When I came up to the building, my purpose was at once clear. I walked in and asked to see Colonel Train. The colonel shook hands cordially, and said he was very glad to see me. "Where do I come in?" I asked.
"Come in?" he almost gasped at this effrontery. "Why, people don't come into a big shipping house like this in that way. You are too young."
"I am growing older every day," I replied. "That is the reason I am here. I want to make my way in the world." "Well," said the colonel, smiling at me, "you come in to see me when you are seventeen years old."
"That will be next year," I replied. "I am sixteen now. I might just as well begin this year--right away." He tried to put me off one way after another; but I was not to be got rid of. I was there, and I meant to stay.
"I will come in to-morrow," I said. Then I left, quite content with myself and the turn my venture had taken. Of the issue I had no doubt.
Early on the following day, I went to the shipping office, and took my seat at one of the desks. I sat there and waited. After a little while, Colonel Train came in. He was astonished to see me sitting there, ready for work.
"You here?" he stammered. "Have you left the grocery store?" "Yes, sir," I said; "I have learned everything there is to learn there and in fact had done so before I had been there six months. I want a bigger field to work in."
"You don't mean to say you have come here without being invited?" "As I was not invited, that was about the only way for me to come," I said. "As I am here, I might as well stay." And I settled myself in the seat at the desk.
Colonel Train looked at the bookkeeper sorely perplexed. But I saw that he rather admired my persistence and bravado. I had won the first trial of arms.
"Well," said he, after a while, turning again to the bookkeeper, "we shall see if we can find something for you to do." "I will find something to do," I said. He smiled cordially at this, and said: "I will make a man of you." "I will make a man of myself," I replied.
Then the colonel asked Mr. Nazro, who had been the firm's bookkeeper for many years, to try to find something for me to do.
It so happened that the ship Anglo-Saxon had just arrived from Liverpool, Captain Joseph R. Gordon, with goods for 150 consignees. Mr. Nazro handed me the portage bill showing the amount to be collected from each of the 150 consignees. The amounts were set down in English money, and Mr. Nazro asked me to put them into American, or Federal, money. I fancied he was setting me what would prove to be an impossible task, just to dispose of me for all time. But he blundered, if this was his purpose. I had had some experience of English money at the grocery store, having often to change it into American money.