Full Text Archive

Full Text Archive
https://www.fulltextarchive.com
"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.
119 / 312

---