he 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 manipulations, and particularly his actual control of
the Seventeenth and Nineteenth Street line. Through an advance to him,
on deposit, made in his bank by Stener at a time when the stock of the
Seventeenth and Nineteenth Street line was at a low ebb, he had managed
to pick up fifty-one per cent. of the stock for himself and Stener,
by virtue of which he was able to do as he pleased with the road.
To accomplish this, however, he had resorted to some very "peculiar"
methods, as they afterward came to be termed in financial circles, to
get this stock at his own valuation. Through agents he caused suits for
damages to be brought against the company for non-payment of interest
due. A little stock in the hands of a hireling, a request made to
a court of record to examine the books of the company in order to
determine whether a receivership were not advisable, a simultaneous
attack in the stock market, selling at three, five, seven, and ten
points off, brought the frightened stockholders into the market with
their holdings. The banks considered the line a poor risk, and called
their loans in connection with it. His father's bank had made one loan
to one of the principal stockholders, and that was promptly called, of
course. Then, through an agent, the several heaviest shareholders were
approached and an offer was made to help them out. The stocks would
be taken off their hands at forty. They had not really been able to
discover the source of all t