“Well, I declare!” replied the old man.  “You’d think he’d have better sense than that.  That’s a perfectly legitimate transaction.  When did you say he notified you not to buy city loan?”

“Yesterday noon.”

“He’s out of his mind,” Cowperwood, Sr., commented, laconically.

“It’s Mollenhauer and Simpson and Butler, I know.  They want my street-railway lines.  Well, they won’t get them.  They’ll get them through a receivership, and after the panic’s all over.  Our creditors will have first chance at these.  If they buy, they’ll buy from them.  If it weren’t for that five-hundred-thousand-dollar loan I wouldn’t think a thing of this.  My creditors would sustain me nicely.  But the moment that gets noised around!...  And this election!  I hypothecated those city loan certificates because I didn’t want to get on the wrong side of Davison.  I expected to take in enough by now to take them up.  They ought to be in the sinking-fund, really.”

The old gentleman saw the point at once, and winced.

“They might cause you trouble, there, Frank.”

“It’s a technical question,” replied his son.  “I might have been intending to take them up.  As a matter of fact, I will if I can before three.  I’ve been taking eight and ten days to deposit them in the past.  In a storm like this I’m entitled to move my pawns as best I can.”

Cowperwood, the father, put his hand over his mouth again.  He felt very disturbed about this.  He saw no way out, however.  He was at the end of his own resources.  He felt the side-whiskers on his left cheek.  He looked out of the window into the little green court.  Possibly it was a technical question, who should say.  The financial relations of the city treasury with other brokers before Frank had been very lax.  Every banker knew that.  Perhaps precedent would or should govern in this case.  He could not say.  Still, it was dangerous—­not straight.  If Frank could get them out and deposit them it would be so much better.

“I’d take them up if I were you and I could,” he added.

“I will if I can.”

“How much money have you?”

“Oh, twenty thousand, all told.  If I suspend, though, I’ll have to have a little ready cash.”

“I have eight or ten thousand, or will have by night, I hope.”

He was thinking of some one who would give him a second mortgage on his house.

Cowperwood looked quietly at him.  There was nothing more to be said to his father.  “I’m going to make one more appeal to Stener after you leave here,” he said.  “I’m going over there with Harper Steger when he comes.  If he won’t change I’ll send out notice to my creditors, and notify the secretary of the exchange.  I want you to keep a stiff upper lip, whatever happens.  I know you will, though.  I’m going into the thing head down.  If Stener had any sense—­” He paused.  “But what’s the use talking about a damn fool?”