something even better, but for the present this was sufficient. He was
exceedingly grateful.

Henry Worthington Cowperwood was a man who believed only what he saw and
was content to be what he was--a banker, or a prospective one. He was at
this time a significant figure--tall, lean, inquisitorial, clerkly--with
nice, smooth, closely-cropped side whiskers coming to almost the lower
lobes of his ears. His upper lip was smooth and curiously long, and
he had a long, straight nose and a chin that tended to be pointed. His
eyebrows were bushy, emphasizing vague, grayish-green eyes, and his hair
was short and smooth and nicely parted. He wore a frock-coat always--it
was quite the thing in financial circles in those days--and a high hat.
And he kept his hands and nails immaculately clean. His manner might
have been called severe, though really it was more cultivated than
austere.

Being ambitious to get ahead socially and financially, he was very
careful of whom or with whom he talked. He was as much afraid of
expressing a rabid or unpopular political or social opinion as he was
of being seen with an evil character, though he had really no opinion
of great political significance to express. He was neither anti- nor
pro-slavery, though the air was stormy with abolition sentiment and its
opposition. He believed sincerely that vast fortunes were to be made
out of railroads if one only had the capital and that curious thing, a
magnetic personality--the ability to win the confidence of others. He
was sure that Andrew Jackson was all wrong in his opposition to Nicholas
Biddle and the United States Bank, one of the great issues of the day;
and he was worried, as he might well be, by the perfect storm of wildcat
money which was floating about and which was constantly coming to his
bank--discounted, of course, and handed out again to anxious borrowers