Read the book: «Финансист / The Financier»

© Матвеев С. А., адаптация текста, комментарии и словарь

© ООО «Издательство АСТ», 2022

Chapter I

A city of Philadelphia, whereFrank Algernon Cowperwood¹ was born, was a city of two hundred and fifty thousand and more. It was set with handsome parks, notable buildings, but many of the things that we and he knew later were not then in existence – the telegraph, telephone, express company², ocean steamer mails.

Cowperwood's father was a bank clerk at the time of Frank's birth, but ten years later, Mr.Henry Worthington Cowperwood³ became a promoted teller⁴. At once he told his wife to remove his family to a much better neighborhood, where there was a nice brick house of three stories. There was the probability that some day they would come into something even better, but for the present this was sufficient.

Henry Worthington Cowperwood was a man who believed only what he saw. He was at this time a significant figure – tall, lean, inquisitorial, clerkly – with nice, smooth whiskers coming to almost the lower lobes of his ears. He had a long, straight nose and a chin that tended to be pointed. His eyebrows were bushy, and his hair was short and smooth and nicely parted. He always worea frock-coat and a high hat⁵. And he kept his hands and nails immaculately clean.

Being ambitious to get ahead socially and financially, he was very careful of whom or with whom he talked. He was much afraid of expressing a rabid or unpopular political or social opinion, though he had really no opinion to express.

Mrs. Cowperwood was a small religious woman, with light-brown hair and clear, brown eyes, who had been very attractive in her day, but had become rather prim and inclined to take very seriously the maternal care of her three sons and one daughter.

Frank Cowperwood, even at ten, was a natural-born leader. He was a sturdy youth, courageous and defiant. From the very start of his life, he wanted to know about economics and politics. He cared nothing for books. He was a clean, stalky boy, with a bright, incisive face; large, clear, gray eyes; a wide forehead; short, bristly, dark-brown hair. He had an incisive, quick-motioned manner. He never had an ache or pain, and ruled his brothers with a rod of iron. “Come on, Joe!” “Hurry, Ed!” These commands were issued in no rough but always a sure way, and Joe and Ed came.

He was always pondering. How did all these people get into the world? What were they doing here? Who started things? His mother told him the story of Adam and Eve, but he didn't believe it. There was a fish-market not so very far from his home, and there he liked to look at odd specimens of sea-life. One day he saw a squid and a lobster put in the tank, and in connection with them was witness to a tragedy which stayed with him all his life. The lobster was offered no food, as the squid was considered his rightful prey. The lobster leaped and grabbed the squid. The squid was too tired. It wasn't quick enough.

“That's the way it has to be,” Frank commented to himself. “That squid wasn't quick enough.”

The incident made a great impression on him. It answered in a rough way that riddle which had been annoying him so much in the past: “How is life organized?” Things lived on each other – that was it. Lobsters lived on squids and other things. What lived on lobsters? Men, of course!

And what lived on men? he asked himself. Was it other men? Wild animals lived on men. And there were Indians and cannibals. And some men were killed by storms and accidents.

He wasn't so sure about men living on men; but men did kill each other. How about wars and street fights?

He went on home quite pleased.

“Mother!” he exclaimed, as he entered the house, “He finally got him!”

“Got who? What got what?” she inquired in amazement. “Go wash your hands.”

“Why, that lobster got that squid!”

“Well, that's too bad. What makes you take any interest in such things? Run, wash your hands.”

But for days and weeks Frank thought of this event and of the life, for he was already pondering on what he should be in this world, and how he should get along. From seeing his father count money, he was sure that he would like banking; and Third Street, where his father's office was, seemed to him the cleanest, most fascinating street in the world.

Chapter II

The growth of young Frank Algernon Cowperwood was comfortable and happy. Buttonwood Street, where he spent the first ten years of his life, was a lovely place for a boy. It contained mostly small two and three-story red brick houses, there were trees in the street – plenty of them. The Cowperwoods, father and mother, were happy and joyous with their children. Henry Worthington Cowperwood's connections were increased as his position grew more responsible, and gradually he was becomingquite a personage⁶. He knew a number of the more prosperous merchants who dealt with his bank, the brokers knew him as representing a very sound organization, and while he was not considered brilliant mentally, he was known as a most reliable and trustworthy individual.

Young Cowperwood was quite often allowed to come to the bank on Saturdays, when he would watch with great interest the deft exchange of bills. He wanted to know where all the types of money came from, why discounts were demanded and received, what the men did with all the money they received. His father, pleased at his interest, was glad to explain so that even at this early age – from ten to fifteen – the boy gained a wide knowledge of the condition of the country financially – what a State bank was and what a national one; what brokers did, and what stocks were. He began to see clearly what was meant by money as a medium of exchange. He was a financier by instinct. This medium of exchange, gold, interested him intensely. When his father explained to him how it was mined, he dreamed that he owned a gold mine. He was likewise curious about stocks and bonds.

At home he listened to considerable talk of financial investment and adventure. He heard, for one thing, of a curious character by the name ofSteemberger⁷, a great beef speculator from Virginia, who was attracted to Philadelphia in those days by the hope of large and easy credits. Steemberger, so his father said, was close to Nicholas Biddle⁸, Lardner⁹, and others of the United States Bank, or at least friendly with them, and seemed to be able to obtain from that organization nearly all that he asked for. He was a big man, enormous, with a face, his father said, something like that of a pig; and he wore a high beaver hat and a long frock-coat which hung loosely about his big chest and stomach. He had managed to force the price of beef up to thirty cents a pound, causing all the retailers and consumers to rebel, and this was what made him so conspicuous.

There was another man his father talked about –Francis J. Grund¹⁰, a famous newspaper correspondent from Washington, who possessed the faculty of unearthing secrets of every kind, especially those relating to financial legislation. The secrets of the President and the Cabinet, as well as of the Senate and the House of Representatives, seemed to be open to him. Grund had been purchasing through one or two brokers large amounts of the various kinds of Texas debt certificates and bonds. The Republic of Texas, in its struggle for independence from Mexico, had issued bonds and certificates in great variety, amounting in value to ten or fifteen million dollars. Later, a bill was passed providing a contribution on the part of the United States of five million dollars, to be applied to the extinguishment of this old debt. Grund knew of this, and also of the fact that some of this debt was to be paid in full, and there was to be a false failure to pass the bill at one session in order to frighten off the outsiders who might have heard and begun to buy the old certificates for profit. He acquainted the Third National Bank with this fact, and of course the information came to Cowperwood. He told his wife about it, and so his son heard it, and his clear, big eyes glistened. He wondered why his father did not take advantage of the situation and buy some Texas certificates for himself. Frank realized that his father was too honest, too cautious, but when he grew up, he told himself, he was going to be a broker, or a financier, or a banker, and do some of these things.

