United States or Samoa ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !


Cowperwood for anything so far as I know," continued Mr. Arneel, after a slight but somewhat portentous pause. "As Mr. Schryhart has suggested here to-day, he seems to have a tendency to interfere and disturb on every occasion. Apparently he stands obligated to the various banks in the sums we have mentioned. Why shouldn't his loans be called?

American Match might have pulled through and the city been have spared the danger which now confronts it if Mr. Hull and Mr. Stackpole had not made the mistake of going to this man." Mr. Arneel paused, and Mr. Norrie Simms, more excitable than most by temperament, chose to exclaim, bitterly: "The wrecker!" A stir of interest passed over the others accompanied by murmurs of disapproval.

Arneel, seriously, "I want to say here that Mr. Stackpole, Mr. Merrill, Mr. Hand, and myself have been to a certain extent investors in this stock, and up to this afternoon we felt it to be our duty, not so much to ourselves as to the various banks which have accepted this stock as collateral and to the city at large, to sustain it as much as possible. We believed in Mr. Hull and Mr. Stackpole.

"It looks to me," said Schryhart, one day, to his friend Arneel, "as if our friend has gotten in a little too deep. He has overreached himself. These elevated-road schemes of his have eaten up too much capital. There is another election coming on next fall, and he knows we are going to fight tooth and nail. He needs money to electrify his surface lines.

The rise of Cowperwood, his Napoleonic airs, threatened this. As Mr. Arneel talked he never raised his eyes from the desk where he was sitting. He merely drummed solemnly on the surface with his fingers. The others contemplated him a little tensely, catching quite clearly the drift of his proposal. "An excellent idea excellent!" exclaimed Schryhart.

"Just the same," replied Simmons, very secretively, "I understand there's a concerted effort on to drive him out. Schryhart, Hand, Merrill, Arneel they're the most powerful men we have. I understand Hand says that he'll never get his franchises renewed except on terms that'll make his lines unprofitable. There's going to be an awful smash here one of these days if that's true." Mr.

Hosmer Hand had declared to Arneel and Schryhart, at the close of the Arneel house conference and as they stood in consultation after the others had departed. "We seem to be beaten to-night, but I, for one, am not through yet. He has won to-night, but he won't win always. This is a fight to a finish between me and him. The rest of you can stay in or drop out, just as you wish."

If American Match fell below two hundred he would have to close his doors as banker and broker and, in view of what he was carrying, he and Hull would fail for approximately twenty million dollars. Messrs. Hand, Schryhart, Arneel, and Merrill would lose in the neighborhood of six or eight millions between them.

Hand, Schryhart, and Arneel with this disconcerting information. They had been congratulating themselves that the recent victory, if it resulted in nothing else, would at least produce a blanket 'L' road franchise, and that this would be sufficient to bring Cowperwood to his knees. Upon receiving MacDonald's message Hand sent at once for Gilgan.

"Well, gentlemen?" he inquired, after a moment or two of ominous silence, observing Hand's averted face and Schryhart's eyes, which were lifted ceilingward. "Mr. Cowperwood," began Mr. Arneel, quietly, in no way disturbed by Cowperwood's jaunty air, "as I told you over the 'phone, this meeting is called to avert, if possible, what is likely to be a very serious panic in the morning.