Финансист / The Financier - стр. 7

He hurried back, whistling; and his father glanced up smiling when he came in.

“Here's a note at thirty days,” he said, producing the paper Dalrymple had given him. “Do you want to discount that for me? You can take your thirty-two out of that.”

His father examined it closely. “Sixty-two dollars!” he observed. “Mr. Dalrymple! That's good paper! Yes, I can. It will cost you ten per cent,” he added, jestingly. “Why don't you just hold it, though? I'll let you have the thirty-two dollars until the end of the month.”

“Oh, no,” said his son, “you discount it and take your money. I may want mine.”

His father smiled at his business-like air. “All right,” he said. “I'll fix it tomorrow. Tell me just how you did this.” And his son told him.

At seven o'clock that evening Frank's mother heard about it, and later Uncle Seneca.

“What'd I tell you, Cowperwood?” he asked. “He has stuff in him, that youngster. Look out for him.”

Mrs. Cowperwood looked at her boy curiously at dinner. Was this the son she had nursed at her bosom not so very long before? Surely he was developing rapidly.

“Well, Frank, I hope you can do that often,” she said.

“I hope so, too, ma,” was his reply.

Auction sales were not every day, however, and his home grocer was open to the transactions not every time, but from the very first young Cowperwood knew how to make money.

He took subscriptions for a boys' paper; sold a new kind of ice-skate, and once organized a band of neighborhood youths into a union for the purpose of purchasing their summer straw hats. It was not his idea that he could get rich by saving. From the first he had the notion that spending was better.

It was in this year, or a little earlier, that he began to take an interest in girls. Being good-looking and magnetic himself, it was not difficult for him to attract the sympathetic interest of those in whom he was interested. A twelve-year old girl, Patience Barlow[19], who lived nearby, was the first to attract his attention or be attracted by him. She was a Quakeress, the daughter of Quaker parents. However, she liked this self-reliant, self-sufficient, straight-spoken boy.

One day, after an exchange of glances from time to time, he said, with a smile and the courage that was innate in him: “You live nearby, don't you?”

“Yes,” she replied, a little flustered, “I live at number one-forty-one.”

“I know the house,” he said. “I've seen you go in there. You go to the same school my sister does, don't you? Aren't you Patience Barlow?” He had heard some of the boys speak her name.

“Yes. How do you know?”

“Oh, I've heard,” he smiled. “I've seen you. Do you like licorice?”

He fished in his coat and pulled out some fresh sticks.

“Thank you,” she said, sweetly, taking one.

“Don't you know my sister, Anna Cowperwood?” he recurred. “She's in a lower grade than you are, but I thought maybe you might have seen her.”

“I think I know who she is. I've seen her coming home from school.”

“I live right over there,” he confided, pointing to his own home, as if she didn't know.

“Do you know Ruth Merriam[20]?” she asked.

“No, why?”

“She's giving a party next Tuesday.”

“Where does she live?”

“There in twenty-eight.”

“I'd like to go,” he affirmed, warmly.

“Maybe she'll invite you, I'll ask her.”