Full Text Archive

Full Text Archive
https://www.fulltextarchive.com
we get the North Pennsylvania scheme under way. I'm so rushed just now I'm not sure that I
want to undertake it at once; but you keep quiet and we'll see." He turned toward his desk, and
Stener got up.
"I'll make any sized deposit with you that you wish, the moment you think you're ready to act,
Frank," exclaimed Stener, and with the thought that Cowperwood was not nearly as anxious to
do this as he should be, since he could always rely on him (Stener) when there was anything
really profitable in the offing. Why should not the able and wonderful Cowperwood be allowed to
make the two of them rich? "Just notify Stires, and he'll send you a check. Strobik thought we
ought to act pretty soon."
"I'll tend to it, George," replied Cowperwood, confidently. "It will come out all right. Leave it to
me."
Stener kicked his stout legs to straighten his trousers, and extended his hand. He strolled out in
the street thinking of this new scheme. Certainly, if he could get in with Cowperwood right he
would be a rich man, for Cowperwood was so successful and so cautious. His new house, this
beautiful banking office, his growing fame, and his subtle connections with Butler and others put
Stener in considerable awe of him. Another line! They would control it and the North
Pennsylvania! Why, if this went on, he might become a magnate--he really might--he, George
W. Stener, once a cheap real-estate and insurance agent. He strolled up the street thinking, but
with no more idea of the importance of his civic duties and the nature of the social ethics against
which he was offending than if they had never existed.
Chapter XXII
The services which Cowperwood performed during the ensuing year and a half for Stener,
Strobik, Butler, State Treasurer Van Nostrand, State Senator Relihan, representative of "the
interests," so-called, at Harrisburg, and various banks which were friendly to these gentlemen,
were numerous and confidential. For Stener, Strobik, Wycroft, Harmon and himself he executed
the North Pennsylvania deal, by which he became a holder of a fifth of the controlling stock.
Together he and Stener joined to purchase the Seventeenth and Nineteenth Street line and in
the concurrent gambling in stocks.
By the summer of 1871, when Cowperwood was nearly thirty-four years of age, he had a
banking business estimated at nearly two million dollars, personal holdings aggregating nearly
half a million, and prospects which other things being equal looked to wealth which might rival
that of any American. The city, through its treasurer-- still Mr. Stener--was a depositor with him
to the extent of nearly five hundred thousand dollars. The State, through its State treasurer, Van
Nostrand, carried two hundred thousand dollars on his books. Bode was speculating in street-
railway stocks to the extent of fifty thousand dollars. Relihan to the same amount. A small army
of politicians and political hangers-on were on his books for various sums. And for Edward Malia
Butler he occasionally carried as high as one hundred thousand dollars in margins. His own
loans at the banks, varying from day to day on variously hypothecated securities, were as high
as seven and eight hundred thousand dollars. Like a spider in a spangled net, every thread of
which he knew, had laid, had tested, he had surrounded and entangled himself in a splendid,
glittering network of connections, and he was watching all the details.
His one pet idea, the thing he put more faith in than anything else, was his street-railway
97 / 312

---