e or other, unknown to Mr. Stener or to his assistants,
entered the office of the treasurer and forcibly, and with criminal
intent, carried away sixty thousand dollars' worth of the city's money?
Not at all. The charge is, as you have heard the district attorney
explain, that Mr. Cowperwood came in broad daylight at between four and
five o'clock of the afternoon preceeding the day of his assignment; was
closeted with Mr. Stener for a half or three-quarters of an hour; came
out; explained to Mr. Albert Stires that he had recently bought sixty
thousand dollars' worth of city loan for the city sinking-fund, for
which he had not been paid; asked that the amount be credited on the
city's books to him, and that he be given a check, which was his due,
and walked out. Anything very remarkable about that, gentlemen? Anything
very strange? Has it been testified here to-day that Mr. Cowperwood was
not the agent of the city for the transaction of just such business as
he said on that occasion that he had transacted? Did any one say here on
the witness-stand that he had not bought city loan as he said he had?

"Why is it then that Mr. Stener charges Mr. Cowperwood with larcenously
securing and feloniously disposing of a check for sixty thousand dollars
for certificates which he had a right to buy, and which it has not been
contested here that he did buy? The reason lies just here--listen--just
here. At the time my client asked for the check and took it away with
him and deposited it in his own bank to his own account, he failed, so
the prosecution insists, to put the sixty thousand dollars' worth of
certificates for which he had received the check, in the sinking-fund;
and having failed to do that, and being compelled by the pressure of
financial events the same day to suspend payment generally, he thereby,
according to the prosecution and the anxious leaders of the
Republican party in the city, became an embezzler, a thief, a this or
that--anything you please so long as you find a substitute for George W.
Stener and the indifferent leaders of the Republican party in the eyes
of the people."

And here Mr. Steger proceeded boldly and defiantly to outline the entire
political situation as it had manifested itself in connection with the
Chicago fire, the subsequent panic and its political consequences, and
to picture Cowperwood as the unjustly maligned agent, who before the
fire was valuable and honorable enough to suit any of the poli