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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
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