Cowperwood understood.  All these city and State officials speculated.  They had a habit of depositing city and State funds with certain bankers and brokers as authorized agents or designated State depositories.  The banks paid no interest—­save to the officials personally.  They loaned it to certain brokers on the officials’ secret order, and the latter invested it in “sure winners.”  The bankers got the free use of the money a part of the time, the brokers another part:  the officials made money, and the brokers received a fat commission.  There was a political ring in Philadelphia in which the mayor, certain members of the council, the treasurer, the chief of police, the commissioner of public works, and others shared.  It was a case generally of “You scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours.”  Cowperwood thought it rather shabby work at first, but many men were rapidly getting rich and no one seemed to care.  The newspapers were always talking about civic patriotism and pride but never a word about these things.  And the men who did them were powerful and respected.

There were many houses, a constantly widening circle, that found him a very trustworthy agent in disposing of note issues or note payment.  He seemed to know so quickly where to go to get the money.  From the first he made it a principle to keep twenty thousand dollars in cash on hand in order to be able to take up a proposition instantly and without discussion.  So, often he was able to say, “Why, certainly, I can do that,” when otherwise, on the face of things, he would not have been able to do so.  He was asked if he would not handle certain stock transactions on ’change.  He had no seat, and he intended not to take any at first; but now he changed his mind, and bought one, not only in Philadelphia, but in New York also.  A certain Joseph Zimmerman, a dry-goods man for whom he had handled various note issues, suggested that he undertake operating in street-railway shares for him, and this was the beginning of his return to the floor.

In the meanwhile his family life was changing—­growing, one might have said, finer and more secure.  Mrs. Cowperwood had, for instance, been compelled from time to time to make a subtle readjustment of her personal relationship with people, as he had with his.  When Mr. Semple was alive she had been socially connected with tradesmen principally—­retailers and small wholesalers—­a very few.  Some of the women of her own church, the First Presbyterian, were friendly with her.  There had been church teas and sociables which she and Mr. Semple attended, and dull visits to his relatives and hers.  The Cowperwoods, the Watermans, and a few families of that caliber, had been the notable exceptions.  Now all this was changed.  Young Cowperwood did not care very much for her relatives, and the Semples had been alienated by her second, and to them outrageous, marriage.  His own family was closely interested by ties of affection and mutual prosperity, but, better