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Page 11
It was from that time that the great wealth of the Garmans really dated,
while Worse in a few years squandered his money and died insolvent.
It was whispered that Worse had left the business rather hastily, just
as the good times were beginning, but that was the usual luck of the
Garmans.
At first it looked as if Worse's widow and son, who carried on a small
business in the town, would work themselves up again, and this was
especially the case in recent years. Whatever might be the opinion as to
the arrangement between Garman and Worse, no one could ever accuse
Morten Garman of any want of straightforwardness in his business
arrangements; and his son Christian Frederick followed closely in his
steps, observing always the maxim, "What would father have done under
the circumstances?"
All went on thus prosperously and uniformly, until the young Consul
began to get old, and his elder son Morten came home from abroad and
became a partner in the firm. From that time many changes showed
themselves. The son had his head full of new foreign ideas; he was all
for rushing about, writing and telegraphing, ordering and
counter-ordering--a course of action that was quite foreign to Garman
and Worse's mode of procedure.
"Let them come to us," said the Consul.
"No, my dear father," answered Morten. "Don't you see that the times are
leaving you behind? It's of no use in these days to sit still; you must
keep your eyes open, or else run the risk of losing the best of the
business, and get nothing but just the residue."
Morten so far prevailed that the Consul was at length obliged to let him
set up an office in the town, but under his own name; for Garman and
Worse were still to be found only at Sandsgaard, and there those who
wished to do business with the firm had to betake themselves.
Meanwhile a considerable amount of business passed through Morten's
office in the town. This did not altogether please the Consul, but he
felt bound to uphold his son, which was what his father had always done,
and the firm thus became mixed up in many transactions which the father
would never have cared to enter upon.
To the clerks the young Consul was a being of quite another sphere.
Every head was bowed to him whenever he passed through the office, and
each one seemed to feel that the cold blue eyes penetrated everything
and everywhere--books, accounts, and letters, even into their own
private secrets. It was believed that he knew every page in the ledger,
and that he could quote intricate accounts, column by column, and if
there was even the slightest irregularity to be found anywhere, they
would wager that it could not escape the young Consul's eye. The general
conviction was, that if every creditor of the firm, or even the devil
himself, should some day take it into his head to come into the office,
there would not be found even the slightest error in one of the
ponderous and well-bound account books.
There was, however, one account which was a sealed book to them all, and
that was the one of Richard Garman. No mortal eye had ever seen it. Some
thought it might possibly be in the Consul's own red book; others
thought that no such thing existed. True it was undoubtedly, that the
chief carried on personally all the correspondence with his brother;
and, wonderful to relate, these letters were never copied. This was food
for much speculation among the clerks, and at last they came to the
conclusion that the young Consul did not wish any one to know in what
relation Richard Garman stood to the firm.
One thing was plain, and confirmed by long experience, and that was,
that the Consul attached great importance to the letters that came from
his brother. He read them before the rest of the post, and if any one
happened to come in when he was thus engaged, he always covered the
correspondence with a sheet of paper. One of the younger clerks once
asserted that he had seen a bill of exchange in one of the aforesaid
letters, but the statement found but little credence in the office; for
it was a recognized fact that not one single paper existed which bore
Richard Garman's signature. Another story, which was even less worthy of
credit, was one told by the office messenger, who stated that one day he
had brought a letter from Bratvold, and that as he came in with the
portfolio he had found the young Consul standing by the key-drawer, with
a letter in one hand and two bills of exchange in the other, quite red
in the face, and apparently bent double, as if he was on the point of
choking. The messenger thought at first that it was a fit, but it was
plain to the meanest understanding that there was not a word of truth in
the story, for the messenger had the audacity to aver that he had heard
the young Consul give vent to a short but unmistakable laugh. There was
plainly a misapprehension somewhere; every one knew that the young
Consul was unable to laugh.
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