Just at this time there came to the Cowperwoods an uncle who had not previously appeared. He was a brother of Mrs. Cowperwood's –Seneca Davis¹¹ by name – solid, unctuous, five feet ten in height, with a big, round body, a round, smooth bald head, blue eyes, and sandy hair. He was well dressed according to standards prevailing in those days. Frank was fascinated by him at once. He had been a planter in Cuba and still owned a big ranch there and could tell him tales of Cuban life – rebellions, ambuscades, fighting with machetes on his own plantation, and things of that sort. He brought with him a collection of Indian curies, money and several slaves: Manuel, a tall, black attendant, and a bodyguard. He shipped raw sugar from his plantation to the Southern wharves in Philadelphia. Frank liked him very much.

“Why,Nancy Arabella¹²,” he said to Mrs Cowperwood on arriving one Sunday afternoon, “you haven't grown an inch! I thought when you married that you were going to fatten up like your brother. But look at you! I swear to Heaven you don't weigh five pounds!”

And he jounced her up and down by the waist, much to the perturbation of the children, who had never before seen their mother so familiarly handled.

Henry Cowperwood was exceedingly interested in and pleased at the arrival of this prosperous relative; for twelve years before, when he was married, Seneca Davis had not taken much notice of him.

“I tell you, Henry,” Seneca continued, “you have a rather nice place here.”

And he looked at the main room of the three-story house with a critical eye.

Since Henry had become teller the family had acquired a piano – a luxury in those days – brought from Europe. It was summer time, the windows were open, and the trees outside, with their widely extended green branches, were pleasantly visible shading the brick sidewalk. Uncle Seneca strolled out into the back yard.

“Well, this is pleasant enough,” he observed, noting a large elm. “Where's your hammock? Don't you string a hammock here in summer? Down on my veranda at San Pedro I have six or seven.”

“We hadn't thought of the hammock because of the neighbors, but it would be nice,” agreed Mrs. Cowperwood. “Henry will have to get one.”

“I have two or three over at the hotel. My servants make them down there. I'll send Manuel over with them in the morning.”

He tweaked Edward's ear, told Joseph, the second boy, he would bring him an Indian tomahawk, and went back into the house.

“This is the lad that interests me,” he said, after a time, laying a hand on the shoulder of Frank. “What did you name him in full, Henry?”

“Frank Algernon.”

“Well, you might have named him after me. There's something to this boy. How would you like to come down to Cuba and be a planter, my boy?”

“I'm not so sure that I'd like to,” replied the eldest.

“Well, what have you against it?”

“Nothing, except that I don't know anything about it.”

“What do you know?”

The boy smiled wisely. “Not very much, I guess.”

“Well, what are you interested in?”

“Money!”

“Aha! Well, that's a good trait. And you speak like a man, too! We'll talk more about that later. Nancy, you're breeding a financier here, I think. He talks like one.”

He looked at Frank carefully. There was real force in that sturdy young body – no doubt of it. Those large, clear gray eyes were full of intelligence. They indicated much and revealed nothing.

“A smart boy!” he said to Henry. “I like him. You have a bright family.”

Henry Cowperwood smiled dryly. This man, if he liked Frank, might do much for the boy. He might eventually leave him some of his fortune. He was wealthy and single.

Uncle Seneca became a frequent visitor to the house – he and his negro bodyguard, Manuel, who spoke both English and Spanish, much to the astonishment of the children; and he took an increasing interest in Frank.

“When that boy gets old enough to find out what he wants to do, I think I'll help him to do it,” he observed to his sister one day; and she told him she was very grateful. He talked to Frank about his studies, and found that he cared little for books. Grammar was an abomination. Literature was silly. Latin was of no use. History – well, it was fairly interesting.

“I like bookkeeping and arithmetic,” the boy observed. “I want get to work. That's what I want to do.”

“You're pretty young, my son,” observed his uncle. “How old are you? Fourteen?”

“Thirteen.”

“Well, you can't leave school 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 goodgrain and commission house¹³. You'll learn a lot that you ought to know. And, meantime, keep your health and learn all you can.”

He gave the boy a ten-dollar gold piece with which to start a bank-account.

Chapter III

When young Cowperwood was thirteen, he entered into his first business venture. Walking along Front Street one day, he saw an auctioneer's flag hanging out beforea wholesale grocery¹⁴ 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? The whole lot must go as one. What am I bid?”

“Eighteen dollars,” suggested a trader standing near the door. 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 Gregory¹⁵ 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.

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. As he recalled, his mother was paying twenty-eight cents a pound.

He drew nearer, 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 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.

“Twenty-six.”

“Twenty-seven.”

“Twenty-eight.”

“Twenty-nine.”

There was a pause.

“Thirty,” observed young Cowperwood, decisively.

The auctioneer looked at him curiously and almost incredulously but without pausing. He had, somehow, in spite of himself, been impressed by the boy's peculiar eye; and now he felt, without knowing why, that the boy had the money. He might be the son of a grocer.

“I'm bid thirty! I'm bid thirty! I'm bid thirty for this fine lot of Castile soap. It's a fine lot. It's worth fourteen cents a bar. Will any one bid thirty-one? Will any one bid thirty-one? Will any one bid thirty-one?”

“Thirty-one,” said a voice.

“Thirty-two,” replied Cowperwood. The same process was repeated.

“I'm bid thirty-two! I'm bid thirty-two! I'm bid thirty-two! Will anybody bid thirty-three? It's fine soap. Seven cases of fine Castile soap. Will anybody bid thirty-three?”

Young Cowperwood's mind was working. He had no money with him; but his father was teller of the Third National Bank, andhe could quote him as reference¹⁶. He could sell all of his soap to the family grocer, surely; or, if not, to other grocers. Other people were anxious to get this soap at this price. Why not he?

The auctioneer paused.

“Thirty-two once! Am I bid thirty-three? Thirty-two twice! Am I bid thirty-three? Thirty-two three times! Seven fine cases of soap. Am I bid anything more? Once, twice! Three times! Am I bid anything more?” – his hand was up again – “and sold to Mr.—?” He leaned over and looked curiously into the face of his young bidder.

“Frank Cowperwood, son of the teller of the Third National Bank,” replied the boy, decisively.

“Oh, yes,” said the man, fixed by his glance.

“Will you wait while I run up to the bank and get the money?”

“Yes. Don't be gone long. If you're not here in an hour I'll sell it again.”

Young Cowperwood made no reply. He hurried out and ran fast; first, to his mother's grocer, whose store was within a block of his home.

Thirty feet from the door he slowed up, put on a nonchalant air, and strolling in, looked about for Castile soap. There it was, the same kind, displayed in a box and looking just as his soap looked.

“How much is this a bar, Mr.Dalrymple¹⁷?” he inquired.

“Sixteen cents,” replied that worthy.

“If I could sell you seven boxes for sixty-two dollars just like this, would you take them?”

“The same soap?”

“Yes, sir.”

Mr. Dalrymple calculated a moment.

