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difficulty did not trouble him.

      “All right,” he said, and pocketed his paper testimony of purchase.

      The auctioneer watched him as he went out. In half an hour he was back with a drayman – an idle levee-wharf hanger-on who was waiting for a job.

      Frank had bargained with him to deliver the soap for sixty cents. In still another half-hour he was before the door of the astonished Mr. Dalrymple whom he had come out and look at the boxes before attempting to remove them. His plan was to have them carried on to his own home if the operation for any reason failed to go through. Though it was his first great venture, he was cool as glass.

      “Yes,” said Mr. Dalrymple, scratching his gray head reflectively. “Yes, that’s the same soap. I’ll take it. I’ll be as good as my word. Where’d you get it, Frank?”

      “At Bixom’s auction up here,” he replied, frankly and blandly.

      Mr. Dalrymple had the drayman bring in the soap; and after some formality – because the agent in this case was a boy – made out his note at thirty days and gave it to him.

      Frank thanked him and pocketed the note. He decided to go back to his father’s bank and discount it, as he had seen others doing, thereby paying his father back and getting his own profit in ready money. It couldn’t be done ordinarily on any day after business hours; but his father would make an exception in his case.

      He hurried back, whistling; and his father glanced up smiling when he came in.

      “Well, Frank, how’d you make out?” he asked.

      “Here’s a note at thirty days,” he said, producing the paper Dalrymple had given him. “Do you want to discount that for me? You can take your thirty-two out of that.”

      His father examined it closely. “Sixty-two dollars!” he observed. “Mr. Dalrymple! That’s good paper! Yes, I can. It will cost you ten per cent.,” he added, jestingly. “Why don’t you just hold it, though? I’ll let you have the thirty-two dollars until the end of the month.”

      “Oh, no,” said his son, “you discount it and take your money. I may want mine.”

      His father smiled at his businesslike air. “All right,” he said. “I’ll fix it to-morrow. Tell me just how you did this.” And his son told him.

      At seven o’clock that evening Frank’s mother heard about it, and in due time Uncle Seneca.

      “What’d I tell you, Cowperwood?” he asked. “He has stuff in him, that youngster[15]. Look out for him.”

      Mrs. Cowperwood looked at her boy curiously at dinner. Was this the son she had nursed at her bosom not so very long before? Surely he was developing rapidly.

      “Well, Frank, I hope you can do that often,” she said.

      “I hope so, too, ma,” was his rather noncommittal reply.

      Auction sales were not to be discovered every day, however, and his home grocer was only open to one such transaction in a reasonable period of time, but from the very first young Cowperwood knew how to make money. He took subscriptions for a boys’ paper; handled the agency for the sale of a new kind of ice-skate, and once organized a band of neighborhood youths into a union for the purpose of purchasing their summer straw hats at wholesale. It was not his idea that he could get rich by saving. From the first he had the notion that liberal spending was better, and that somehow he would get along.

      It was in this year, or a little earlier, that he began to take an interest in girls. He had from the first a keen eye for the beautiful among them; and, being good-looking and magnetic himself, it was not difficult for him to attract the sympathetic interest of those in whom he was interested. <…>

      It was at seventeen that he decided to leave school. He had not graduated. He had only finished the third year in high school; but he had had enough. Ever since his thirteenth year his mind had been on finance; that is, in the form in which he saw it manifested in Third Street. There had been odd things which he had been able to do to earn a little money now and then. His Uncle Seneca had allowed him to act as assistant weigher at the sugar-docks in Southwark, where three-hundred-pound bags were weighed into the government bonded warehouses under the eyes of United States inspectors. In certain emergencies he was called to assist his father, and was paid forit. He even made an arrangement with Mr. Dalrymple to assist him on Saturdays; but when his father became cashier of his bank, receiving an income of four thousand dollars ayear, shortly after Frank had reached his fifteenth year, it was self-evident that Frank could no longer continue in such lowly employment.

      Just at this time his Uncle Seneca, again back in Philadelphia and stouter and more domineering than ever, said to him one day:

      “Now, Frank, if you’re ready for it, I think I know where there’s a good opening[16] for you. There won’t be any salary in it for the first year, but if you mind your p’s and q’s[17], they’ll probably give you something as a gift at the end of that time. Do you know of Henry Waterman & Company down in Second Street?”

      “I’ve seen their place.”

      “Well, they tell me they might make a place for you as a bookkeeper. They’re brokers in a way – grain and commission men. You say you want to get in that line. When school’s out, you go down and see Mr. Waterman – tell him I sent you, and he’ll make a place for you, I think. Let me know how you come out.”

      Uncle Seneca was married now, having, because of his wealth, attracted the attention of a poor but ambitious Philadelphia society matron; and because of this the general connections of the Cowperwoods were considered vastly improved. Henry Cowperwood was planning to move with his family rather far out on North Front Street, which commanded at that time a beautiful view of the river and was witnessing the construction of some charming dwellings. His four thousand dollars a year in these pre-Civil-War[18] times was considerable. He was making what he considered judicious and conservative investments and because of his cautious, conservative, clock-like conduct it was thought he might reasonably expect some day to be vice-president and possibly president, of his bank.

      This offer of Uncle Seneca to get him in with Waterman & Company seemed to Frank just the thing to start him off right. So he reported to that organization at 74 South Second Street one day in June, and was cordially received by Mr. Henry Waterman, Sr. There was, he soon learned, a Henry Waterman, Jr., a young man of twenty-five, and a George Waterman, a brother, aged fifty, who was the confidential inside man. Henry Waterman, Sr., a man of fifty-five years of age, was the general head of the organization, inside and out – traveling about the nearby territory to see customers when that was necessary, coming into final counsel in cases where his brother could not adjust matters, suggesting and advising new ventures which his associates and hirelings carried out. He was, to look at, a phlegmatic type of man – short, stout, wrinkled about the eyes, rather protuberant as to stomach, red-necked, red-faced, the least bit popeyed, but shrewd, kindly, good-natured, and witty. He had, because of his naturally common-sense ideas and rather pleasing disposition built up a sound and successful business here. He was getting strong in years and would gladly have welcomed the hearty cooperation of his son, if the latter had been entirely suited to the business.

      He was not, however. Not as democratic, as quick-witted, or as pleased with the work in hand as was his father, the business actually offended him. And if the trade had been left to his care, it would have rapidly disappeared. His father foresaw this, was grieved, and was hoping some young man would eventually appear who would be interested in the business, handle it in the same spirit in which it had been handled, and who would not crowd his son out.

      Then came young Cowperwood, spoken of to him by Seneca Davis. He looked him over critically. Yes, this boy might do, he thought. There was something easy and sufficient about him. He did not appear to be in the least flustered or disturbed. He knew how to keep books, he said, though he knew nothing of the details of the grain and commission business. It was interesting to him. He would

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