"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 good grain and commission house. There's good
training to be had there. You'll learn a lot that you ought to know.
And, meantime, keep your health and learn all you can. Wherever I am,
you let me know, and I'll write and find out how you've been conducting
yourself."

He gave the boy a ten-dollar gold piece with which to start a
bank-account. And, not strange to say, he liked the whole Cowperwood
household much better for this dynamic, self-sufficient, sterling youth
who was an integral part of it.





Chapter III


It was in his thirteenth year that young Cowperwood entered into his