At length, after long deliberation, he went to young Bob Randall, floor broker for Parkman and Brooks. Randall's father, old Sam Randall, the big cotton man, had just emerged victor from a desperate fight with the Parker-Moorfield interests, the loudest bellowing and highest tossing of all the great cotton bulls, in which battle, besides the prestige gained, he was incidentally reported to have cleaned up something over two millions on the sharp break in July cotton. Young Bob, besides having money back of him, was one of those gifted mortals who seem always able to carry others with them in whatever they choose to undertake. With a national reputation as an athlete while still at school, in college he had played end on the football team, and then made the crew, both with the same ease with which he had been chosen president of his class, and called out as first man on the Alpha Chi. In addition, in his few leisure moments he had worked enough, as he had himself expressed it, to "somehow get by," so that at last, infinitely to his friends' surprise, and somewhat to his own, he found himself, at the end of his four years, entitled to his sheepskin, and perchance with somewhat mingled feelings of regret for lost opportunities of learning, and of satisfaction at more substantial and worldly-wise success, heard himself, together with three hundred of his mates, welcomed by the venerable president in his class-day address to "the fellowship of educated men." To young Randall, then, over the coffee and cigars in a private dining-room at the Federal, Gordon broached the subject. "Bob," he said abruptly, "do you want to make a barrel of money?" Randall nodded. "Sure thing," he answered briefly. "How?" Gordon did not at once reply, and when he did, it was to answer the query with another. "What do you know about coppers?" he asked. "Soft," answered the younger man readily, "and going lower, too. There's a big surplus supply of the metal stored somewhere, or at least so everybody says." Gordon leaned back in his chair, gazing at his companion from beneath half-closed eyelids. "Just one more question, Bob," he said; "don't think it's an impertinence. About how much are you getting now?" "Three thou," answered Randall promptly. "And now give me a turn. What in the devil are you driving at, anyway?" Gordon hesitated the veriest instant, as if choosing which course to pursue. Then he answered, speaking with the utmost earnestness.