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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
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