Although I spare no one when principles are at stake, yet it is obvious that with Stern I must adopt a different course from the one I have taken with Frits, and as it must be anticipated that my name—the firm is Last & Co., but my name is Drystubble: Batavus Drystubble—will be connected with a book containing matters which are not in accord with the respect that every decent man and broker owes to himself, I deem it my duty to inform you how I have endeavoured to bring this Stern back to the right way.
I have not spoken to him of the Lord—for he is a Lutheran—but I have made an appeal to his heart and his honour. Just see how I have managed it, and you may note how much we can do with a knowledge of men. I have heard him say: “On my word of honour,” and I asked him what he meant by that.
“Well,” he said, “that I pledge my honour for the truth of what I say.”
“That’s a good deal,” I went on. “Are you so sure that you always speak the truth?”
“Yes,” he declared, “from the truth I never swerve. When my breast glows . . .”
The reader knows the rest.
“That certainly is very fine,” I said, and I looked quite innocent, as though I believed it.
But this is just where I had set a clever trap for him, with the object—without risking the danger of seeing old Stern fall into the hands of Busselinck & Waterman—the object of putting this young brat in his proper place for once, and making him feel the enormous distance there is between an absolute beginner—even
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