“Yes, I think I would,” he replied, cautiously.

“Would you pay me today?”

“I'd give you my note for it. Where is the soap?”

He was perplexed and somewhat astonished by this unexpected proposition on the part of his neighbor's son. He knew Mr. Cowperwood well – and Frank also.

“Will you take it if I bring it to you today?”

“Yes, I will,” he replied. “Are you going into the soap business?”

“No. But I know where I can get some of that soap cheap.”

He hurried out again and ran to his father's bank. It was after banking hours; but he knew how to get in, and he knew that his father would be glad to see him make thirty dollars. He only wanted to borrow the money for a day.

“What's the trouble, Frank?” asked his father, looking up from his desk when he appeared, breathless and red faced.

“I want you to loan me thirty-two dollars! Will you?”

“Why, yes, I might. What do you want to do with it?”

“I want to buy some soap – seven boxes of Castile soap. I know where I can get it and sell it. Mr. Dalrymple will take it. He's already offered me sixty-two for it. I can get it for thirty-two. Will you let me have the money? I've got to run back and pay the auctioneer.”

His father smiled.

“Why, Frank,” he said, going over to a drawer where some bills were, “are you going to become a financier already? You're sure you're not going to lose on this? You know what you're doing, do you?”

“You let me have the money, father, will you?” he pleaded. “Just let me have it. You can trust me.”

He was like a young hound on the scent of game. His father could not resist.

“Why, certainly, Frank,” he replied. “I'll trust you.” And he counted out six five-dollar certificates of the Third National's own issue and two ones. “There you are.”

Frank ran out of the building and returned to the auction room as fast as his legs would carry him. When he came in, sugar was being auctioned. He made his way to the auctioneer's clerk.

“I want to pay for that soap,” he suggested.

“Now?”

“Yes. Will you give me a receipt?”

“Yes.”

“Do you deliver this?”

“No. No delivery. You have to take it away in twenty-four hours.”

That 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 idler 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. 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. Where did 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 made out hisnote at thirty days¹⁸ 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.

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

“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 business-like air. “All right,” he said. “I'll fix it tomorrow. 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 later Uncle Seneca.

“What'd I tell you, Cowperwood?” he asked. “He has stuff in him, that youngster. 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 reply.

Auction sales were not every day, however, and his home grocer was open to the transactions not every time, but from the very first young Cowperwood knew how to make money.

He took subscriptions for a boys' paper; sold 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. It was not his idea that he could get rich by saving. From the first he had the notion that spending was better.

It was in this year, or a little earlier, that he began to take an interest in girls. Being good-looking and magnetic himself, it was not difficult for him to attract the sympathetic interest of those in whom he was interested. A twelve-year old girl,Patience Barlow¹⁹, who lived nearby, was the first to attract his attention or be attracted by him. She was a Quakeress, the daughter of Quaker parents. However, she liked this self-reliant, self-sufficient, straight-spoken boy.

One day, after an exchange of glances from time to time, he said, with a smile and the courage that was innate in him: “You live nearby, don't you?”

“Yes,” she replied, a little flustered, “I live at number one-forty-one.”

“I know the house,” he said. “I've seen you go in there. You go to the same school my sister does, don't you? Aren't you Patience Barlow?” He had heard some of the boys speak her name.

“Yes. How do you know?”

“Oh, I've heard,” he smiled. “I've seen you. Do you like licorice?”

He fished in his coat and pulled out some fresh sticks.

“Thank you,” she said, sweetly, taking one.

“Don't you know my sister, Anna Cowperwood?” he recurred. “She's in a lower grade than you are, but I thought maybe you might have seen her.”

“I think I know who she is. I've seen her coming home from school.”

“I live right over there,” he confided, pointing to his own home, as if she didn't know.

“Do you knowRuth Merriam²⁰?” she asked.

“No, why?”

“She's giving a party next Tuesday.”

“Where does she live?”

“There in twenty-eight.”

“I'd like to go,” he affirmed, warmly.

“Maybe she'll invite you, I'll ask her.”

“Thanks,” he smiled.

And she began to run gayly onward.

He looked after her with a smiling face. She was very pretty. He felt a keen desire to kiss her.

This was just one of the early love affairs, or puppy loves. Patience Barlow was kissed by him many times before he found another girl –Dora Fitler²¹, when he was sixteen years old and she was fourteen; and Marjorie Stafford²², when he was seventeen and she was fifteen. Dora Fitter was a brunette, and Marjorie Stafford was fair, with bright-red cheeks, bluish-gray eyes, and flaxen hair.

It was at seventeen that he decided to leave school. He had not graduated. He had had enough. Ever since his thirteenth year his mind had been on finance. His Uncle Seneca had allowed him to act as assistant weigher at the sugar-docks in Southwark. In certain emergencies he was called to assist his father, and was paid for it. 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 a year, 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 for you. There won't be any salary in it for the first year, but they'll probably give you something as a gift at the end. Henry Waterman & Company might make a place for you as a bookkeeper.”

Uncle Seneca was married now, having, because of his wealth, attracted the attention of a poor but ambitious matron.

This offer of Uncle Seneca to get him in with Waterman & Company seemed to Frank quite reasonable. So he came to that organization at 74 South Second Street one day in June, and was cordially received by Mr. Henry Waterman. He looked him over critically. Yes, this boy might do, he thought. He would like to try.

“I like that fellow,” Henry Waterman confided to his brother the moment Frank had gone. “He's clean, brisk, and alive.”

“Yes,” said George, a much leaner and slightly taller man. “Yes, he's a nice young man. It's a wonder his father doesn't take him in his bank.”

“Well, he may not be able to,” said his brother. “He's only the cashier there.”

“That's right.”

“Well, we'll give him a trial. I bet anything he makes good.”

Something told him the boy would do well.

Chapter IV

The appearance of Frank Cowperwood at this time was prepossessing and satisfactory. He was about five feet ten inches tall. His head was large, shapely, his eyes were inscrutable. You could tell nothing by his eyes. He walked with a light, confident, springy step. He saw people richer than himself, but he hoped to be rich. His family was respected, his father well placed. He owed no man anything.

He turned out to be the most efficient clerk that the house of Waterman & Co. had ever known. They put him on the books at first as assistant bookkeeper, and in two weeks George said: “Why don't we make Cowperwood head bookkeeper?”

“All right, make the transfer, George, but he won't be a bookkeeper long, though.”

The books of Messrs. Waterman & Co were child's play to Frank. He went through them with an ease and rapidity which surprised his erstwhile superior, Mr. Sampson.

“Why, that fellow,” Sampson told another clerk on the first day he had seen Cowperwood work, “he's too brisk.Hes going to make a bad break.²³ I know that kind. Wait a little bit.”

But the bad break Mr. Sampson anticipated did not materialize. In less than a week Cowperwood knew the financial condition of the Messrs. Waterman very well. He knew how their accounts were distributed; from what section they drew the most business; who sent poor produce and good. Bookkeeping did not interest him much. He knew he would not do this long.

