Then the man of business bade his secretary envelop the package and send it by messenger to military headquarters. It came back promptly with this endorsement on it: "Application denied. The proposed shipment is larger than this office regards as proper _under existing circumstances_." The last three words were heavily and suggestively underscored. Captain Hallam thought he understood. He was in the habit of understanding quickly. He called the cashier, handed him the check, first tearing it into four pieces, and bade him cancel the stub and draw a new check for ten thousand dollars, payable as before, to "the King of Holland _or Bearer_." Then he endorsed the application with the sentence: "As conditions have somewhat changed since this application was rejected, I venture to ask a reconsideration." Half an hour later Captain Hallam was duly and officially notified that his application for permission to ship five thousand bales of cotton was granted. The check--without endorsement--was cashed next day--the bank teller would never say by whom. But in the meanwhile Captain 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.