pent the first ten years of his life, was a lovely place for a boy to live. It contained mostly small two and three-story red brick houses, with small white ma

nd always damp and cool. In the rear was a yard, with trees and grass and sometimes flowers, for the lots were almost always

ten and they were ready to move into the New Market Street home. Henry Worthington Cowperwood's connections were increased as his position grew more responsible, and gradually he was becoming quite a personage. He already knew a number of the more prosperous merchants who dealt with his bank, and because as a clerk his duties necessitat

arly 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; what stocks were, and why they fluctuated in value. He began to see clearly what was meant by money as a medium of exchange, and how all values were calculated according to one primary value, that of gold. He was a financier by instinct, and all the knowledge that pertained to that grea

the British East India Company, deposited as collateral at two-thirds of their face value for a loan of one hundred thousand dollars. A Philadelphia mag

times their face value,"

st India Company," he read. "Ten pound

wouldn't need to work very hard. You'll notice there are scarcely any pin-marks on them. They

t a keen sense of the vast ramifications of finance. What wa

monopoly of the business of supplying beef to Eastern cities. 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. He used to come to the brokerage end of the elder Cowperwood's bank, with as much as one hundred thousand or two hundred thousand dollars, in twelve months - post-notes of the United States Bank in denominations of o

on dollars. Later, in connection with the scheme to make Texas a State of the Union, 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, owing to the peculiar conditions of issue, was to be paid in full, while other portions were to be scaled down, and there was to be a false or pre-arranged 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 info

ailing in those days, indulging in flowered waistcoats, long, light-colored frock-coats, and the invariable (for a fairly prosperous man) high hat. 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, hand-to-hand fighting with machetes on his own plantation, and things of that sort. He brought with him a

rance, "you haven't grown an inch! I thought when you married old brother Hy here that you were going to fatten up like your brother. But look at you! I swear to Heaven you

rrival of this rather prosperous relative; for twelve years before,

. That would take away this waxy look." And he pinched the cheek of Anna Adelaide, now five years old. "I tell you, Henry, you

ht from Europe; and it was intended that Anna Adelaide, when she was old enough, should learn to play. There were a few uncommon ornaments in the room - a gas chandelier for one thing, a glass bowl with goldfish in it, some rare and highly polished shells

aved with brick and enclosed within brick walls, up the sides of which vines were climbing. "Where's your

f the neighbors, but it would be nice," agreed

e hotel. My niggers make 'em down there. I'l

old Joseph, the second boy, he would bring him a

after a time, laying a hand on the shoulder of

k Alg

e's something to this boy. How would you like

hat I'd like to,"

ght-spoken. What ha

hat I don't know a

do you

isely. "Not very

are you in

on

Well, that's a good trait. And spoken like a man, too! We'll hear more about th

urdy young body - no doubt of it. Those large, clear gray eyes we

his brother-in-law. "I like his g

rank, might do much for the boy. He might eventually l

body-guard, Manuel, who spoke both English and Spanish, much to the ast

she told him she was very grateful. He talked to Frank about his studies, and found that he cared little for books or most of the study

observed. "I want to get out and get to

" observed his uncle. "You're

irt

u'll do better if you stay until seventeen or eightee

be a boy. I wan

ll be a man soon enough. You

s,

ere 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 o

d, not strange to say, he liked the whole Cowperwood household much better for