The Watermans, Henry and George, were greatly pleased with the way he handled their accounts. There was a sense of security in his very presence. He soon began to call George's attention to the condition of certain accounts, making suggestions as to their possible liquidation or discontinuance.

One morning, when bills indicated a probable glut of flour and a shortage of grain, the elder Waterman called him into his office and said:

“Frank, I wish you would see what you can do with this condition that confronts us. By tomorrow we're going to be overcrowded with flour. We can't be paying storage charges. We're short on grain. Maybe you could trade out the flour to some of those brokers and get me enough grain to fill the orders.”

“I'd like to try,” said his employee.

Frank knew from his books where the various commission-houses were. He knew the local merchants and the various commission-merchants. This was the thing he liked to do. It was pleasant to be out in the air again. He objected to desk work and pen work and poring over books. As he said in later years, his brain was his office. He hurried to the principal commission-merchants, offering his surplus. Did they want to buy for immediate delivery six hundred barrels of prime flour? He would offer it at nine dollars straight, in the barrel. They did not. He offered it in fractions, and some agreed to take one portion, and some another. In about an hour he had one lot of two hundred barrels, which he decided to offer to a famous operator namedGenderman²⁴ with whom his firm did no business. The latter, a big man with curly gray hair and little eyes looked at Cowperwood curiously when he came in.

“What's your name, young man?” he asked, leaning back in his wooden chair.

“Cowperwood.”

“So you work for Waterman & Company? You wantto make a record²⁵, no doubt. That's why you came to me?”

Cowperwood merely smiled.

“Well, I'll take your flour. I need it.”

Cowperwood hurried out. He went direct to a firm of brokers in Walnut Street, with whom his firm dealt. Then he returned to the office.

“Well,” said Henry Waterman, when he reported, “you did that quick. You sold old Genderman two hundred barrels direct, did you? That's doing pretty well. He isn't on our books, is he?”

“No, sir.”

“I thought not. Well, if you can do that sort of work you won't be on the books long.”

Soon Frank became a familiar figure in the commission district and on the Produce Exchange, soliciting new customers and breaking gluts. Indeed the Watermans were astonished at his facilities. He had an uncanny faculty for making friends and being introduced into new realms. New life began to flow through the old channels of the Waterman company. Their customers were satisfied. George was for sending him out into the rural districtsto drum up trade²⁶, and this was eventually done.

Near Christmas-time Henry said to George:

“We'll have to make Cowperwood a present. He hasn't any salary. How about five hundred dollars?”

“I guess he's worth it. He's certainly done everything we've expected, and more. He's cut out for this business.”

“What does he say about it? Do you ever hear him say whether he's satisfied?”

“Oh, he likes it pretty much, I guess.”

“Well, that fellow has the real knack for this business.”

So the night before Christmas, as Cowperwood was looking over someway-bills²⁷ and certificates, George Waterman came to his desk.

“My brother and I have been especially pleased with the way you have handled the work here during the past six months. We wanted to make some acknowledgment, and we thought about five hundred dollars. From January we'll give you a regular salary of thirty dollars a week.”

“I'm certainly much obliged to you,” said Frank. “I didn't expect that much. I've learned much here.”

“Oh, don't mention it. We know you've earned it. You can stay with us as long as you like. We're glad to have you with us.”

Cowperwood smiled his hearty, genial smile. He was feeling very comfortable under this evidence of approval.

On the way home that evening he was thinking about that business. He knew he wasn't going to stay there long, even in spite of this gift and promise of salary. They were grateful, of course; butwhy shouldn't they be? He was efficient, he knew that.

After dinner that evening, Frank told his father of the gift of five hundred dollars and the promised salary.

“That's splendid,” said his father. “You're doing better than I thought. I suppose you'll stay there.”

“No, I won't. I think I'll quit sometime next year.”

“Why?”

“Well, it isn't exactly what I want to do. It's all right, but I'd rather try my hand²⁸ at brokerage, I think. That appeals to me.”

“Don't you think you are doing them an injustice not to tell them?”

“Not at all. They need me.”

He straightened his tie and adjusted his coat.

“Have you told your mother?”

“No. I'm going to do it now.”

He went out into the dining-room, where his mother was, and slipping his arms around her little body, said:

“What do you think, Mammy?”

“Well, what?” she asked, looking affectionately into his eyes.

“I got five hundred dollars tonight, and I get thirty a week next year. What do you want for Christmas?”

“You dont say!²⁹ Isn't that nice! Isn't that fine! They must like you.”

“What do you want for Christmas?”

“Nothing. I don't want anything. I have my children.”

He smiled.

“All right. Then nothing it is.”

But she knew he would buy her something.

He went out, pausing at the door to grab playfully at his sister's waist, and saying that he'd be back about midnight, hurried to Marjorie's house, because he had promised to take her to a show.

“Anything you want for Christmas this year, Margy?” he asked, after kissing her. “I got five hundred tonight.”

She was an innocent little thing, only fifteen, no guile, no shrewdness.

“Oh, you needn't get me anything.”

“Needn't I?” he asked, squeezing her waist and kissing her mouth again.

It was fine to have such a good time.

Chapter V

The following October, feeling sure that he would never do with the grain and commission business as conducted by the Waterman Company, Cowperwood decided to sever his relations with them and enter the employ of Tighe & Company, bankers and brokers.

Cowperwood's meeting with Tighe & Company had come some weeks ago. Mr. Tighe took a keen interest in this subtle young emissary.

“How's business with you people?” he would ask.

Because of the unsettled condition of the country, the over-inflation,the slavery agitation³⁰, and so forth, there were prospects of hard times.

“Oh, things are going pretty well with us, thank you, Mr. Tighe,” Cowperwood would answer.

“I tell you,” he said to Cowperwood one morning, “this slavery agitation, if it doesn't stop, is going to cause trouble.”

“It's coming, I think,” said Cowperwood, quietly. “It can't be healed, in my judgment. The negroes aren't worth all this excitement, but they'll go on agitating for them – emotional people always do this. They haven't anything else to do. It's hurting our Southern trade.”

“I thought so. That's what people tell me.”

Mr. Tighe turned to a new customer as young Cowperwood went out, but again the boy struck him as being deep-thinking on financial matters.

“If that young fellow wanted a place, I'd give it to him,” he thought.

Finally, one day he said to him:

“How would you like to try your hand at being a floor man for me? I need a young man here. One of my clerks is leaving.”

“I'd like it,” replied Cowperwood, smiling and looking intensely gratified. “I had thought of speaking to you myself some time.”

“Well, if you're ready, the place is open. Come any time you like.”

“Would you mind waiting a week or two?” Cowperwood said, quietly.

“Of course, come as soon as you can. I don't want to inconvenience your employers.”

