Theodore Dreiser - The Financier

“Yes; I can do that,” said Mollenhauer, solemnly.

“My judgement would be,” said Butler, in a rather obscure manner, thinking of Cowperwood’s mistake in appealing to these noble protectors of the public, “that it’s best to let sleepin’ dogs run be thimselves.”

Thus ended Frank Cowperwood’s dreams of what Butler and his political associates might do for him in his hour of distress.

The energies of Cowperwood after leaving Butler were devoted to the task of seeing others who might be of some assistance to him. He had left word with Mrs. Stener that if any message came from her husband he was to be notified at once. He hunted up Walter Leigh, of Drexel & Co., Avery Stone of Jay Cooke & Co., and President Davison of the Girard National Bank. He wanted to see what they thought of the situation and to negotiate a loan with President Davison covering all his real and personal property.

“I can’t tell you, Frank,” Walter Leigh insisted, “I don’t know how things will be running by to-morrow noon. I’m glad to know how you stand. I’m glad you’re doing what you’re doing—getting all your affairs in shape. It will help a lot. I’ll favor you all I possibly can. But if the chief decides on a certain group of loans to be called, they’ll have to be called, that’s all. I’ll do my best to make things look better. If the whole of Chicago is wiped out, the insurance companies—some of them, anyhow—are sure to go, and then look out. I suppose you’ll call in all your loans?”

“Not any more than I have to.”

“Well, that’s just the way it is here—or will be.”

The two men shook hands. They liked each other. Leigh was of the city’s fashionable coterie, a society man to the manner born, but with a wealth of common sense and a great deal of worldly experience.

“I’ll tell you, Frank,” he observed at parting, “I’ve always thought you were carrying too much street-railway. It’s great stuff if you can get away with it, but it’s just in a pinch like this that you’re apt to get hurt. You’ve been making money pretty fast out of that and city loans.”

He looked directly into his long-time friend’s eyes, and they smiled.

It was the same with Avery Stone, President Davison, and others. They had all already heard rumors of disaster when he arrived. They were not sure what the morrow would bring forth. It looked very unpromising.

Cowperwood decided to stop and see Butler again for he felt certain his interview with Mollenhauer and Simpson was now over. Butler, who had been meditating what he should say to Cowperwood, was not unfriendly in his manner. “So you’re back,” he said, when Cowperwood appeared.

“Yes, Mr. Butler.”

“Well, I’m not sure that I’ve been able to do anything for you. I’m afraid not,” Butler said, cautiously. “It’s a hard job you set me. Mollenhauer seems to think that he’ll support the market, on his own account. I think he will. Simpson has interests which he has to protect. I’m going to buy for myself, of course.”

He paused to reflect.

“I couldn’t get them to call a conference with any of the big moneyed men as yet,” he added, warily. “They’d rather wait and see what happens in the mornin’. Still, I wouldn’t be down-hearted if I were you. If things turn out very bad they may change their minds. I had to tell them about Stener. It’s pretty bad, but they’re hopin’ you’ll come through and straighten that out. I hope so. About my own loan—well, I’ll see how things are in the mornin’. If I raisonably can I’ll lave it with you. You’d better see me again about it. I wouldn’t try to get any more money out of Stener if I were you. It’s pretty bad as it is.”

Cowperwood saw at once that he was to get no aid from the politicians. The one thing that disturbed him was this reference to Stener. Had they already communicated with him—warned him? If so, his own coming to Butler had been a bad move; and yet from the point of view of his possible failure on the morrow it had been advisable. At least now the politicians knew where he stood. If he got in a very tight corner he would come to Butler again—the politicians could assist him or not, as they chose. If they did not help him and he failed, and the election were lost, it was their own fault. Anyhow, if he could see Stener first the latter would not be such a fool as to stand in his own light in a crisis like this.

“Things look rather dark to-night, Mr. Butler,” he said, smartly, “but I still think I’ll come through. I hope so, anyhow. I’m sorry to have put you to so much trouble. I wish, of course, that you gentlemen could see your way clear to assist me, but if you can’t, you can’t. I have a number of things that I can do. I hope that you will leave your loan as long as you can.”

He went briskly out, and Butler meditated. “A clever young chap that,” he said. “It’s too bad. But he may come out all right at that.”

Cowperwood hurried to his own home only to find his father awake and brooding. To him he talked with that strong vein of sympathy and understanding which is usually characteristic of those drawn by ties of flesh and blood. He liked his father. He sympathized with his painstaking effort to get up in the world. He could not forget that as a boy he had had the loving sympathy and interest of his father. The loan which he had from the Third National, on somewhat weak Union Street Railway shares he could probably replace if stocks did not drop too tremendously. He must replace this at all costs. But his father’s investments in street-railways, which had risen with his own ventures, and which now involved an additional two hundred thousand—how could he protect those? The shares were hypothecated and the money was used for other things. Additional collateral would have to be furnished the several banks carrying them. It was nothing except loans, loans, loans, and the need of protecting them. If he could only get an additional deposit of two or three hundred thousand dollars from Stener. But that, in the face of possible financial difficulties, was rank criminality. All depended on the morrow.

Monday, the ninth, dawned gray and cheerless. He was up with the first ray of light, shaved and dressed, and went over, under the gray-green pergola, to his father’s house. He was up, also, and stirring about, for he had not been able to sleep. His gray eyebrows and gray hair looked rather shaggy and disheveled, and his side-whiskers anything but decorative. The old gentleman’s eyes were tired, and his face was gray. Cowperwood could see that he was worrying. He looked up from a small, ornate escritoire of buhl, which Ellsworth had found somewhere, and where he was quietly tabulating a list of his resources and liabilities. Cowperwood winced. He hated to see his father worried, but he could not help it. He had hoped sincerely, when they built their houses together, that the days of worry for his father had gone forever.

“Counting up?” he asked, familiarly, with a smile. He wanted to hearten the old gentleman as much as possible.

“I was just running over my affairs again to see where I stood in case—” He looked quizzically at his son, and Frank smiled again.

“I wouldn’t worry, father. I told you how I fixed it so that Butler and that crowd will support the market. I have Rivers and Targool and Harry Eltinge on ’change helping me sell out, and they are the best men there. They’ll handle the situation carefully. I couldn’t trust Ed or Joe in this case, for the moment they began to sell everybody would know what was going on with me. This way my men will seem like bears hammering the market, but not hammering too hard. I ought to be able to unload enough at ten points off to raise five hundred thousand. The market may not go lower than that. You can’t tell. It isn’t going to sink indefinitely. If I just knew what the big insurance companies were going to do! The morning paper hasn’t come yet, has it?”