sleepless, throbbing with a
fever that was like the fever of love, I studied at his side every
movement of the market, I weighed every word he uttered, I watched every
stroke of his stout cork-handled pen. An infallible judge of men, my
intimate knowledge soon taught me that it was by judging men, not
things, he had won his success. "Learn men, learn men, learn men," he
would repeat in one of his frequent losses of temper. "Everything rests
on a man, and the way to know the thing is to know the man."

"That's why I'm learning you, General," I once replied, as he hobbled
out of his office on my arm.

"Oh, I know, I know," he retorted with his sly chuckle. "You are letting
me lean on you now because you think the time will come when you can
throw me aside and stand up by yourself. It's age and youth, my boy, age
and youth."

He sighed wearily, and looking at him I saw for the first time that he
was growing old.

"Well, you've stood straight enough in your day, sir," I answered.

"Oh, I've had my youth, and I shan't begin to put on a long face because
I've lost it. I didn't have your stature, Ben, but I had a pretty fair
middling-size one of my own. They used to say of me that I had an eye
for the big chance, and that's a thing a man's got to be born with. To
see big you've got to be big, and that's what I like about you--you
ain't busy looking for specks."

"If I can only become as big a man as you, General, I shall be content."

"No, you won't, no, you won't, don't stop at me. Already they are
beginning to call you my 'wonderful boy,' you know. 'I like that
wonderful boy of yours, George,' Jessoms said to me only last night at
the club. You know Jessoms--don't you? He's president of the Union
Bank."

"Yes, I talked to him for two solid hours yesterday."

"He told me so, and I said to him: 'By Jove, you're right, Jessoms, and
that boy's got a future ahead of him if he doesn't swell.' Now that's
the Gospel truth, Ben, and all the body you've got ain't going to save
you if you don't keep your head. If you ever feel it beginning to swell,
you step outside and put it under a pump, that's the best thing I know
of. How old are you?"

"Twenty-six."

"And you've got fifty thousand dollars already?"

"Thanks to you, sir."

"So you ain't swelled yet. Well, I've given you six years of hard
training, and I made it all the blamed harder because I liked you.
You've got the look of success about you, I've seen enough o