GEORGE W. STENER, ESQ., October 21, 1871.
City Treasurer.
DEAR SIR—Under the existing circumstances you will consider this as a notice of withdrawal and revocation of any requisition or authority by me for the sale of loan, so far as the same has not been fulfilled.
Applications for loans may for the present be made at this office.
Very respectfully, JACOB BORCHARDT, Mayor of Philadelphia.
And did Mr. Jacob Borchardt write the letters to which his name was attached?
He did not.
Mr. Abner Sengstack wrote them in Mr. Mollenhauer's office, and Mr. Mollenhauer's comment when he saw them was that he thought they would do—that they were very good, in fact.
And did Mr. George W. Stener, city treasurer of Philadelphia, write that very politic reply?
He did not.
Mr. Stener was in a state of complete collapse, even crying at one time at home in his bathtub.
Mr. Abner Sengstack wrote that also, and had Mr. Stener sign it.
And Mr. Mollenhauer's comment on that, before it was sent, was that he thought it was "all right."
It was a time when all the little rats and mice were scurrying to cover because of the presence of a great, fiery-eyed public cat somewhere in the dark, and only the older and wiser rats were able to act.
Indeed, at this very time and for some days past now, Messrs. Mollenhauer, Butler, and Simpson were, and had been, considering with Mr. Pettie, the district attorney, just what could be done about Cowperwood, if anything, and in order to further emphasize the blame in that direction, and just what defense, if any, could be made for Stener.
Butler, of course, was strong for Cowperwood's prosecution.
Pettie did not see that any defense could be made for Stener, since various records of street-car stocks purchased for him were spread upon Cowperwood's books; but for Cowperwood—"Let me see," he said.
They were speculating, first of all, as to whether it might not be good policy to arrest Cowperwood, and if necessary try him, since his mere arrest would seem to the general public, at least, positive proof of his greater guilt, to say nothing of the virtuous indignation of the administration, and in consequence might tend to divert attention from the evil nature of the party until after election.
So finally, on the afternoon of October 26, 1871, Edward Strobik, president of the common council of Philadelphia, appeared before the mayor, as finally ordered by Mollenhauer, and charged by affidavit that Frank A. Cowperwood, as broker, employed by the treasurer to sell the bonds of the city, had committed embezzlement and larceny as bailee.
It did not matter that he charged George W. Stener with embezzlement at the same time.
Cowperwood was the scapegoat they were after.
Chapter XXXIV
The contrasting pictures presented by Cowperwood and Stener at this time are well worth a moment's consideration.
Stener's face was grayish-white, his lips blue.
Cowperwood, despite various solemn thoughts concerning a possible period of incarceration which this hue and cry now suggested, and what that meant to his parents, his wife and children, his business associates, and his friends, was as calm and collected as one might assume his great mental resources would permit him to be.
During all this whirl of disaster he had never once lost his head or his courage.
That thing conscience, which obsesses and rides some people to destruction, did not trouble him at all.
He had no consciousness of what is currently known as sin.
There were just two faces to the shield of life from the point of view of his peculiar mind-strength and weakness.
Right and wrong?
He did not know about those.
They were bound up in metaphysical abstrusities about which he did not care to bother.
Good and evil?
Those were toys of clerics, by which they made money.
And as for social favor or social ostracism which, on occasion, so quickly followed upon the heels of disaster of any kind, well, what was social ostracism?
Had either he or his parents been of the best society as yet?
And since not, and despite this present mix-up, might not the future hold social restoration and position for him? It might.
Morality and immorality?
He never considered them.
But strength and weakness—oh, yes!
If you had strength you could protect yourself always and be something.
If you were weak—pass quickly to the rear and get out of the range of the guns.
He was strong, and he knew it, and somehow he always believed in his star.
Something—he could not say what—it was the only metaphysics he bothered about—was doing something for him. It had always helped him. It made things come out right at times.
It put excellent opportunities in his way.
Why had he been given so fine a mind?
Why always favored financially, personally?
He had not deserved it—earned it.
Accident, perhaps, but somehow the thought that he would always be protected—these intuitions, the "hunches" to act which he frequently had—could not be so easily explained.
Life was a dark, insoluble mystery, but whatever it was, strength and weakness were its two constituents.