tter held out his hand. "I am glad to meet you. I have heard of
you before, of course."

Stener was long in explaining to Cowperwood just what his difficulty
was. He went at it in a clumsy fashion, stumbling through the
difficulties of the situation he was suffered to meet.

"The main thing, as I see it, is to make these certificates sell at par.
I can issue them in any sized lots you like, and as often as you like. I
want to get enough now to clear away two hundred thousand dollars' worth
of the outstanding warrants, and as much more as I can get later."

Cowperwood felt like a physician feeling a patient's pulse--a patient
who is really not sick at all but the reassurance of whom means a fat
fee. The abstrusities of the stock exchange were as his A B C's to him.
He knew if he could have this loan put in his hands--all of it, if he
could have the fact kept dark that he was acting for the city, and that
if Stener would allow him to buy as a "bull" for the sinking-fund while
selling judiciously for a rise, he could do wonders even with a big
issue. He had to have all of it, though, in order that he might have
agents under him. Looming up in his mind was a scheme whereby he could
make a lot of the unwary speculators about 'change go short of this
stock or loan under the impression, of course, that it was scattered
freely in various persons' hands, and that they could buy as much of it
as they wanted. Then they would wake to find that they could not get it;
that he had it all. Only he would not risk his secret that far. Not he,
oh, no. But he would drive the city loan to par and then sell. And
what a fat thing for himself among others in so doing. Wisely enough
he sensed that there was politics in all this--shrewder and bigger men
above and behind Stener. But what of that? And how slyly and shrewdly
they were sending Stener to him. It might be that his name was becoming
very potent in their political world here. And what might that not mean!

"I tell you what I'd like to do, Mr. Stener," he said, after he had
listened to his explanation and asked how much of the city loan he would
like to sell during the coming year. "I'll be glad to undertake it. But
I'd like to have a day or two in which to think it over."

"Why, certainly, certainly, Mr. Cowperwood," replied Stener, genially.
"That's all right. Take your time. If you know how it can be done, just
show me when you're ready. By the way, what do you charge?"

"Well, t