"Yes."

"That's Murtagh, the city treasurer. Say, he don't do anything but play
a fine game. All that money to invest, and he don't have to account for
anything except the principal. The interest goes to him."

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