ment in the
office, till I had fully mastered its details, and then be transferred
to another, and so on, till I had gradually acquainted myself with the
whole business of the house. "It's an old caprice of Herr Ignaz's," said
he, "which repeated failures have not yet discouraged him with. You 're
the fifth he has tried to make a supervisor of, and you'll follow the
rest."

"Is it so very difficult to learn?" asked I, modestly.

"Perhaps to one of your acquirements it might not," said he, with quiet
irony, "but, for a slight example: here, in this office, we correspond
with five countries in their own languages; yonder, in that room, they
talk modern Greek and Albanian and Servian; there's the Hungarian group,
next that bow window, and that takes in the Lower Danube; and in what we
call the Expeditions department there are; fellows who speak seventeen
dialects, and can write ten or twelve. So much for languages. Then what
do you say to mastering--since that's the word they have for it--the
grain trade from Russia, rags from Transylvania, staves from Hungary,
fruit from the Levant, cotton from Egypt, minerals from Lower Austria,
and woollen fabrics from Bohemia? We do something in all of these,
besides a fair share in oak bark and hemp."

"Stop, for mercy's sake!" I cried out "It would take a lifetime to gain
a mere current knowledge of these."

"Then, there's the finance department," said he; "watching the rise and
fall of the exchanges, buying and selling gold. Herr Ulrich, in that
office with the blue door, could tell you it's not to be picked up of
an afternoon. Perhaps you might as well begin with him; his is not a bad
school to take the fine edge off you."

"I shall do whatever you advise me."

"I'll speak to Herr Ulrich, then," said he; and he left me, to return
almost immediately, and conduct me within the precincts of the blue
door.

Herr Ulrich was a tall, thin, ascetic-looking man, with his hair brushed
rigidly back from the narrowest head I ever saw. His whole idea of life
was the office, which he arrived at by daybreak, and never left, except
to visit the Bourse, till late at night. He disliked, of all things, new
faces about him; and it was a piece of malice on the cashier's part to
bring me before him.

"I believed I had explained to Herr Ignaz already," said he to the
cashier, "that I am not a schoolmaster."

"Well, well," broke in the other, in a muffled voice, "try the lad. He
may not be so