ptain Hallam had said
to his secretary:

"Telegraph the general freight agent at Chicago for freight cars, as
fast as he can let me have them. Say I have five thousand bales of
cotton awaiting shipment, with more to come as fast as I can get
permits."

Then Captain Hallam mounted his horse and rode away for a
"constitutional."

All this occurred a year or two before the time of Guilford Duncan's
arrival in Cairo; but it was peculiarly characteristic of Captain
Hallam's methods and the story of it is illustrative of his ideas.

VII

THE "SIZING UP" OF GUILFORD DUNCAN

Captain Will Hallam was quick to make up his mind with regard to a man.
He was exceedingly accurate in his human judgments, too, and his
confidence in them had been strengthened by experience in successfully
acting upon them. As he phrased it, he "knew how to size a man up," and,
as the employer of multitudes of men in all parts of the country and in
all sorts of capacities, he had daily need of the skill he had acquired
in that art. It was as much a part of his equipment for the conduct of
his vast and varied enterprises as was his money capital itself.

When young Duncan presented himself in the private office after his
night's vigil as a watchman, Captain Hallam asked him to sit. That was a
recognition of his social status as something better than his employment
of the night before might have suggested. Ordinarily a man employed as a
levee watchman would not have been told to come to the private office at
all. Nor would such a man have seen anybody higher than a junior clerk
in collecting his wages.

But Captain Hallam had been impressed by this newcomer, and he wanted to
talk with him.

He broke at once into a catechism.

"Why did you do that little fire-extinguishing act last night?"

He asked the question precisely as he might have done if he had resented
the saving of his wealth of cotton.

"Oh, it was simple enough. The fire meant damage, and I was there. So,
of course, I put it out."

"But why? The cotton wasn't yours, and you hadn't been hired to watch
it."

"No, of course not. But when a gentle----I mean when any decent man
sees property afire he doesn't ask whose it is before putting out the
blaze."

"You're a Virginian, I should say, from your voice--late of the rebel
army. What's your rank?"

"None now. I've put the war completely behind me. I'm beginning life
anew."

"Good! I wish everybody, north and south, w