credited on the city’s books to him, and that he be given a check, which was his due, and walked out.  Anything very remarkable about that, gentlemen?  Anything very strange?  Has it been testified here to-day that Mr. Cowperwood was not the agent of the city for the transaction of just such business as he said on that occasion that he had transacted?  Did any one say here on the witness-stand that he had not bought city loan as he said he had?

“Why is it then that Mr. Stener charges Mr. Cowperwood with larcenously securing and feloniously disposing of a check for sixty thousand dollars for certificates which he had a right to buy, and which it has not been contested here that he did buy?  The reason lies just here—­listen—­just here.  At the time my client asked for the check and took it away with him and deposited it in his own bank to his own account, he failed, so the prosecution insists, to put the sixty thousand dollars’ worth of certificates for which he had received the check, in the sinking-fund; and having failed to do that, and being compelled by the pressure of financial events the same day to suspend payment generally, he thereby, according to the prosecution and the anxious leaders of the Republican party in the city, became an embezzler, a thief, a this or that—­anything you please so long as you find a substitute for George W. Stener and the indifferent leaders of the Republican party in the eyes of the people.”

And here Mr. Steger proceeded boldly and defiantly to outline the entire political situation as it had manifested itself in connection with the Chicago fire, the subsequent panic and its political consequences, and to picture Cowperwood as the unjustly maligned agent, who before the fire was valuable and honorable enough to suit any of the political leaders of Philadelphia, but afterward, and when political defeat threatened, was picked upon as the most available scapegoat anywhere within reach.

And it took him a half hour to do that.  And afterward but only after he had pointed to Stener as the true henchman and stalking horse, who had, in turn, been used by political forces above him to accomplish certain financial results, which they were not willing to have ascribed to themselves, he continued with: 

“But now, in the light of all this, only see how ridiculous all this is!  How silly!  Frank A. Cowperwood had always been the agent of the city in these matters for years and years.  He worked under certain rules which he and Mr. Stener had agreed upon in the first place, and which obviously came from others, who were above Mr. Stener, since they were hold-over customs and rules from administrations, which had been long before Mr. Stener ever appeared on the scene as city treasurer.  One of them was that he could carry all transactions over until the first of the month following before he struck a balance.  That is, he need not pay any money over for anything to the city treasurer, need not send him any checks