ept his various stocks as collateral, providing he would accept
loans subject to call. He did so gladly, at the same time suspecting
Hand, Schryhart, Arneel, and Merrill of some scheme to wreck him,
providing they could get him where the calling of his loans suddenly
and in concert would financially embarrass him. "I think I know what
that crew are up to," he once observed to Addison, at this period.
"Well, they will have to rise very early in the morning if they catch
me napping."

The thing that he suspected was really true. Schryhart, Hand, and
Arneel, watching him through their agents and brokers, had soon
discovered--in the very earliest phases of the silver agitation and
before the real storm broke--that he was borrowing in New York, in
London, in certain quarters of Chicago, and elsewhere. "It looks to
me," said Schryhart, one day, to his friend Arneel, "as if our friend
has gotten in a little too deep. He has overreached himself. These
elevated-road schemes of his have eaten up too much capital. There is
another election coming on next fall, and he knows we are going to
fight tooth and nail. He needs money to electrify his surface lines.
If we could trace out exactly where he stands, and where he has
borrowed, we might know what to do."

"Unless I am greatly mistaken," replied Arneel, "he is in a tight place
or is rapidly getting there. This silver agitation is beginning to
weaken stocks and tighten money. I suggest that our banks here loan
him all the money he wants on call. When the time comes, if he isn't
ready, we can shut him up tighter than a drum. If we can pick up any
other loans he's made anywhere else, well and good."

Mr. Arneel said this without a shadow of bitterness or humor. In some
tight hour, perhaps, now fast approaching, Mr. Cowperwood would be
promised salvation--"saved" on condition that he should leave Chicago
forever. There were those who would take over his property in the
interest of the city and upright government and administer it
accordingly.

Unfortunately, at this very time Messrs. Hand, Schryhart, and Arneel
were themselves concerned in a little venture to which the threatened
silver agitation could bode nothing but ill. This concerned so simple
a thing as matches, a commodity which at this time, along with many
others, had been trustified and was yielding a fine profit. "American
Match" was a stock which was already listed on every exchange and which
was selling