This was the nugget upon which a new family beginning was made. There was to be no more South for the family of Straus. Business opportunity down there was dead--for a quarter of a century at the very least. But business opportunity in New York had never seemed as great as in the flush days of success and prosperity which followed the ending of the war. Lazarus Straus had brought north in his carpet-bag more cotton acceptances. But he had not been as fortunate as his son in having the time and the place to sell them at best advantage. Cotton within a few months had fallen in the United States to but one-half of its price of the preceding autumn. It was fortunate, indeed, that Isidor Straus had his little bag of golden coin at that moment. It was that gold that enabled him to start with his father, under the name of L. Straus & Son, a rather humble crockery business in a top-floor loft at 161 Chambers Street. The specie went toward the establishment of the new business. The debts of the old were already being paid. Lazarus Straus was, I believe, one of the few Southern merchants who paid their debts in the North in full, and thereby secured a great personal credit. This last came without great difficulty--in after years it was to be said that Isidor Straus could raise more money upon his word alone than any other man in New York. It was Mr. Bliss--of Bliss & Co., long time wholesalers of the city and predecessors of the well-known Tofft, Weller & Co.--who, upon being applied to by Isidor Straus for financial assistance, asked what he and his father proposed to do to regain their fortune. "Start in the china business," was the simple reply. "You have your courage," was Mr. Bliss's reply, "your father at the age of fifty-seven--and yourself--to embark upon a brand new business, in which neither of you have had the slightest experience." But such was the old New Yorker's faith in these men that he sold them the huge bill of merchandise, some $45,000, under which they embarked their business, saying that they could pay him, one-third in cash, and that he could well afford to wait two or even three years for the balance.