seeming in which
we dwell is itself an illusion? If not, whence then the Ten
Commandments and the illusion of justice? Why were the Beatitudes
dreamed of and how do they avail?

                        The Magic Crystal

If you had been a mystic or a soothsayer or a member of that
mysterious world which divines by incantations, dreams, the mystic
bowl, or the crystal sphere, you might have looked into their
mysterious depths at this time and foreseen a world of happenings
which concerned these two, who were now apparently so fortunately
placed.  In the fumes of the witches' pot, or the depths of the
radiant crystal, might have been revealed cities, cities, cities;
a world of mansions, carriages, jewels, beauty; a vast metropolis
outraged by the power of one man; a great state seething with
indignation over a force it could not control; vast halls of
priceless pictures; a palace unrivaled for its magnificence; a
whole world reading with wonder, at times, of a given name.  And
sorrow, sorrow, sorrow.

The three witches that hailed Macbeth upon the blasted heath might
in turn have called to Cowperwood, "Hail to you, Frank Cowperwood,
master of a great railway system! Hail to you, Frank Cowperwood,
builder of a priceless mansion! Hail to you, Frank Cowperwood,
patron of arts and possessor of endless riches! You shall be famed
hereafter."  But like the Weird Sisters, they would have lied, for
in the glory was also the ashes of Dead Sea fruit--an understanding
that could neither be inflamed by desire nor satisfied by luxury;
a heart that was long since wearied by experience; a soul that was
as bereft of illusion as a windless moon.  And to Aileen, as to
Macduff, they might have spoken a more pathetic promise, one that
concerned hope and failure.  To have and not to have! All the
seeming, and yet the sorrow of not having! Brilliant society that
shone in a mirage, yet locked its doors; love that eluded as a
will-o'-the-wisp and died in the dark.  "Hail to you, Frank
Cowperwood, master and no master, prince of a world of dreams whose
reality was disillusion!" So might the witches have called, the
bowl have danced with figures, the fumes with vision, and it would
have been true.  What wise man might not read from such a beginning,
such an end?





End of The Project Gutenberg Etext:  The Financier, by Theodore Dreiser