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. I coolly asked Mr. Nazro what was the prevailing rate of exchange, and he replied that it was $4.80 to the pound. "That is just 24 cents to the shilling, two cents to the penny," I said, and went to work. It was then noon. It would have taken some clerks a week to do the task; but I had completed it by six o'clock that afternoon. When I handed the list back to him, he asked, with an astonished air, if I had finished it. "You can see for yourself," I replied. "There it is, all made out properly and correctly." "How do you know it is right?" said he. "Because I have proved it," I replied. This little task decided my fate. Mr. Nazro told me the office hours were from eight until six, with the rest of the time, the evenings, all my own. The next morning I arrived at the office promptly, and asked Mr. Nazro what I was to do. He handed me a package of bills. I saw they were the bills upon which I had worked the day before, changing English to American currency. There were 150 of them. Each was to contain the amount that must be collected from each of the consignees. I at once set to work on this new task, and completed it in less time than it had taken me to change the money. I went with the bills to Mr. Nazro, and asked what I was to do next. He gave me a collector's wallet into which to put the bills, and told me to go out and collect the amounts due. This was a staggerer, but I set about the difficult undertaking without any feeling of discouragement.