The Financier | Page 9

"I like bookkeeping and arithmetic," he observed. "I want to get out and get to work,
though. That's what I want to do."
"You're pretty young, my son," observed his uncle. "You're only how old now?
Fourteen?"
"Thirteen."
"Well, you can't leave school much before sixteen. You'll do better if you stay until
seventeen or eighteen. It can't do you any harm. You won't be a boy again."
"I don't want to be a boy. I want to get to work."
"Don't go too fast, son. You'll be a man soon enough. You want to be a banker, do you?"
"Yes, sir!"
"Well, when the time comes, if everything is all right and you've behaved yourself and
you still want to, I'll help you get a start in business. If I were you and were going to be a
banker, I'd first spend a year or so in some good grain and commission house. There's
good training to be had there. You'll learn a lot that you ought to know. And, meantime,
keep your health and learn all you can. Wherever I am, you let me know, and I'll write
and find out how you've been conducting yourself."
He gave the boy a ten-dollar gold piece with which to start a bank-account. And, not
strange to say, he liked the whole Cowperwood household much better for this dynamic,
self-sufficient, sterling youth who was an integral part of it.
Chapter III

It was in his thirteenth year that young Cowperwood entered into his first business
venture. Walking along Front Street one day, a street of importing and wholesale
establishments, he saw an auctioneer's flag hanging out before a wholesale grocery and

from the interior came the auctioneer's voice: "What am I bid for this exceptional lot of
Java coffee, twenty-two bags all told, which is now selling in the market for seven dollars
and thirty-two cents a bag wholesale? What am I bid? What am I bid? The whole lot must
go as one. What am I bid?"
"Eighteen dollars," suggested a trader standing near the door, more to start the bidding
than anything else. Frank paused.
"Twenty-two!" called another.
"Thirty!" a third. "Thirty-five!" a fourth, and so up to seventy-five, less than half of what
it was worth.
"I'm bid seventy-five! I'm bid seventy-five!" called the auctioneer, loudly. "Any other
offers? Going once at seventy-five; am I offered eighty? Going twice at seventy-five,
and"--he paused, one hand raised dramatically. Then he brought it down with a slap in the
palm of the other--"sold to Mr. Silas Gregory for seventy-five. Make a note of that,
Jerry," he called to his red-haired, freckle-faced clerk beside him. Then he turned to
another lot of grocery staples--this time starch, eleven barrels of it.
Young Cowperwood was making a rapid calculation. If, as the auctioneer said, coffee
was worth seven dollars and thirty-two cents a bag in the open market, and this buyer was
getting this coffee for seventy-five dollars, he was making then and there eighty-six
dollars and four cents, to say nothing of what his profit would be if he sold it at retail. As
he recalled, his mother was paying twenty-eight cents a pound. He drew nearer, his books
tucked under his arm, and watched these operations closely. The starch, as he soon heard,
was valued at ten dollars a barrel, and it only brought six. Some kegs of vinegar were
knocked down at one-third their value, and so on. He began to wish he could bid; but he
had no money, just a little pocket change. The auctioneer noticed him standing almost
directly under his nose, and was impressed with the stolidity--solidity--of the boy's
expression.
"I am going to offer you now a fine lot of Castile soap--seven cases, no less--which, as
you know, if you know anything about soap, is now selling at fourteen cents a bar. This
soap is worth anywhere at this moment eleven dollars and seventy-five cents a case.
What am I bid? What am I bid? What am I bid?" He was talking fast in the usual style of
auctioneers, with much unnecessary emphasis; but Cowperwood was not unduly
impressed. He was already rapidly calculating for himself. Seven cases at eleven dollars
and seventy-five cents would be worth just eighty-two dollars and twenty-five cents; and
if it went at half--if it went at half--
"Twelve dollars," commented one bidder.
"Fifteen," bid another.
"Twenty," called a third.
"Twenty-five," a fourth.

Then it came to dollar raises, for Castile soap was not such a vital commodity.
"Twenty-six." "Twenty-seven." "Twenty-eight." "Twenty-nine." There was a pause.
"Thirty," observed young Cowperwood, decisively.
The auctioneer, a short lean faced, spare man with bushy hair and an incisive eye, looked
at him curiously and almost incredulously but without pausing. He had, somehow, in
spite