f crockery and glassware. In 1880, married
Josephine Chabert, whose father kept a restaurant in Park Place.

Sielcken had learned Spanish in Costa Rica, and this knowledge aided him
to a place with W.H. Crossman & Bro. (W.H. and George W. Crossman)
merchandise commission merchants in Broad Street. He was sent to South
America to solicit consignments for the Crossmans, and was surprisingly
successful. For six or eight months every South American mail brought
orders to the house. Then, as the story goes, his reports suddenly
ceased. Weeks and months passed, and the firm heard nothing from him.

The Crossmans speculated concerning his fate. It was thought he might
have caught a fever and died. It was almost impossible to trace him; at
the same time it distressed them to lose so promising a representative.
Giving up all hope of hearing from him again, they began to look around
for some one to take his place. Then, one morning, he walked into the
office and said, "How do you do?" just as if he had left them only the
evening before. The members of the firm questioned him eagerly. He
answered some of their questions; but most of them he did not. Then he
laid a package on the table.

[Illustration: HERMANN SIELCKEN]

"Gentlemen", he said, "I have given a large amount of business to you,
far more than you expected, as the result of my trip. I have a lot more
business which I can give to you. It's all in black and white in the
papers in this package. I think any person who has worked as hard as I
have, and so well, deserves a partnership in this firm. If you want
these orders, you may have them. They represent a big profit to you.
Good work deserves proper reward. Look these papers over, and then tell
me if you want me to continue with you as a member of this firm."

After the Crossmans had looked those papers over they had no doubt of
the advisability of taking Sielcken into partnership. He was admitted as
a junior in 1881-82 and became a full partner in 1885. For more than
twenty years Hermann Sielcken was the human dynamo that pushed the firm
forward into a place of world prominence. He was the best informed man
on coffee in two continents; and when, in 1904, the firm name was
changed to Crossman & Sielcken--W.H. Crossman having died ten years
before--he was well prepared to assert his rights as king of the trade.
He proved his kingship by his masterful handling of valorization three
years later.

Sielcken was many times