first business venture. Walking along Front Street one day, a street
of importing and wholesale establishments, he saw an auctioneer's flag
hanging out before a wholesale grocery and from the interior came the
auctioneer's voice: "What am I bid for this exceptional lot of Java
coffee, twenty-two bags all told, which is now selling in the market for
seven dollars and thirty-two cents a bag wholesale? What am I bid? What
am I bid? The whole lot must go as one. What am I bid?"

"Eighteen dollars," suggested a trader standing near the door, more to
start the bidding than anything else. Frank paused.

"Twenty-two!" called another.

"Thirty!" a third. "Thirty-five!" a fourth, and so up to seventy-five,
less than half of what it was worth.

"I'm bid seventy-five! I'm bid seventy-five!" called the auctioneer,
loudly. "Any other offers? Going once at seventy-five; am I offered
eighty? Going twice at seventy-five, and"--he paused, one hand raised
dramatically. Then he brought it down with a slap in the palm of the
other--"sold to Mr. Silas Gregory for seventy-five. Make a note of that,
Jerry," he called to his red-haired, freckle-faced clerk beside him.
Then he turned to another lot of grocery staples--this time starch,
eleven barrels of it.

Young Cowperwood was making a rapid calculation. If, as the auctioneer
said, coffee was worth seven dollars and thirty-two cents a bag in the
open market, and this buyer was getting this coffee for seventy-five
dollars, he was making then and there eighty-six dollars and four cents,
to say nothing of what his profit would be if he sold it at retail. As