It was only two weeks later that Frank took his departure from Waterman & Company. Mr. George Waterman's grief was great. As for Mr. Henry Waterman, he was actually irritated by this defection.

“Why, I thought,” he exclaimed, vigorously, when informed by Cowperwood of his decision, “that you liked the business. Is it a matter of salary?”

“No, not at all, Mr. Waterman. I just want to get into the brokerage business.”

“Well, that certainly is too bad. I'm sorry. I don't want to urge you against your own best interests. You know what you are doing. Why, damn it, man, there's good money in this business.”

“I know it,” smiled Cowperwood, “but I don't like it. I have other plans. I'll never be a grain and commission man.”

Mr. Henry Waterman could scarcely understand why obvious success in this field did not interest him.

Cowperwood's new work was more suited to him in every way – as easy and more profitable, of course. In the first place, the firm of Tighe & Co., unlike that of Waterman & Co., was located in a handsome green-gray stone building at 66 South Third Street, in what was then the heart of the financial district. Great institutions of national and international import and repute were near at hand – Drexel & Co., Edward Clark & Co., the Third National Bank, the First National Bank, the Stock Exchange, and similar institutions. Almost a score of smaller banks and brokerage firms were also in the vicinity. Edward Tighe, the head and brains of this concern, was a Boston Irishman, the son of an immigrant who had flourished and done well in that conservative city. He was not very stout, slightly and prematurely gray. His upper lip was ornamented by a short, gray mustache.

Chapter VI

The Cowperwood family was by this time established in its new and larger and more tastefully furnished house on North Front Street, facing the river.

Their company was not very distinguished, but it included a number of people who were successful – heads of small businesses, dealers indry-goods³¹, leather, groceries (wholesale), and grain.

And during the first year of the new life in this house Frank met a certain Mrs.Semple³², who interested him greatly. Her husband had a big shoe store on Chestnut Street, and was planning to open a second one farther out on the same street.

Lillian Semple caught and held Frank's interest. Why? It would be hard to say, for she was really not suited to him emotionally, intellectually, or otherwise. He was not without experience with women or girls, and still held a tentative relationship with Marjorie Stafford; but Lillian Semple, in spite of the fact that she was married, seemed not wiser and saner, but more worth while. She was twenty-four as opposed to Frank's nineteen, but still young enough in her thoughts. She was slightly taller than he. Her hair was the color of a dried English walnut, rich and plentiful, her eyes varied from gray to blue and from gray to brown, according to the light in which you saw them. Her hands were thin, her nose straight, her face artistically narrow. She was not brilliant, not active, but rather peaceful and statuesque without knowing it. Cowperwood was carried away by her appearance. She was lovely, he thought – gracious, dignified. If he could have his choice of a wife, this was the kind of a girl he would like to have.

Cowperwood's judgment of women was temperamental rather than intellectual. Homely woman meant nothing to him. And the passionate woman meant much. He preferred to think of people – even women – as honestly, frankly self-interested. He could not have told you why. He wanted contact which was intimate, subtle, individual, personal.

So came Lillian Semple, who was nothing more to him than the shadow of an ideal. His thoughts continued to dwell on her, notwithstanding the hectic days which now passed like flashes of light in his new business venture. For this stock exchange world in which he now found himself, was most fascinating to Cowperwood.

Young Cowperwood would not have been admitted at all, as either a broker or broker's agent or assistant, except that Tighe, feeling that he needed him and believing that he would be very useful, bought him a seat on 'change – charging the two thousand dollars it cost as a debt and then ostensibly taking him into partnership. Cowperwood was put under the direction of Mr.Arthur Rivers³³, the regular floor man³⁴ of Tighe & Company.

Rivers was an exceedingly forceful man of thirty-five, well-dressed, well-formed, with a hard, smooth, evenly chiseled face, which was ornamented by a short, black mustache and fine, black, clearly penciled eyebrows. His chin was faintly and attractively cleft. He had a soft voice, and a quiet, conservative manner. Cowperwood wondered at first why Rivers should work for Tighe, but afterward learned that Tighe was the organizer, Riversthe floor and outside man³⁵.

It was useless, as Frank soon found, to try to figure out exactly why stocks rose and fell. Some general reasons there were, of course, as he was told by Tighe, but they could not always be depended on.

“Sure, anything can make or break a market,” Tighe explained. “It's a most unusual world, Cowperwood. No man can explain it. I've seen breaks in stocks that you could never explain at all – no one could. It wouldn't be possible to find out why they broke. I've seen rises the same way. My God, the rumors of the stock exchange! Ask Rivers to show you everything.Dont you ever lose for me³⁶, though. That's the cardinal sin in this office.” He grinned maliciously.

Cowperwood understood. This subtle world appealed to him. It answered to his temperament.

There were rumors, rumors, rumors – of great railway and street-car undertakings, land developments, government revision of the tariff, war between France and Turkey, famine in Russia or Ireland, and so on. The first Atlantic cable had not been laid as yet, and news of any kind from abroad was slow and meager.

Frank soon understood the situation. A “bull,” he learned, was one who bought in anticipation of a higher price to come. He sold to “realize” his profit, or if his margins were exhausted he was “wiped out.” A “bear” was one who sold stocks which most frequently he did not have, in anticipation of a lower price, at which he could buy and satisfy his previous sales. And so on.

He smiled at first at the air of great secrecy and wisdom on the part of the younger men. They were so heartily and foolishly suspicious. The older men, as a rule, were inscrutable. They pretended indifference, uncertainty. Snap! and the opportunity was gone. Somebody else had picked up what you wanted. All had their little note-books.

A gong sounded the call to trading at ten o'clock, and fifty to a hundred men would shout, gesticulate, shove here and there; endeavoring to take advantage of the stock offered or called for.

“Five-eighths for five hundred P. and W.,” some one would call – Rivers or Cowperwood, or any other broker.

“Five hundred at three-fourths,” would come the reply from someone else, who either had an order to sell the stock at that price. The professional traders were, of course, keen students of psychology; and their success depended on their ability to guess whether or not a broker representing a big manipulator, like Tighe, had an order large enough to affect the market sufficiently to give them an opportunity to “get in and out³⁷,” as they termed it, at a profit before he had completed the execution of his order. They were like hawks watching for an opportunity to snatch their prey from under the very claws of their opponents.

Distorted faces were shoved over shoulders or under arms. The most ridiculous grimaces were purposely or unconsciously indulged in. At first it seemed quite a wonderful thing to young Cowperwood, for he liked human presence and activity; but a little later he came down to a clearer sense of the intricacies of the problem before him. Buying and selling stocks, as he soon learned, was an art, a subtlety, almost a psychic emotion. Suspicion, intuition, feeling – these were the most important things there.

