of the ropes, to handle some of the firm's orders, I shall be just as much
beholden to you and Jim, sir, and shall feel a lot better myself."

I knew what Bob meant; so did father, and we were glad enough to do what
he asked, father insisting on making the seat price in the form of a
present, after explaining to us that a foundation Stock Exchange rule
prohibited an applicant from borrowing the seat price. Four years after
Bob Brownley entered the Stock Exchange he had paid back the forty
thousand, with interest, and not only had a snug fifty thousand to his
credit on Randolph & Randolph's books, but was sending home six thousand a
year while living up to, as he jokingly put it, "an honest man's notch." I
may say in passing, that a Wall Street man's notch would make twice six
thousand yearly earnings cast an uncertain shadow at Christmas time. Bob
was the favourite of the Exchange, as he had been the pet at school and at
college, and had his hands full of business three hundred days in the
year. Besides Randolph & Randolph's choicest commissions, he had the
confidential orders of two of the heavy plunging cliques.

I had just passed my thirty-second birthday when my kind old dad suddenly
died. For the previous six years I had been getting ready for such an
event; that is, I had grown accustomed to hearing my father say: "Jim,
don't let any grass grow in getting the hang of every branch of our
business, so that when anything happens to me there will be no disturbance
in 'the Street' in regard to Randolph & Randolph's affairs. I want to let
the world know as soon as possible that after I am gone our business will
run as it always has. So I will work you into my directorships in those
companies where we have interests and gradually put you into my different
trusteeships."

Thus at father's death there was not a ripple in our affairs and none of