It was not necessary to say more. Even in those days the great Strauss had made his name as well known as that of the father of our country. He it was who knew each morning whether the rains had fallen on the plains beneath the Andes; how many cattle on the hoof had entered the gates of Omaha and Kansas City; how tight the pinch of starvation set upon Russian bellies; and whether the Sultan's subjects had bought their bread of Liverpool. Flesh and grain, meat and bread--Strauss held them in his hand, and he dealt them forth in the markets of the world! Is it any wonder that I looked hard at the portly, red-faced man, standing there on the steps of his temple, where, with his women and children, he had been worshipping his God? "My!" said Grace, "Mrs. Strauss is plain enough, and just common-looking." (I have noticed that women find it hard to reconcile themselves to a rich man's early taste in their sex.) "She don't dress very stylish, that's true," Hillary observed thoughtfully. "But it weren't so very long ago, I guess, that she was saving his money." Strauss, surrounded by his women folk, marched up the avenue in solemn order. We followed along slowly on the other side of the street. "He didn't make his pile at the Enterprise Market," Grace remarked. She spoke the idea that was in all our minds: how did he and the others make their money? "I guess they began like other folks," Hillary contended, "saving their earnings and not putting all their money in their stomachs and on their backs." This last was aimed at Grace, who was pretty smartly dressed. "Well," said Slocum, dryly, "probably by this time Strauss has something more than his savings in the bank." Thus we followed them down the street, speculating on the great packer's success, on the success of all the fortunate ones in the great game of the market, wondering what magic power these men possessed to lift themselves out of the mass of people like ourselves. Pretty simple of us, perhaps you think, hanging around on the street a good winter morning and gossiping about our rich neighbors! But natural enough, too: we had no place to loaf in, except Ma Pierson's smelly dining room, and nothing to do with our Sunday holiday but to walk around the streets and stare up at the handsome new houses and our well-dressed and prosperous neighbors. Every keen boy who looks out on life from the city sidewalk has a pretty vigorous idea that if he isn't as good as the next man, at least he will make as much money if he can only learn the secret. We read about the rich and their doings in the newspapers; we see them in the streets; their horses and carriages flash by us--do you wonder that some poor clerks on a Sunday gape at the Steeles and the Strausses from the sidewalk?