Yet in time he also asked himself, who was it who made the real money – the stock-brokers? Not at all. Some of them were making money, but they were, as he quickly saw, like a lot of gulls or stormy petrels, hungry and anxious to snap up any unwary fish. Back of them were other men, men with shrewd ideas, subtle resources. Men of immense means whose enterprise and holdings these stocks represented, the men who schemed out and built the railroads, opened the mines, organized trading enterprises, and built up immense manufactories. They might use brokers or other agents to buy and sell on change. These men were gamblers. He was nothing more than a gambler's agent. It was not troubling him any just at this moment, but it was not at all a mystery now, what he was. A man, a real man, must never be an agent, a tool, or a gambler – acting for himself or for others – he must employ such. A real man – a financier – was never a tool. He used tools. He created. He led.

Clearly, very clearly, at nineteen, twenty, and twenty-one years of age, he saw all this, but he was not quite ready yet to do anything about it. He was certain, however, that his day would come.

Chapter VII

In the meantime, his interest in Mrs. Semple had been secretly and strangely growing. When he received an invitation to call at the Semple home, he accepted with a great deal of pleasure. Their house was located not so very far from his own, on North Front Street.

It could not be said that Lillian had wildly loved Mr. Semple at any time. Although she had cheerfully married him, he was not the kind of man who could arouse a notable passion in any woman. He was practical, methodic, orderly. His shoe store was a good one. He loved to talk, when he talked at all, of shoe manufacturing, the development of styles.

Cowperwood could not keep his eyes off her. She was aware of this but she did not attach any significance to it.

At first, when Frank came, she did not have much to say. She was gracious, but the burden of conversation fell on her husband. Cowperwood watched the varying expression of her face from time to time. Mr. Semple talked to him pleasantly, because in the first place Frank was becoming financially significant, was suave and ingratiating, and Frank represented progress to him. One spring evening they sat on the porch and talked – nothing very important – slavery, street-cars, the panic – it was on then, that of 1857 – the development of the West. Mr. Semple wanted to know all about the stock exchange. In return Frank asked about the shoe business, though he really did not care. All the while he watched Mrs. Semple. Her manner, he thought, was soothing, attractive, delightful. She served tea and cake for them. They went inside after a time to avoid the mosquitoes. She played the piano. At ten o'clock he left.

Thereafter, for a year or so, Cowperwood bought his shoes of Mr. Semple. About a year later, Mr. Semple died. It was an untimely death. He was seized with a cold in the chest late in the autumn – and had insisted on going to business when Mrs. Semple urged him to stay at home and recuperate. Then nine more days of pneumonia – and he was dead. The shoe store was closed for a few days; the house was full of sympathetic friends and church people. There was a funeral with burial service in the church, and then he was buried. Mrs. Semple cried bitterly.

The shock of death affected her greatly and left her for a time in a depressed state. She continued to reside in the Front Street house, and was considered a charming and interesting widow.

Young Cowperwood, only twenty years of age, was resolute. He attended the funeral. He helped her brother,David Wiggin³⁸, dispose of the shoe business.

Again, it would be hard to say what he saw in Semple. Her prettiness fascinated him; her indifference aroused perhaps his combative soul. He could not have explained why, but he wanted her in an urgent, passionate way. He could not think of her reasonably, and he did not talk of her much to anyone. He was genial, cheerful, gay at most times, without being talkative, and he was decidedly successful. Everybody knew he was making money now. His salary was fifty dollars a week, and he was certain soon to get more. Some lots of his, bought three years before, had increased notably in value. He was liked in the financial district and he was sure that he had a successful future.

Because of his analysis of the brokerage situation he had come to the conclusion that he did not want to be a stock gambler. Instead, he was considering the matter of engaging inbill-brokering³⁹, a business which he had observed to be very profitable and which involved no risk as long as one had capital. Through his work and his father's connections he had met many people – merchants, bankers, traders. People in Drexel & Co. and Clark & Co. were friendly to him. Jay Cooke, a rising banking personality, was a personal friend of his.

Meanwhile he called on Mrs. Semple, and the more he called the better he liked her. He advised her about her business affairs in so intelligent a way that even her relatives approved of it. She came to like him, because he was so considerate, quiet, reassuring, and so ready to explain over and over until everything was quite plain to her. She could see that he was looking on her affairs quite as if they were his own, trying to make them safe and secure.

“You're so very kind, Frank,” she said to him, one night. “I'm awfully grateful. I don't know what I would have done without you.”

She looked at his handsome face, which was turned to hers, with child-like simplicity.

“Not at all. Not at all. I want to do it. I wouldn't have been happy if I couldn't.”

She felt warm toward him, sympathetic, quite satisfied that she could lean on him.

“Well, I am very grateful just the same. You've been so good. Come out Sunday again, if you want to, or any evening. I'll be home.”

That time his Uncle Seneca died in Cuba and left him fifteen thousand dollars. He knew exactly what to do with that money. A panic had come since Mr. Semple had died, which had illustrated to him very clearly what an uncertain thing the brokerage business was. There was really a severe business depression.

During all these days young Cowperwood was following these financial complications with interest. He was not disturbed by the cause of slavery, or the talk of secession, or the general progress or decline of the country, except in so far as it affected his immediate interests. He wanted to become a stable financier; but, now that he saw the inside of the brokerage business, he was not so sure that he wanted to stay in it. The panic only made Frank more certain as to what he really wanted to do – now that he had this free money, he would go into business for himself. Even Tighe's offer of a minor partnership did not tempt him.

“I think you have a nice business,” he explained, in refusing, “but I want to get in the note-brokerage business for myself. I don't trust this stock game. I'd rather have a little business of my own than all the floor work in this world.”

“But you're pretty young, Frank,” argued his employer. “You have lots of time to work for yourself.”

In the end he parted friends with both Tighe and Rivers.

“That's a smart young fellow,” observed Tighe, ruefully.

“He's the shrewdest boy of his age I ever saw,” rejoined Rivers.

Chapter VIII

Cowperwood was in love and had money of his own to start his new business venture. He had established financial relations with the Girard National Bank. All he wanted was suitable investments – things in which he could realize surely, quickly. He saw fine prospective profits in the street-car lines, which were rapidly developing.

He purchased a horse and buggy about this time – the most attractive-looking animal and vehicle he could find – the combination cost him five hundred dollars – and invited Mrs. Semple to drive with him. She refused at first, but later consented. He had told her of his success, his prospects, his windfall of fifteen thousand dollars, his intention of going into thenote-brokerage business⁴⁰. She knew his father was likely to succeed to the position of vice-president in the Third National Bank, and she liked the Cowperwoods. Now she began to realize that there was something more than mere friendship here. This erstwhile boy was a man. It was almost ridiculous in the face of things – her seniority, her widowhood, her placid, retiring disposition – but the force of this young man was sheer, quiet, and determined.

