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prejudice for or against the prisoner.
It was the business of both Steger and Shannon to find men who knew a little something of
finance and could understand a peculiar situation of this kind without any of them (looking at it
from Steger's point of view) having any prejudice against a man's trying to assist himself by
reasonable means to weather a financial storm or (looking at it from Shannon's point of view)
having any sympathy with such means, if they bore about them the least suspicion of chicanery,
jugglery, or dishonest manipulation of any kind. As both Shannon and Steger in due course
observed for themselves in connection with this jury, it was composed of that assorted social fry
which the dragnets of the courts, cast into the ocean of the city, bring to the surface for
purposes of this sort. It was made up in the main of managers, agents, tradesmen, editors,
engineers, architects, furriers, grocers, traveling salesmen, authors, and every other kind of
working citizen whose experience had fitted him for service in proceedings of this character.
Rarely would you have found a man of great distinction; but very frequently a group of men who
were possessed of no small modicum of that interesting quality known as hard common sense.
Throughout all this Cowperwood sat quietly examining the men. A young florist, with a pale face,
a wide speculative forehead, and anemic hands, struck him as being sufficiently impressionable
to his personal charm to be worth while. He whispered as much to Steger. There was a shrewd
Jew, a furrier, who was challenged because he had read all of the news of the panic and had
lost two thousand dollars in street-railway stocks. There was a stout wholesale grocer, with red
cheeks, blue eyes, and flaxen hair, who Cowperwood said he thought was stubborn. He was
eliminated. There was a thin, dapper manager of a small retail clothing store, very anxious to be
excused, who declared, falsely, that he did not believe in swearing by the Bible. Judge
Payderson, eyeing him severely, let him go. There were some ten more in all--men who knew of
Cowperwood, men who admitted they were prejudiced, men who were hidebound Republicans
and resentful of this crime, men who knew Stener--who were pleasantly eliminated.
By twelve o'clock, however, a jury reasonably satisfactory to both sides had been chosen.
Chapter XLI
At two o'clock sharp Dennis Shannon, as district attorney, began his opening address. He
stated in a very simple, kindly way--for he had a most engaging manner--that the indictment as
here presented charged Mr. Frank A. Cowperwood, who was sitting at the table inside the jury-
rail, first with larceny, second with embezzlement, third with larceny as bailee, and fourth with
embezzlement of a certain sum of money--a specific sum, to wit, sixty thousand dollars--on a
check given him (drawn to his order) October 9, 1871, which was intended to reimburse him for
a certain number of certificates of city loan, which he as agent or bailee of the check was
supposed to have purchased for the city sinking-fund on the order of the city treasurer (under
some form of agreement which had been in existence between them, and which had been in
force for some time)--said fund being intended to take up such certificates as they might mature
in the hands of holders and be presented for payment--for which purpose, however, the check
in question had never been used.
"Now, gentlemen," said Mr. Shannon, very quietly, "before we go into this very simple question
of whether Mr. Cowperwood did or did not on the date in question get from the city treasurer
sixty thousand dollars, for which he made no honest return, let me explain to you just what the
people mean when they charge him first with larceny, second with embezzlement, third with
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