the truth is," replied Stackpole, somewhat sheepishly and yet
defiantly, "last Thursday I had fifteen thousand shares on which I had
to raise money. Neither you nor any of the others wanted any more.
The banks wouldn't take them. I called up Rambaud on a chance, and he
suggested Cowperwood."

As has been related, Stackpole had really gone to Cowperwood direct,
but a lie under the circumstances seemed rather essential.

"Rambaud!" sneered Schryhart. "Cowperwood's man--he and all the
others. You couldn't have gone to a worse crowd if you had tried. So
that's where this stock is coming from, beyond a doubt. That fellow or
his friends are selling us out. You might have known he'd do it. He
hates us. So you're through, are you?--not another single trick to
turn?"

"Not one," replied Stackpole, solemnly.

"Well, that's too bad. You have acted most unwisely in going to
Cowperwood; but we shall have to see what can be done."

Schryhart's idea, like that of Hand, was to cause Hull & Stackpole to
relinquish all their holdings for nothing to the banks in order that,
under pressure, the latter might carry the stocks he and the others had
hypothecated with them until such a time as the company might be
organized at a profit. At the same time he was intensely resentful
against Cowperwood for having by any fluke of circumstance reaped so
large a profit as he must have done. Plainly, the present crisis had
something to do with him. Schryhart was quick to call up Hand and
Arneel, after Stackpole had gone, suggesting a conference, and
together, an hour later, at Arneel's office, they foregathered along
with Merrill to discuss this new and very interesting development. As
a matter of fact, during the course of the afternoon all of these
gentlemen had been growing more and more uneasy. Not that between them
they were not eminently capable of taking care of their own losses, but
the sympathetic effect of such a failure as this (twenty million
dollars), to say nothing of its reaction upon the honor of themselves
and the city as a financial center, was a most unsatisfactory if not
disastrous thing to contemplate, and now this matter of Cowperwood's
having gained handsomely by it all was added to their misery. Both
Hand and Arneel growled in opposition when they heard, and Merrill
meditated, as he usually did, on the wonder of Cowperwood's subtlety.
He could not help liking him.

There is a sort of municipal pride latent