Cowperwood did not delude himself with her. She was beautiful, with a mental and physical lure for him that was irresistible, and that was all he desired to know. No other woman was holding him like that. It never occurred to him that he could not or should not like other women at the same time. He was not eager for her money, though he was well aware of it. He felt that he could use it to her advantage. He wanted her physically. He felt a keen, primitive interest in the children they would have. He wanted to find out if he could make her love him vigorously and could rout out the memory of her former life. Strange ambition. Strange perversion, one might almost say.

In spite of her fears and her uncertainty, Lillian Semple accepted his attentions and interest because she was drawn to him. One night, when she was going to bed, she stopped in front of her dressing table and looked at her face and her bare neck and arms. They were very pretty. She thought of young Cowperwood, and then was chilled and shamed by the vision of the late Mr. Semple.

“Why do you come to see me so often?” she asked him when he called the following evening.

“Oh, don't you know?” he replied.

“No.”

“Sure you don't?”

“Well, I know you liked Mr. Semple, and I always thought you liked me as his wife. He's gone, though, now.”

“And you're here,” he replied.

“And I'm here?”

“Yes. I like you. I like to be with you. Don't you like me?”

“Why, I've never thought of it. You're so much younger. I'm five years older than you are.”

“In years,” he said, “certainly. That's nothing. I'm fifteen years older than you are in other ways. I know more about life in some ways than you can ever hope to learn – don't you think so?” he added, softly, persuasively.

“Well, that's true. But I know a lot of things you don't know.” She laughed softly, showing her pretty teeth.

It was evening. The river was before them.

“Yes, but that's only because you're a woman. But I'm talking about practical affairs of this world. You're not as old that way as I am.”

“Well, what of it?”

“Nothing. You asked why I came to see you. That's why.”

He stared at the water.

She looked at him. His handsome body, his face, his clear, big, inscrutable eyes, had an expression which was almost babyish. She could not have guessed the depths it veiled. His cheeks were pink, his hands not large, but sinewy and strong.

“I don't think you ought to come to see me so often. People won't think well of it.”

“People,” he said, “don't worry about people. People think what you want them to think. I like you.”

“But you mustn't like me. It's wrong. I can't ever marry you. You're too young. I'm too old.”

“Don't say that!” he said, imperiously. “There's nothing to it. I want you to marry me. You know I do. Now, when will it be?”

“Why, how silly! I never heard of such a thing!” she exclaimed. “It will never be, Frank. It can't be!”

“Why can't it?” he asked.

“Because – well, because I'm older. People would think it strange. I'm not long enough free.”

“Oh, long enough nothing!” he exclaimed, irritably. “That's the one thing I have against you – you are so worried about what people think. They don't make your life. They certainly don't make mine. Think of yourself first. You have your own life to make. Are you going to let what other people think stand in the way of what you want to do?”

“But I don't want to,” she smiled.

He arose and came over to her, looking into her eyes.

“Well?” she asked, nervously, quizzically.

He merely looked at her.

“Well?” she queried, more flustered.

He stooped down to take her arms, but she got up.

“Now you must not come near me,” she pleaded, determinedly. “I'll go in the house, and I'll not let you come any more. It's terrible! You're silly! You mustn't interest yourself in me.”

But he called again and again. Then one night, when they had gone inside because of the mosquitoes, and when she had insisted that he must stop coming to see her, that his attentions were noticeable to others, and that she would be disgraced, he caught her, under desperate protest, in his arms.

“Now, see here!” she exclaimed. “I told you! It's silly! You mustn't kiss me! How dare you! Oh! oh! oh!”

She ran up the stairway to her room. Cowperwood followed her swiftly. As she pushed the door, he forced it open and recaptured her. He lifted her bodily from her feet and held her crosswise, lying in his arms.

“Oh, how could you!” she exclaimed. “I will never speak to you any more. I will never let you come here any more if you don't put me down this minute. Put me down!”

“I'll put you down, sweet,” he said. “I'll take you down,” at the same time pulling her face to him and kissing her. He was very much excited.

While she was twisting and protesting, he carried her down the stairs again into the living-room, and seated himself in the great armchair, still holding her tight in his arms.

“Oh!” she sighed. Then she smiled. “How would I ever explain if I did marry you?” she asked, weakly. “Your father! Your mother!”

“You don't need to explain. I'll do that. And you needn't worry about my family. They won't care.”

“But mine,” she recoiled.

“Don't worry about yours. I'm not marrying your family. I'm marrying you. We are independent.”

And he kissed her. There was a persuasion to his caresses. Mr. Semple had never displayed any such fire. He aroused a force of feeling in her which had not previously been there. She was afraid of it and ashamed.

“Will you marry me in a month?” he asked, cheerfully, when she paused.

“You know I won't!” she exclaimed, nervously. “The idea! Why do you ask?”

“What difference does it make? We're going to get married eventually.”

“Well, not in a month. Wait a little while. I will marry you after a while – after you see whether you want me.”

He caught her tight. “I'll show you,” he said.

“Please stop. You hurt me.”

“How about two months?”

“Certainly not.”

“Three?”

“Well, maybe.”

“No maybe in that case. We marry.”

“But you're only a boy.”

“Don't worry about me. You'll find out how much of a boy I am.”

He opened up a new world to her, and she realized that she had never really lived before. This man represented something bigger and stronger than ever her husband had dreamed of. He was terrible, irresistible.

“Well, in three months then,” she whispered.

Chapter IX

Cowperwood started in the note brokerage business with a small office at No.64 South Third Street, where he very soon discovered that his former excellent business connections remembered him. Sometimes his father, sometimes other people, helped him with suggestions.

Before the first street-car line had been laid on Front Street, the streets of Philadelphia had been crowded with hundreds of omnibuses. The city was as eager to see street-cars replace omnibuses as it was to see railroads replace canals.

Cowperwood had implicit faith in the future of the street railway. In support of this belief he risked all he could spare on new issues of stock shares in new companies. The Fifth and Sixth Street line, which had been but recently started, was paying six hundred dollars a day. The public, hearing of the Fifth and Sixth Street line profits, was eager to invest. Cowperwood was one of these, and when the Second and Third Street line was engineered, he invested in that and in the Walnut and Chestnut Street line also.

That time he married Mrs. Semple. His bride was nervous, fearsome of public opinion. His family did not entirely approve. She was too old, his mother and father thought, and then Frank, with his prospects, could have done much better. But anyway, Mrs. Semple was good-looking and had some money.

It was a warm October day when he and Lillian went to the altar. His parents, Mrs. Seneca Davis, the Wiggin family, brothers and sisters, and some friends were present. He had arranged his affairs for a two weeks' trip to New York and Boston. They took an afternoon train for New York. When they were finally alone in the hotel in New York, he gathered her in his arms.

He thought heshould never have enough⁴¹ of her, her beautiful face, her lovely arms, her smooth, lymphatic body. They were like two children, billing and cooing, driving, dining, seeing the sights. He was curious to visit the financial sections of both cities. New York and Boston appealed to him as commercially solid. He wondered, whether he should ever leave Philadelphia.

