w bought more ships, and very properly named the first one
"Voltaire" and the next "Rousseau."

By Seventeen Hundred Ninety-five, he owned twenty-two ships and was
worth more than a million dollars. In fact, he was the first man in
America to have a million dollars in paying property at his disposal.

After he was thirty he was called "Old Girard." He centered on business,
and his life was as regular as a town clock. He lived over his warehouse
on Water Street and opened the doors in the morning himself. He was
regarded as cold and selfish.

He talked little, but he had a way of listening and making calculations
while others were arguing. Suddenly, he would reach a conclusion and
make his decision. When this was done, that was all there was about it.
The folks with whom he traded grew to respect his judgment and knew
better than to rob him of his time by haggling. His business judgment
was remarkably good, but not unerring. Yet he never cried over lacteal
fluid on the ground. When one of his captains came in and reported a
loss of ten thousand dollars through having been robbed by pirates,
Girard made him a present of a hundred to enable him to get his nerve
back, and told him he should be thankful that he got off with his life.

He loaded the ship up again, and in a year the man came back with a
cargo that netted twenty-five thousand dollars. Girard gave him a silver
watch worth twenty dollars and chided him for having been gone so long.

Then Girard made a pot of tea for both, on the little stove in the
office back of his bank, for the millionaire always prided himself on
being a cook.

His brother Jean had now come to join him. Jean was also a ship-captain.
Stephen bought a third ship and called it "The Two Brothers," in loving
token of the ownership.

When his brother Jean proved to be a bad businessman, although a good
sailor, Stephen presented him his own half-interest in the ship, and
told him to go off and make his fortune alone. Jean sailed away,
mortgaged his boat to get capital to trade upon, lost money and
eventually lost the boat. When he wanted to come back and work for his
brother, Stephen sent him a check, but declined to take him back. "The
way to help your poor relatives is to remit them. When you go partners
with them everybody loses."

Girard was a man of courage--moral, financial and physical. When his
ship, the "Montesquieu," arrived at the mouth of the Delaware on March
Twenty-sixth, Eigh