The Financier | Page 7

vast, amounting, in fact, to
an entire monopoly of the business of supplying beef to Eastern cities. He was a big man,
enormous, with a face, his father said, something like that of a pig; and he wore a high
beaver hat and a long frock-coat which hung loosely about his big chest and stomach. He
had managed to force the price of beef up to thirty cents a pound, causing all the retailers
and consumers to rebel, and this was what made him so conspicuous. He used to come to
the brokerage end of the elder Cowperwood's bank, with as much as one hundred
thousand or two hundred thousand dollars, in twelve months-- post-notes of the United
States Bank in denominations of one thousand, five thousand, and ten thousand dollars.
These he would cash at from ten to twelve per cent. under their face value, having
previously given the United States Bank his own note at four months for the entire
amount. He would take his pay from the Third National brokerage counter in packages of
Virginia, Ohio, and western Pennsylvania bank-notes at par, because he made his
disbursements principally in those States. The Third National would in the first place
realize a profit of from four to five per cent. on the original transaction; and as it took the
Western bank-notes at a discount, it also made a profit on those.
There was another man his father talked about--one Francis J. Grund, a famous
newspaper correspondent and lobbyist at Washington, who possessed the faculty of
unearthing secrets of every kind, especially those relating to financial legislation. The
secrets of the President and the Cabinet, as well as of the Senate and the House of
Representatives, seemed to be open to him. Grund had been about, years before,
purchasing through one or two brokers large amounts of the various kinds of Texas debt
certificates and bonds. The Republic of Texas, in its struggle for independence from
Mexico, had issued bonds and certificates in great variety, amounting in value to ten or
fifteen million dollars. Later, in connection with the scheme to make Texas a State of the
Union, a bill was passed providing a contribution on the part of the United States of five
million dollars, to be applied to the extinguishment of this old debt. Grund knew of this,
and also of the fact that some of this debt, owing to the peculiar conditions of issue, was
to be paid in full, while other portions were to be scaled down, and there was to be a false
or pre-arranged failure to pass the bill at one session in order to frighten off the outsiders
who might have heard and begun to buy the old certificates for profit. He acquainted the
Third National Bank with this fact, and of course the information came to Cowperwood
as teller. He told his wife about it, and so his son, in this roundabout way, heard it, and
his clear, big eyes glistened. He wondered why his father did not take advantage of the
situation and buy some Texas certificates for himself. Grund, so his father said, and
possibly three or four others, had made over a hundred thousand dollars apiece. It wasn't

exactly legitimate, he seemed to think, and yet it was, too. Why shouldn't such inside
information be rewarded? Somehow, Frank realized that his father was too honest, too
cautious, but when he grew up, he told himself, he was going to be a broker, or a
financier, or a banker, and do some of these things.
Just at this time there came to the Cowperwoods an uncle who had not previously
appeared in the life of the family. He was a brother of Mrs. Cowperwood's--Seneca Davis
by name--solid, unctuous, five feet ten in height, with a big, round body, a round, smooth
head rather bald, a clear, ruddy complexion, blue eyes, and what little hair he had of a
sandy hue. He was exceedingly well dressed according to standards prevailing in those
days, indulging in flowered waistcoats, long, light-colored frock-coats, and the invariable
(for a fairly prosperous man) high hat. Frank was fascinated by him at once. He had been
a planter in Cuba and still owned a big ranch there and could tell him tales of Cuban
life--rebellions, ambuscades, hand-to-hand fighting with machetes on his own plantation,
and things of that sort. He brought with him a collection of Indian curies, to say nothing
of an independent fortune and several slaves--one, named Manuel, a tall, raw-boned
black, was his constant attendant, a bodyservant, as it were. He shipped raw sugar from
his plantation in boat-loads to the Southwark wharves in Philadelphia. Frank liked him
because he took life in a hearty, jovial way, rather rough and offhand for this somewhat