"Audentes fortuna juvat"....

It is on the darers, not on the audacious, that Fortune almost always
smiled. The audacious may be unguarded. The darer thinks first, acts
afterwards. There is the difference!

Dick Sand was _audens_.

At fifteen he already knew how to take a part, and to carry out to the
end whatever his resolute spirit had decided upon. His manner, at once
spirited and serious, attracted attention. He did not squander himself
in words and gestures, as boys of his age generally do. Early, at a
period of life when they seldom discuss the problems of existence, he
had looked his miserable condition in the face, and he had promised "to
make" himself.

And he had made himself--being already almost a man at an age when
others are still only children.

At the same time, very nimble, very skilful in all physical exercises,
Dick Sand was one of those privileged beings, of whom it may be said
that they were born with two left feet and two right hands. In that
way, they do everything with the right hand, and always set out with
the left foot.

Public charity, it has been said, had brought up the little orphan. He
had been put first in one of those houses for children, where there is
always, in America, a place for the little waifs. Then at four, Dick
learned to read, write and count in one of those State of New York