"
"These cigars are the best in the city, or I wouldn't ask you to take
one," said Graham dryly. "You understand me, any way. Wait until I
tell my clerk that if anybody comes round I'm busy."
A bell rang, a little window opened and shut again, and Winston smiled
over his cigar.
"I want to make thirty thousand dollars as soon as I can, and it seems
to me there are going to be opportunities in this business. Do you
know anybody who would take me as clerk or salesman?"
Graham did not appear astonished. "You'll scarcely make them that way
if I find you a berth at fifty a month," he said.
"No," said Winston. "Still, I wouldn't purpose keeping it for more
than six months or so. By that time I should know a little about the
business."
"Got any money now?"
"One thousand dollars," said Winston quietly.
Graham nodded. "Smoke that cigar out, and don't worry me. I've got
some thinking to do."
Winston took up a journal, and laid it down again twenty minutes later.
"Well," he said, "you think it's too big a thing?"
"No," said Graham. "It depends upon the man, and it might be done.
Knowing the business goes a good way, and so does having dollars in
hand, but there's something that's born in one man in a thousand that
goes a long way further still. I can't tell you what it is, but I know
it when I see it."
"Then," said Winston, "you have seen this thing in me?"
Graham nodded gravely. "Yes, sir, but you don't want to get proud.
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