Note 6 — Chapter IV

A few days afterwards young Mr. Stern and Fred attended a book auction at an hotel, the “Wapen van Bern.” I had forbidden Fred to buy anything; but Stern, who has plenty of money, brought home some rubbish: that’s his business. However, Fred brought news, that he had seen Shawlman, who appeared to be employed at the auction, in taking the books from the shelves, and giving them to the auctioneer. Fred said that he looked very pale, and that a gentleman, who seemed to have the direction there, had growled at him, for letting fall a couple of complete volumes of the “Aglaja;”6 it was, indeed, very clumsy of him to damage such charming ladies’ books. In the course of the scolding, Fred heard that he got fifteen pence a day. “Do you think that I intend to give you fifteen pence a day for nothing?” were the gentleman’s words. I calculated that fifteen pence a day,—Sundays and holidays not included, otherwise he would have spoken of so much a month or so much a year,—make two hundred and twenty-five guilders a year.7 I am quick in my decisions—a man who has been in business for so long a time, knows immediately what to do,—and the following morning I called on Gaafzuiger,8 the bookseller who had held the auction. I asked for the man who had let fall the “Aglaja.” “He had his dismissal,” said Gaafzuiger; “he was idle, conceited, and sickly.”