“Well,” asked Stener, ambitiously, taking the bait, “why don’t we get hold of that—­you and me?  I suppose I could fix it so far as the money is concerned.  How much would it take?”

Cowperwood smiled inwardly again.

“I don’t know exactly,” he said, after a time.  “I want to look into it more carefully.  The one trouble is that I’m carrying a good deal of the city’s money as it is.  You see, I have that two hundred thousand dollars against your city-loan deals.  And this new scheme will take two or three hundred thousand more.  If that were out of the way—­”

He was thinking of one of the inexplicable stock panics—­those strange American depressions which had so much to do with the temperament of the people, and so little to do with the basic conditions of the country.  “If this North Pennsylvania deal were through and done with—­”

He rubbed his chin and pulled at his handsome silky mustache.

“Don’t ask me any more about it, George,” he said, finally, as he saw that the latter was beginning to think as to which line it might be.  “Don’t say anything at all about it.  I want to get my facts exactly right, and then I’ll talk to you.  I think you and I can do this thing a little later, when we get the North Pennsylvania scheme under way.  I’m so rushed just now I’m not sure that I want to undertake it at once; but you keep quiet and we’ll see.”  He turned toward his desk, and Stener got up.

“I’ll make any sized deposit with you that you wish, the moment you think you’re ready to act, Frank,” exclaimed Stener, and with the thought that Cowperwood was not nearly as anxious to do this as he should be, since he could always rely on him (Stener) when there was anything really profitable in the offing.  Why should not the able and wonderful Cowperwood be allowed to make the two of them rich?  “Just notify Stires, and he’ll send you a check.  Strobik thought we ought to act pretty soon.”

“I’ll tend to it, George,” replied Cowperwood, confidently.  “It will come out all right.  Leave it to me.”

Stener kicked his stout legs to straighten his trousers, and extended his hand.  He strolled out in the street thinking of this new scheme.  Certainly, if he could get in with Cowperwood right he would be a rich man, for Cowperwood was so successful and so cautious.  His new house, this beautiful banking office, his growing fame, and his subtle connections with Butler and others put Stener in considerable awe of him.  Another line!  They would control it and the North Pennsylvania!  Why, if this went on, he might become a magnate—­he really might—­he, George W. Stener, once a cheap real-estate and insurance agent.  He strolled up the street thinking, but with no more idea of the importance of his civic duties and the nature of the social ethics against which he was offending than if they had never existed.

Chapter XXII