“And would I have to go to jail at any time during the proceedings—­before a final adjustment of the case by the higher courts?” Cowperwood added, directly, grimly, after a time.

“Yes, there is one point in all legal procedure of the kind,” replied Steger, cautiously, now rubbing his ear and trying to put the matter as delicately as possible.  “You can avoid jail sentences all through the earlier parts of a case like this; but if you are once tried and convicted it’s pretty hard to do anything—­as a matter of fact, it becomes absolutely necessary then to go to jail for a few days, five or so, pending the motion for a new trial and the obtaining of a certificate of reasonable doubt.  It usually takes that long.”

The young banker sat there staring out of the window, and Steger observed, “It is a bit complicated, isn’t it?”

“Well, I should say so,” returned Frank, and he added to himself:  “Jail!  Five days in prison!” That would be a terrific slap, all things considered.  Five days in jail pending the obtaining of a certificate of reasonable doubt, if one could be obtained!  He must avoid this!  Jail!  The penitentiary!  His commercial reputation would never survive that.

Chapter XXXII

The necessity of a final conference between Butler, Mollenhauer, and Simpson was speedily reached, for this situation was hourly growing more serious.  Rumors were floating about in Third Street that in addition to having failed for so large an amount as to have further unsettled the already panicky financial situation induced by the Chicago fire, Cowperwood and Stener, or Stener working with Cowperwood, or the other way round, had involved the city treasury to the extent of five hundred thousand dollars.  And the question was how was the matter to be kept quiet until after election, which was still three weeks away.  Bankers and brokers were communicating odd rumors to each other about a check that had been taken from the city treasury after Cowperwood knew he was to fail, and without Stener’s consent.  Also that there was danger that it would come to the ears of that very uncomfortable political organization known as the Citizens’ Municipal Reform Association, of which a well-known iron-manufacturer of great probity and moral rectitude, one Skelton C. Wheat, was president.  Wheat had for years been following on the trail of the dominant Republican administration in a vain attempt to bring it to a sense of some of its political iniquities.  He was a serious and austere man—–­one of those solemn, self-righteous souls who see life through a peculiar veil of duty, and who, undisturbed by notable animal passions of any kind, go their way of upholding the theory of the Ten Commandments over the order of things as they are.