as having much to do with it. If that
happened, he would have the politicians to reckon with. For, if he were
hard pressed, as he would be, and failed, the fact that he had been
trying to invade the city street-railway preserves which they held
sacred to themselves, with borrowed city money, and that this borrowing
was liable to cost them the city election, would all come out. They
would not view all that with a kindly eye. It would be useless to say,
as he could, that he had borrowed the money at two per cent. (most of
it, to save himself, had been covered by a protective clause of that
kind), or that he had merely acted as an agent for Stener. That might go
down with the unsophisticated of the outer world, but it would never be
swallowed by the politicians. They knew better than that.

There was another phase to this situation, however, that encouraged him,
and that was his knowledge of how city politics were going in general.
It was useless for any politician, however loftly, to take a high and
mighty tone in a crisis like this. All of them, great and small, were
profiting in one way and another through city privileges. Butler,
Mollenhauer, and Simpson, he knew, made money out of contracts--legal
enough, though they might be looked upon as rank favoritism--and also
out of vast sums of money collected in the shape of taxes--land taxes,
water taxes, etc.--which were deposited in the various banks designated
by these men and others as legal depositories for city money. The banks
supposedly carried the city's money in their vaults as a favor,
without paying interest of any kind, and then reinvested it--for whom?
Cowperwood had no complaint to make, for he was being well treated, but
these men could scarcely expect to monopolize all the city's benefits.
He did not know either Mollenhauer or Simpson personally--but he knew
they as well as Butler had made money out of his own manipulation
of city loan. Also, Butler was most friendly to him. It was not
unreasonable for him to think, in a crisis like this, that if worst came
to worst, he could make a clean breast of it to Butler and receive aid.
In case he could not get through secretly with Stener's help, Cowperwood
made up his mind that he would do this.

His first move, he decided, would be to go at once to Stener's house and
demand the loan of an additional three or four hundred thousand dollars.
Stener had always been very tractable, and in this instance would see
how