father, Mollenhauer, and Simpson, were going
to "get him yet" (meaning Cowperwood), for some criminal financial
manipulation of something--she could not explain what--a check
or something. Aileen was frantic with worry. Could they mean the
penitentiary, she asked in her letter? Her dear lover! Her beloved
Frank! Could anything like this really happen to him?

His brow clouded, and he set his teeth with rage when he read her
letter. He would have to do something about this--see Mollenhauer or
Simpson, or both, and make some offer to the city. He could not promise
them money for the present--only notes--but they might take them. Surely
they could not be intending to make a scapegoat of him over such a
trivial and uncertain matter as this check transaction! When there was
the five hundred thousand advanced by Stener, to say nothing of all
the past shady transactions of former city treasurers! How rotten! How
political, but how real and dangerous.

But Simpson was out of the city for a period of ten days, and
Mollenhauer, having in mind the suggestion made by Butler in regard to
utilizing Cowperwood's misdeed for the benefit of the party, had already
moved as they had planned. The letters were ready and waiting. Indeed,
since the conference, the smaller politicians, taking their cue from
the overlords, had been industriously spreading the story of the
sixty-thousand-dollar check, and insisting that the burden of guilt
for the treasury defalcation, if any, lay on the banker. The moment
Mollenhauer laid eyes on Cowperwood he realized, however, that he had
a powerful personality to deal with. Cowperwood gave no evidence of
fright. He merely stated, in his bland way, that he had been in the
habit of borrowing money from the city treasury at a low rate of
interest, and that this panic had involved him so that he could not
possibly return it at present.

"I have heard rumors, Mr. Mollenhauer," he said, "to the effect that
some charge is to be brought against me as a partner with Mr. Stener
in this matter; but I am hoping that the city will not do that, and I
thought I might enlist your influence to prevent it. My affairs are not
in a bad way at all, if I had a little time to arrange matters. I am
making all of my creditors an offer of fifty cents on the dollar now,
and giving notes at one, two, and three years; but in this matter of the
city treasury loans, if I could come to terms, I would be glad to make
it a hundred cents--