Up to this time he had been an exceedingly fortunate man. To begin with, he had been born of a good family, although, at the time of his father's death, reduced in circumstances. While quite a small boy, he had been taken in as clerk through the influence of Mr. Milton, who had been a friend of his father. The good blood in the young man had told from the start. He had shown himself capable and unusually shrewd in business matters, and had risen rapidly to the position of chief confidential clerk. In this position he was intrusted with the most important matters of the firm, and was familiar with all its business relations. His abilities had expanded with the increasing duties of his successive positions. He had done the firm much service, and had shown himself to be a most valuable and trustworthy man. But, with it all, the eyes of old Silas Beaumont had followed his every act, in season and out of season, tirelessly. It was a favorite theory of old Beaumont, that the great knave was usually the man of irreproachable habits, and necessarily the man of powerful and unusual abilities, and that, instead of resorting to ordinary vices or slight acts of rascality, he was wont to bide his time until his reputation gained him opportunity for some gigantic act of dishonesty, whereby he could make a vast sum at one stroke. Old Beaumont was accustomed to cite two scriptural passages as the basis of his theory, one being that oft-quoted remark of David in his haste, and the other explanatory of what the Lord saw when he repented that he had made man on the earth. Like all those of his type, when this theory had once become fixed with him, he sought on all occasions for instances by which to demonstrate its truthfulness. Thus it happened that the honesty and industry of young Harris were the very grounds upon which Beaumont based his suspicions and his acts of vigilance. When it was proposed that Carper Harris should go to Europe in order to buy certain grades of pottery which the firm imported, Beaumont grumbled and intimated that it was taking a large risk to intrust money to him. He said the sum was greater than the young man had been accustomed to handle, that big amounts of cash were dangerous baits, and then he switched over to his theory and hinted that just this kind of opportunity would be the one which a man would seize for his master act of dishonesty. The other members of the firm ridiculed the idea, and arranged the matter over Silas Beaumont's protest.