decessor had done. Now, at forty-five, he had reached a point where
he found it difficult to distinguish between his working and his leisure
hours.

Cosden's heritage had been a healthy imagination, a robust constitution,
and an unbelievable capacity for work. Even his uncle Conover, from whom
he had a right to expect compensation for the indignity of wearing his
name throughout a lifetime, had left him to work out his own salvation.
His parents had never worn the purple, but, being sturdy, valuable
citizens, they spent their lives in fitting their son to occupy a
position in life higher than they themselves could hope to attain; and
Cosden had made the most of his opportunities. Seven years Huntington's
junior, he had succeeded in a comparatively short time in extracting
from his commercial pursuits a property which, from the standpoint of
income, at least, was hardly less than his friend's. He, too, was a
product of the university, but his name would be found blazoned on the
annals of Harvard athletics rather than in the archives of the Phi Beta
Kappa. His election as captain of the football team was a personal
triumph, for it broke the precedent of social dominance in athletics,
and laid the corner-stone for that democracy which since then has given
Harvard her remarkable string of victories. The same dogged
determination, backed up by real ability, which forced recognition in
college accomplished similar results in later and more serious
competitions. In the business world he was taken up first because he
made himself valuable and necessary, and he held his advantage by virtue
of his personal characteristics.

Cosden was not universally popular. He won his victories by sheer force
of determination and ability rather than by diplomacy or finesse. In
business dealings he had the reputation of being a hard man, demanding
his full pound of flesh and getting it, but he was scrupulously exact in
meeting his own obligations in the same spirit. To an extent this
characteristic was apparent in everything he did; but to those who came
to know him it ceased to be offensive because of other, more agreeable
qualities which went with it. They learned that, after all, money to him
was only the means to an end which he could not have secured without it.

To the man whose ruling passion is his business it is natural to measure
himself and his actions by the same yardstick which has yielded full
return in his office; to him whose p