r told young Weidmann that he should
be excused from work as long as Roland remained; but the young man
replied, that there was so much work going on as to make that
impossible. The Banker dismissed him with an invitation to come that
evening to his house; and, after a few friendly words with Roland, the
boy departed.

The Banker considered whether it would not be well to sell some of
Sonnenkamp's American paper, owing to the unsettled state of the times;
but, on the other hand, he could hardly take upon himself the
responsibility. He received with a cordial smile Roland's suggestion,
that they were bound to keep his money as it was till there should be
some new developments.

Roland and Eric next accompanied the Banker to the house. It was just
at the time, when, owing to the election of Lincoln, American paper was
falling from day to day in value, occasioning great excitement in
business circles. Roland and Eric were greatly impressed by the fact;
and the question arose in their minds. How could men take a purely
moral and disinterested view of great public events, when the rise and
fall which they occasioned affected so immediately their own profit and
loss?

Bewildered by the noise and the contradictory emotions that the scene
aroused in them, they left the Exchange, and became the Banker's guests
in his own house.

Here the Banker assumed the part of teacher, and explained to his two
guests that the laws of economics and those of humanity were hard to
reconcile, almost as hard as the conflict between the freedom of the
will and the limitations of nature in the department of philosophy.
They are parallel lines that rarely meet, and then only to part again
at once. After all, what was one man's loss was another man's gain, so
that none of the world's property was really lost.

Eric showed how these contrasts had been recognized, though in a
different way, in the most ancient times. The rod of Hermes is at once
the wand of divination and the symbol of that instantaneous flash--the
introduction into life and the dismissal from it--by which the old
myths represented human life and death.

The Banker, who was always ready to receive information, listened to
Eric's explanation of the myths and sagas, and their similarity in all
the different nations. He was always eager to penetrate any new realm
of knowledge, and grateful for instruction.

While the company were at table, several telegrams were brought to the
B