The comfortable fortune awaiting the present head of the house on his graduation from Princeton, he had increased to great wealth through an international banking organization built up largely through his efforts. Particularly proud was the housekeeper over the fact that not only the Cabot dollars but the master himself had worked unceasingly to “win the war,” that not only his own Government, but also those of Britain and France had heaped honors upon him. In the underwriting of the war loans of the Allies and in the direction of American Liberty Bond flotations the services he had rendered without financial gain were declared inestimable. For a time, indeed, the Cabot Bank--a classic structure on Broad Street within a stone’s throw of the homestead--had been the acknowledged center of war finance for half the world. By his employees--also according to Morrison--the banker was adored for his democratic manner; was respected for the unfailing honesty of his business code; was, at the same time, served with the diligence of fear. In his home, his every gesture was anticipated that it might be the more quickly obeyed. None, not even the beautiful madame, would have dared question any of the direct wishes he so seldom expressed. To his only son John Cabot was a fascinating mystery. “You know, John’s a queer man,” the boy confided to Dolores, with his elderly faculty for analysis. “He’s as quiet and kind as anybody could be and yet he keeps everyone scared of him. Morrison says it’s because he is ‘just.’ What is there about justice, ’Lores, that everybody’s so scared of?” On another occasion: “One thing I like about John, is the interest he can take in little things. Why, he plays my Christmas games better than I do, and the way he can keep clocks going! Sometimes when he stays home evenings, he brings almost a dozen in here and sits on the floor and gets them all ticking at once. That clock of my great-grandfather Cabot’s is his pet. All the jewelers said the old works would have to be replaced. But John says he’s going to keep it going through my lifetime at least. He’s funny that way. He never thinks of dying. Somehow, I don’t think anybody could make him die until he got ready.” Once the child-man had opened up a hurt in his confidence: “I heard my mother tell John one day that my grandmother--his own mother, you know--might have called him ‘Jack,’ but she felt sure that nobody else had. She said he was the uncompromising kind of man that everybody just naturally called ‘John.’ Sometimes my mother talks as if she did not think much of John, any more than she does of me. That’s why I can’t think much of her. Just what kind is an uncompromising man, ’Lores?”