He knew the vague, uncertain look that came into the eyes of
unsuccessful business men at critical moments and watched for it and took
advantage of it as a successful prize fighter watches for a similar vague,
uncertain look in the eyes of an opponent.
He had found his work, and had the assurance and the confidence that comes
with that discovery. The stroke that he saw in the hand of the successful
business men about him is the stroke also of the master painter,
scientist, actor, singer, prize fighter. It was the hand of Whistler,
Balzac, Agassiz, and Terry McGovern. The sense of it had been in him when
as a boy he watched the totals grow in the yellow bankbook, and now and
then he recognised it in Telfer talking on a country road. In the city
where men of wealth and power in affairs rubbed elbows with him in the
street cars and walked past him in hotel lobbies he watched and waited
saying to himself, "I also will be such a one."
Sam had not lost the vision that had come to him when as a boy he walked
on the road and listened to the talk of Telfer, but he now thought of
himself as one who had not only a hunger for achievement but also a
knowledge of where to look for it.
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