r
things."

Duncan wondered a little that Captain Hallam should give him so intimate
an invitation when he knew so little of him. Everybody else in the
office understood. Captain Will was planning to "size up his man" still
further, in an evening's conversation.

IX

ONE NIGHT'S WORK

As the weeks and months went on the results of Guilford Duncan's work
completely justified the confident assertion he had made to Captain
Hallam that _a capable man can learn anything if he really wants to_.

He rapidly familiarized himself with the technicalities, as well as with
the methods and broad principles of business. He sat up till midnight
for many nights in succession, in order to learn from the head
bookkeeper the rather scant mysteries of bookkeeping. By observing the
gaugers who measured coal barges to determine their contents, he quickly
acquired skill in doing that.

It was so with everything. He was determined to master every art and
mystery that in anywise pertained to business, whether the skill in
question was or was not one that he was ever likely to need or to
practice.

His diligence, his conscientiousness in work, his readiness of resource,
his alert intelligence, and his sturdy integrity daily commended him
more and more to the head of the firm, and not many months had passed
before everyone in the office tacitly recognized the young Virginian as
the confidential adviser and assistant of Captain Hallam himself, though
no formal appointment of that kind had been made.

But no advance of salary came to the young man as a result. It was one
of Captain Hallam's rules never to pay a man more for his services than
he must, and never to advance a man's salary until the advance was asked
for.

Captain Hallam was in no fibre of his being a miser, but he acted always
upon those cold-blooded prudential principles that had brought him
wealth. It was not money that this great captain of commerce worshiped,
but success. Success was the one god of his idolatry. Outside of his
business he was liberal in the extreme. Even in his business operations
he never hesitated at lavish expenditure where such expenditure promised
good results. But he regarded all unnecessary spending as waste, of the
kind that imperils success.

In his cynical moments, indeed, he sometimes said that "if you have a
valuable man in your employ, you must keep him poor; otherwise you'll
lose him." But in so saying he perhaps did himself an