save one lot of two hundred barrels, which he decided to offer in one
lump to a famous operator named Genderman with whom his firm did no
business. The latter, a big man with curly gray hair, a gnarled and
yet pudgy face, and little eyes that peeked out shrewdly through fat
eyelids, looked at Cowperwood curiously when he came in.

"What's your name, young man?" he asked, leaning back in his wooden
chair.

"Cowperwood."

"So you work for Waterman & Company? You want to make a record, no
doubt. That's why you came to me?"

Cowperwood merely smiled.

"Well, I'll take your flour. I need it. Bill it to me."

Cowperwood hurried out. He went direct to a firm of brokers in Walnut
Street, with whom his firm dealt, and had them bid in the grain he
needed at prevailing rates. Then he returned to the office.

"Well," said Henry Waterman, when he reported, "you did that quick. Sold
old Genderman two hundred barrels direct, did you? That's doing pretty
well. He isn't on our books, is he?"

"No, sir."

"I thought not. Well, if you can do that sort of work on the street you
won't be on the books long."