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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
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