He was going to be very happy there now, he thought, with Lillian and possibly young Cowperwoods. He was going to work hard and make money. With his means and hers now at his command, he might become wealthy.

Chapter X

They began to live in Lillian's house. He knew a young man by the name ofEllsworth⁴², an architect. Wilton Ellsworth was an artist in spirit, quiet, meditative, refined. And it occurred to Frank that Ellsworth was the man to carry out his projects. When he suggested the young man to

Lillian, she placidly agreed with him and also with his own ideas of how the house could be revised.

Mrs. Cowperwood, in spite of the difference in their years, appeared to be a good wife for him at this time. They both wanted a baby, and in a little while that happy expectation was whispered to him by her. She had half fancied that her previous barrenness was due to herself, and was rather surprised and delighted at the proof that it was not so. It opened new possibilities. He liked it, the idea of self-duplication. For days and weeks and months and years, he took a keen satisfaction in coming home evenings, strolling about the yard, driving with his wife, having friends in to dinner, talking over with her in an explanatory way the things he intended to do. She did not understand his financial abstrusities, and he did not trouble to make them clear.

But love, her pretty body, her lips, her quiet manner – the lure of all these combined, and his two children, when they came – held him. He would dandle Frank, Jr. on his knee, looking at his chubby feet, his kindling eyes, his almost formless mouth, and wonder at the process by which children came into the world.

He came, in his financial world, to know fairly intimately some of the important characters of the steadily enlarging financial world. These men, as he learned, had advance news of legislative or economic changes which were sure to affect certain stocks or trade opportunities.

There were many houses 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.” He was asked if he would not handle certain stock transactions on 'change. He had no seat, and he intended not to take any at first; but now he changed his mind, and bought one, not only in Philadelphia, but in New York also.

In the meanwhile his family life was changing – growing more secure. He was drawing to himself some really significant personalities. He brought home with him, bankers, investors, customers and prospective customers. Cowperwood had the gift of geniality. None of these men or women suspected the depth of his nature – he was thinking, thinking, thinking, but enjoyed life as well.

One of his earliest and most genuine leanings was toward paintings. He admired nature. Mrs. Cowperwood accompanied him to exhibitions, thinking that Frank was a little peculiar. He tried, because he loved her, to interest her in these things intelligently, but while she pretended slightly, she could not really care. The children took up a great deal of her time. However, Cowperwood was not troubled about this. At the same time, her lethargic manner, vague smile and her indifference attracted him also. She was so different from him! She took her second marriage quite as she had taken her first – a solemn fact. He began to look at her at times, with a speculative eye – not very critically, for he liked her – but with an attempt to weigh her personality. He had known her five years and more now. What did he know about her?

There came in this period the slow approach, and finally the declaration, of war between the North and the South. It was terrific. Then came meetings and riots; the arrival of Lincoln. Cowperwood was only twenty-five at the time, a cool, determined youth, who hoped the North would win; but it might go hard with him personally and other financiers. He did not care to fight. That seemed silly for the man to do. As for him, his life was sacred to himself and his family and his personal interests.

Chapter XI

Frank's chance came, when a call for a loan of twenty-three million dollars was authorized by the legislature and issued. There was great talk as to who was to handle it. Cowperwood pondered over this. If he could handle a fraction of this great loan now – he could not possibly handle the whole of it, for he had not the necessary connections – he could add considerably to his reputation as a broker. How much could he handle? That was the question. Who would take portions of it? His father's bank? Probably. Waterman & Co.? A little. Judge Kitchen? A small fraction. The Mills-David Company? Yes. He thought of different individuals and concerns. He totaled up his possibilities, and discovered that he could dispose of one million dollars if personal influence, through local political figures, could bring this much of the loan his way.

One man in particular had grown strong in his estimation as having some political connection not visible on the surface, and this wasEdward Malia Butler⁴³. Butler was a contractor, undertaking the construction of sewers, water-mains, foundations for buildings, street-paving, and so on. Edward Butler had begun by collecting and hauling away the garbage free of charge, and feeding it to his pigs and cattle. Later he discovered that some people were willing to pay a small charge for this service. Then a local political character saw a new point in the whole thing. Butler could be made official garbage-collector.

Butler hired a young man, a smart Irish boy of his neighborhood,Jimmy Sheehan⁴⁴, to be his assistant, superintendent, stableman, and bookkeeper. Since he soon began to make between four and five thousand a year.

Curiously Butler had developed a strange political wisdom. He knew a successful man when he saw one. So many of his bookkeepers, superintendents, time-keepers had graduated into councilmen and state legislators. Mysterious forces worked for him in council. He was awarded significant contracts. The garbage business was now a thing of the past. His eldest boy, Owen, was a member of the State legislature and a partner in his business affairs. His second son, Callum, was a clerk in the city water department and an assistant to his father also. Aileen, his eldest daughter, fifteen years of age, was still studying at school. Norah, his second daughter and youngest child, thirteen years old, was in attendance at a local private school.

He had been one of the first to become interested in the development of the street-car system and had come to the conclusion, as had Cowperwood and many others, that it was going to be a great thing. So he was looking for some reliable young man, honest and capable, who would work under his direction and do what he said. Then he learned of Cowperwood, and one day sent for him and asked him to call at his house.

Cowperwood responded quickly, for he knew of Butler, his rise, his connections, his force. A trim Irish maid came to the door and Cowperwood gave her his card and was invited into the house.

In a little while he was asked to come upstairs, where he found Butler in a commercial-looking room. It had a desk, an office chair, some leather furnishings, and a bookcase.

“Mr. Cowperwood?” inquired Butler. He was a slow-moving man, solemn and deliberate.

“I'm that man.”

“I have a little matter of stocks to talk over with you, and I thought you'd better come here rather than that I should come down to your office. We can be more private-like, and, besides, I'm not as young as I used to be.”

Cowperwood smiled.

“Well, I hope I can be of service to you,” he said, genially.

“I happen to be interested just at present in picking up certain street-railway stocks on 'change. Won't you have something to drink? It's a cold morning.”

“No, thanks; I never drink.”

“Never? That's a hard word when it comes to whisky. Well, it's a good rule. To tell you the truth, I'm more interested in finding some clever young fellow like yourself through whom I can work. One thing leads to another, you know, in this world.” And he looked at his visitor.

“Quite so,” replied Cowperwood, with a friendly gleam in return.

“Well,” Butler meditated, half to himself, half to Cowperwood, “there are a number of things that a bright young man could do for me. I have two bright boys of my own, but I don't want them to become stock-gamblers, and I don't know that they would or could if I wanted them to. But this isn't a matter of stock-gambling. That young man might handle a number of little things – investments and loans – which might bring us each some money.”

He paused and looked tantalizingly out of the window, knowing well Cowperwood was greatly interested.

“Well,if you have been looking into my record⁴⁵,” observed Cowperwood, with his own elusive smile, leaving the thought suspended.