But . . . writing—apart from correspondence with principals—is outside my scope, and yet I felt that I ought to write, as perhaps the future of the profession may depend upon it. The information I found in Shawlman’s parcels is not of a nature that would permit Last & Co. to keep its utility entirely to themselves. If it were, everyone understands that I should not take the trouble to have a book printed which Busselinck & Waterman would read also; for he who helps a rival on his way, is a fool. This is one of my firmest principles. No, I realized that there was a danger threatening which would spoil the whole coffee market, a danger that only the united efforts of all the brokers could ward off; and it is even possible that these efforts would not be equal to the task, and that also the sugar-raffinadeurs—Frits says refiners, but I write raffinadeurs; this the Rosemeyers do also, and they are sugar people; I know, one speaks of a refined scoundrel, and not a raffinadeur scoundrel, but that is because everyone who has to deal with scoundrels gets rid of the business as quickly as possible—that also the raffinadeurs then, and the indigo-traders, will have to be in it.
When in my writing I so ponder the matter, it seems to me that even the ship-owners are to some extent affected by it, and the merchant-navy . . . certainly, there is no doubt about it! And the sailmakers too, and the State Treasurer, and the guardians of the poor, and the other Ministers of State, and the pastry-cooks, and the fancy-shopkeepers, and the women, and the shipwrights, and the wholesale dealers, and the retailers, and the caretakers of houses, and the gardeners.
And—it is strange how thoughts will rise in one’s mind while writing—my book also concerns the millers, and the clergy, and those who sell Holloway’s pills, and the distillers, and the potters, and the people who make their living out of the Public Debt, and the pumpmakers, and the cordwainers, and the weavers, and the butchers, and the brokers’ clerks, and the shareholders in the Netherlands Trading Company, and, in fact, properly speaking all others.
