Финансист / The Financier - стр. 8
“Thanks,” he smiled.
And she began to run gayly onward.
He looked after her with a smiling face. She was very pretty. He felt a keen desire to kiss her.
This was just one of the early love affairs, or puppy loves. Patience Barlow was kissed by him many times before he found another girl—Dora Fitler[21], when he was sixteen years old and she was fourteen; and Marjorie Stafford[22], when he was seventeen and she was fifteen. Dora Fitter was a brunette, and Marjorie Stafford was fair, with bright-red cheeks, bluish-gray eyes, and flaxen hair.
It was at seventeen that he decided to leave school. He had not graduated. He had had enough. Ever since his thirteenth year his mind had been on finance. His Uncle Seneca had allowed him to act as assistant weigher at the sugar-docks in Southwark. In certain emergencies he was called to assist his father, and was paid for it. He even made an arrangement with Mr. Dalrymple to assist him on Saturdays; but when his father became cashier of his bank, receiving an income of four thousand dollars a year, shortly after Frank had reached his fifteenth year, it was self-evident that Frank could no longer continue in such lowly employment.
Just at this time his Uncle Seneca, again back in Philadelphia and stouter and more domineering than ever, said to him one day:
“Now, Frank, if you're ready for it, I think I know where there's a good opening for you. There won't be any salary in it for the first year, but they'll probably give you something as a gift at the end. Henry Waterman & Company might make a place for you as a bookkeeper.”
Uncle Seneca was married now, having, because of his wealth, attracted the attention of a poor but ambitious matron.
This offer of Uncle Seneca to get him in with Waterman & Company seemed to Frank quite reasonable. So he came to that organization at 74 South Second Street one day in June, and was cordially received by Mr. Henry Waterman. He looked him over critically. Yes, this boy might do, he thought. He would like to try.
“I like that fellow,” Henry Waterman confided to his brother the moment Frank had gone. “He's clean, brisk, and alive.”
“Yes,” said George, a much leaner and slightly taller man. “Yes, he's a nice young man. It's a wonder his father doesn't take him in his bank.”
“Well, he may not be able to,” said his brother. “He's only the cashier there.”
“That's right.”
“Well, we'll give him a trial. I bet anything he makes good.”
Something told him the boy would do well.
Chapter IV
The appearance of Frank Cowperwood at this time was prepossessing and satisfactory. He was about five feet ten inches tall. His head was large, shapely, his eyes were inscrutable. You could tell nothing by his eyes. He walked with a light, confident, springy step. He saw people richer than himself, but he hoped to be rich. His family was respected, his father well placed. He owed no man anything.
He turned out to be the most efficient clerk that the house of Waterman & Co. had ever known. They put him on the books at first as assistant bookkeeper, and in two weeks George said: “Why don't we make Cowperwood head bookkeeper?”
“All right, make the transfer, George, but he won't be a bookkeeper long, though.”
The books of Messrs. Waterman & Co were child's play to Frank. He went through them with an ease and rapidity which surprised his erstwhile superior, Mr. Sampson.