The Financier. Theodore Dreiser
five hundred dollars would be right. Beginning January first we'll give you a regular salary of thirty dollars a week.”
“I'm certainly much obliged to you,” said Frank. “I didn't expect that much. It's a good deal. I've learned considerable here that I'm glad to know.”
“Oh, don't mention it. We know you've earned it. You can stay with us as long as you like. We're glad to have you with us.”
Cowperwood smiled his hearty, genial smile. He was feeling very comfortable under this evidence of approval. He looked bright and cheery in his well-made clothes of English tweed.
On the way home that evening he speculated as to the nature of this business. He knew he wasn't going to stay there long, even in spite of this gift and promise of salary. They were grateful, of course; but why shouldn't they be? He was efficient, he knew that; under him things moved smoothly. It never occurred to him that he belonged in the realm of clerkdom. Those people were the kind of beings who ought to work for him, and who would. There was nothing savage in his attitude, no rage against fate, no dark fear of failure. These two men he worked for were already nothing more than characters in his eyes—their business significated itself. He could see their weaknesses and their shortcomings as a much older man might have viewed a boy's.
After dinner that evening, before leaving to call on his girl, Marjorie Stafford, he told his father of the gift of five hundred dollars and the promised salary.
“That's splendid,” said the older man. “You're doing better than I thought. I suppose you'll stay there.”
“No, I won't. I think I'll quit sometime next year.”
“Why?”
“Well, it isn't exactly what I want to do. It's all right, but I'd rather try my hand at brokerage, I think. That appeals to me.”
“Don't you think you are doing them an injustice not to tell them?”
“Not at all. They need me.” All the while surveying himself in a mirror, straightening his tie and adjusting his coat.
“Have you told your mother?”
“No. I'm going to do it now.”
He went out into the dining-room, where his mother was, and slipping his arms around her little body, said: “What do you think, Mammy?”
“Well, what?” she asked, looking affectionately into his eyes.
“I got five hundred dollars to-night, and I get thirty a week next year. What do you want for Christmas?”
“You don't say! Isn't that nice! Isn't that fine! They must like you. You're getting to be quite a man, aren't you?”
“What do you want for Christmas?”
“Nothing. I don't want anything. I have my children.”
He smiled. “All right. Then nothing it is.”
But she knew he would buy her something.
He went out, pausing at the door to grab playfully at his sister's waist, and saying that he'd be back about midnight, hurried to Marjorie's house, because he had promised to take her to a show.
“Anything you want for Christmas this year, Margy?” he asked, after kissing her in the dimly-lighted hall. “I got five hundred to-night.”
She was an innocent little thing, only fifteen, no guile, no shrewdness.
“Oh, you needn't get me anything.”
“Needn't I?” he asked, squeezing her waist and kissing her mouth again.
It was fine to be getting on this way in the world and having such a good time.
Chapter V
The following October, having passed his eighteenth year by nearly six months, and feeling sure that he would never want anything to do with the grain and commission business as conducted by the Waterman Company, Cowperwood decided to sever his relations with them and enter the employ of Tighe & Company, bankers and brokers.
Cowperwood's meeting with Tighe & Company had come about in the ordinary pursuance of his duties as outside man for Waterman & Company. From the first Mr. Tighe took a keen interest in this subtle young emissary.
“How's business with you people?” he would ask, genially; or, “Find that you're getting many I.O.U.'s these days?”
Because of the unsettled condition of the country, the over-inflation of securities, the slavery agitation, and so forth, there were prospects of hard times. And Tighe—he could not have told you why—was convinced that this young man was worth talking to in regard to all this. He was not really old enough to know, and yet he did know.
“Oh, things are going pretty well with us, thank you, Mr. Tighe,” Cowperwood would answer.
“I tell you,” he said to Cowperwood one morning, “this slavery agitation, if it doesn't stop, is going to cause trouble.”
A negro slave belonging to a visitor from Cuba had just been abducted and set free, because the laws of Pennsylvania made freedom the right of any negro brought into the state, even though in transit only to another portion of the country, and there was great excitement because of it. Several persons had been arrested, and the newspapers were discussing it roundly.
“I don't think the South is going to stand for this thing. It's making trouble in our business, and it must be doing the same thing for others. We'll have secession here, sure as fate, one of these days.” He talked with the vaguest suggestion of a brogue.
“It's coming, I think,” said Cowperwood, quietly. “It can't be healed, in my judgment. The negro isn't worth all this excitement, but they'll go on agitating for him—emotional people always do this. They haven't anything else to do. It's hurting our Southern trade.”
“I thought so. That's what people tell me.”
He turned to a new customer as young Cowperwood went out, but again the boy struck him as being inexpressibly sound and deep-thinking on financial matters. “If that young fellow wanted a place, I'd give it to him,” he thought.
Finally, one day he said to him: “How would you like to try your hand at being a floor man for me in 'change? I need a young man here. One of my clerks is leaving.”
“I'd like it,” replied Cowperwood, smiling and looking intensely gratified. “I had thought of speaking to you myself some time.”
“Well, if you're ready and can make the change, the place is open. Come any time you like.”
“I'll have to give a reasonable notice at the other place,” Cowperwood said, quietly. “Would you mind waiting a week or two?”
“Not at all. It isn't as important as that. Come as soon as you can straighten things out. I don't want to inconvenience your employers.”
It was only two weeks later that Frank took his departure from Waterman & Company, interested and yet in no way flustered by his new prospects. And great was the grief of Mr. George Waterman. As for Mr. Henry Waterman, he was actually irritated by this defection.
“Why, I thought,” he exclaimed, vigorously, when informed by Cowperwood of his decision, “that you liked the business. Is it a matter of salary?”
“No, not at all, Mr. Waterman. It's just that I want to get into the straight-out brokerage business.”
“Well, that certainly is too bad. I'm sorry. I don't want to urge you against your own best interests. You know what you are doing. But George and I had about agreed to offer you an interest in this thing