center of Chicago, the giant son of a surprised father. It
is one of the city's show places, like the stockyards, the
Art Institute, and Field's. Fifteen years before, a
building had been erected to accommodate a prosperous mail
order business. It had been built large and roomy, with
plenty of seams, planned amply, it was thought, to allow the
boy to grow. It would do for twenty-five years,
surely. In ten years Haynes-Cooper was bursting its seams.
In twelve it was shamelessly naked, its arms and legs
sticking out of its inadequate garments. New red brick
buildings--another--another. Five stories added to this
one, six stories to that, a new fifteen story merchandise
building.

The firm began to talk in tens of millions. Its stock
became gilt-edged, unattainable. Lucky ones who had bought
of it diffidently, discreetly, with modest visions of four
and a half per cent in their unimaginative minds, saw their
dividends doubling, trebling, quadrupling, finally soaring
gymnastically beyond all reason. Listen to the old guide
who (at fifteen a week) takes groups of awed visitors
through the great plant. How he juggles figures; how
grandly they roll off his tongue. How glib he is with
Nathan Haynes's millions.

"This, ladies and gentlemen, is our mail department. From
two thousand to twenty-five hundred pounds of mail,
comprising over one hundred thousand letters, are received
here every day. Yes, madam, I said every day. About half
of these letters are orders. Last year the banking