“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.