That single hazing trick disgusted Isidor Straus immeasurably. He was a serious-minded young man, who realized that Georgia at that moment was passing through a particularly serious crisis in her affairs. For such tomfoolery and at such a time he had no use whatsoever. It settled his mind. He did not enter the school, but returned to his hotel, and on the following day, going to a nearby mill, bought a stock of grain and began merchandising it, on his own behalf. This was not to last long, however. The struggling Confederacy needed his services and needed them badly. The fame of the Straus family--its great ingenuity and ability--had long since passed outside of the boundaries of Talbot County. Tongues wagged and said that Isidor had inherited all of his father's vision and acumen. That settled it. Lloyd G. Bowers, a prominent Georgian, was being designated to head a mission to Europe, to sell, if he could, both Confederate bonds and cotton acceptances. He chose for his secretary and assistant Isidor Straus. And early in 1863 the two men embarked upon a small ship, The May, in Charleston harbor, which, in the course of a single evening, successfully performed the difficult task of running the blockade that guarded that port. Two days later they were at Nassau in the Bahamas, from which the voyage to England was a secondary and fairly easy matter. Despite the seeming hopelessness of his task--for already the tide had turned and was flowing against the Confederacy--Isidor Straus had a remarkable degree of success in England. In his later years he was fond of relating how, in 1890, while sojourning abroad, in turning over a telephone book in London he came to a name which brought back memories and, acting upon impulse, called that name to the telephone. "Can you tell me the price of Confederate bonds this morning?" he asked quietly. "Isidor Straus!" came the astonished reply. A few hours later a real reunion was in progress. Long before Appomattox came the utter failure of the once brisk little store at Talboton. In fact, the family had left that small village--very nearly in Sherman's path--and had moved to Columbus. There it sat in debt and desperation, as the Confederacy sank to its inevitable death. The only ray of hope in its existence was the vague possibility of success in Isidor's trip to England. And when the son came back to New York, soon after Lee's surrender, Lazarus Straus went north to meet him. Isidor had prospered. Cotton acceptances were not the bonds of a defunct young nation. England needed cotton--the mills of Manchester had stood idle for weeks and months at a time. Isidor Straus knew when and how to sell his cotton-bills--he was, in every sense of the word, a born merchant. He sold shrewdly, lived frugally, and returned to the United States with $12,000 in gold upon his person!