“Thirteen.”

“Well, you can't leave school before sixteen. You'll do better if you stay until seventeen or eighteen. It can't do you any harm. You won't be a boy again.”

“I don't want to be a boy. I want to get to work.”

“Don't go too fast, son. You'll be a man soon enough. You want to be a banker, do you?”

“Yes, sir!”

“Well, when the time comes, if everything is all right and you've behaved yourself and you still want to, I'll help you get a start in business. If I were you and were going to be a banker, I'd first spend a year or so in some good grain and commission house[13]. You'll learn a lot that you ought to know. And, meantime, keep your health and learn all you can.”

He gave the boy a ten-dollar gold piece with which to start a bank-account.

When young Cowperwood was thirteen, he entered into his first business venture. Walking along Front Street one day, he saw an auctioneer's flag hanging out before a wholesale grocery[14] 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? The whole lot must go as one. What am I bid?”

“Eighteen dollars,” suggested a trader standing near the door. 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[15] 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.

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. As he recalled, his mother was paying twenty-eight cents a pound.

He drew nearer, and watched these operations closely. The starch, as he soon heard, was valued at ten dollars a barrel, and it only brought six. Some kegs of vinegar were knocked down at one-third their value, and so on. He began to wish he could bid; but he had no money, just a little pocket change. The auctioneer noticed him standing almost directly under his nose, and was impressed with the stolidity – solidity – of the boy's expression.

“I am going to offer you now a fine lot of Castile soap – seven cases, no less – which, as you know, if you know anything about soap, is now selling at fourteen cents a bar. This soap is worth anywhere at this moment eleven dollars and seventy-five cents a case. What am I bid? What am I bid? What am I bid?”

He was talking fast in the usual style of auctioneers, with much unnecessary emphasis; but Cowperwood was not impressed. He was already rapidly calculating for himself. Seven cases at eleven dollars and seventy-five cents would be worth just eighty-two dollars and twenty-five cents; and if it went at half – if it went at half —

“Twelve dollars,” commented one bidder.

“Fifteen,” bid another.

“Twenty,” called a third.

“Twenty-five,” a fourth.

“Twenty-six.”

“Twenty-seven.”

“Twenty-eight.”