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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
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