The Titan by Theodore Dreiser

Author:Theodore Dreiser
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Classic Fiction, Psychological Thriller
Publisher: epubBooks Classics
Published: 2014-06-02T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter XXXIV

Enter Hosmer Hand

It is needless to say that the solemn rage of Hand, to say nothing of the pathetic anger of Haguenin, coupled with the wrath of Redmond Purdy, who related to all his sad story, and of young MacDonald and his associates of the Chicago General Company, constituted an atmosphere highly charged with possibilities and potent for dramatic results. The most serious element in this at present was Hosmer Hand, who, being exceedingly wealthy and a director in a number of the principal mercantile and financial institutions of the city, was in a position to do Cowperwood some real financial harm. Hand had been extremely fond of his young wife. Being a man of but few experiences with women, it astonished and enraged him that a man like Cowperwood should dare to venture on his preserves in this reckless way, should take his dignity so lightly. He burned now with a hot, slow fire of revenge.

Those who know anything concerning the financial world and its great adventures know how precious is that reputation for probity, solidarity, and conservatism on which so many of the successful enterprises of the world are based. If men are not absolutely honest themselves they at least wish for and have faith in the honesty of others. No set of men know more about each other, garner more carefully all the straws of rumor which may affect the financial and social well being of an individual one way or another, keep a tighter mouth concerning their own affairs and a sharper eye on that of their neighbors. Cowperwood's credit had hitherto been good because it was known that he had a "soft thing" in the Chicago street–railway field, that he paid his interest charges promptly, that he had organized the group of men who now, under him, controlled the Chicago Trust Company and the North and West Chicago Street Railways, and that the Lake City Bank, of which Addison was still president, considered his collateral sound. Nevertheless, even previous to this time there had been a protesting element in the shape of Schryhart, Simms, and others of considerable import in the Douglas Trust, who had lost no chance to say to one and all that Cowperwood was an interloper, and that his course was marked by political and social trickery and chicanery, if not by financial dishonesty. As a matter of fact, Schryhart, who had once been a director of the Lake City National along with Hand, Arneel, and others, had resigned and withdrawn all his deposits sometime before because he found, as he declared, that Addison was favoring Cowperwood and the Chicago Trust Company with loans, when there was no need of so doing—when it was not essentially advantageous for the bank so to do. Both Arneel and Hand, having at this time no personal quarrel with Cowperwood on any score, had considered this protest as biased. Addison had maintained that the loans were neither unduly large nor out of proportion to the general loans of the bank.

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