to Nicholas Biddle and the United States Bank, one of the great issues of the day; and he was worried, as he might well be, by the perfect storm of wildcat money which was floating about and which was constantly coming to his bank—­discounted, of course, and handed out again to anxious borrowers at a profit.  His bank was the Third National of Philadelphia, located in that center of all Philadelphia and indeed, at that time, of practically all national finance—­Third Street—­and its owners conducted a brokerage business as a side line.  There was a perfect plague of State banks, great and small, in those days, issuing notes practically without regulation upon insecure and unknown assets and failing and suspending with astonishing rapidity; and a knowledge of all these was an important requirement of Mr. Cowperwood’s position.  As a result, he had become the soul of caution.  Unfortunately, for him, he lacked in a great measure the two things that are necessary for distinction in any field—­magnetism and vision.  He was not destined to be a great financier, though he was marked out to be a moderately successful one.

Mrs. Cowperwood was of a religious temperament—­a small woman, with light-brown hair and clear, brown eyes, who had been very attractive in her day, but had become rather prim and matter-of-fact and inclined to take very seriously the maternal care of her three sons and one daughter.  The former, captained by Frank, the eldest, were a source of considerable annoyance to her, for they were forever making expeditions to different parts of the city, getting in with bad boys, probably, and seeing and hearing things they should neither see nor hear.

Frank Cowperwood, even at ten, was a natural-born leader.  At the day school he attended, and later at the Central High School, he was looked upon as one whose common sense could unquestionably be trusted in all cases.  He was a sturdy youth, courageous and defiant.  From the very start of his life, he wanted to know about economics and politics.  He cared nothing for books.  He was a clean, stalky, shapely boy, with a bright, clean-cut, incisive face; large, clear, gray eyes; a wide forehead; short, bristly, dark-brown hair.  He had an incisive, quick-motioned, self-sufficient manner, and was forever asking questions with a keen desire for an intelligent reply.  He never had an ache or pain, ate his food with gusto, and ruled his brothers with a rod of iron.  “Come on, Joe!” “Hurry, Ed!” These commands were issued in no rough but always a sure way, and Joe and Ed came.  They looked up to Frank from the first as a master, and what he had to say was listened to eagerly.