CHAPTER IX
I HAPPENED to be in Frankfort-on-the-Main when reports came from America that the impeachment of President Johnson was creating much excitement in the United States. A friend of mine, who had long lived in New York, Mr. Marcuse, took me to the bourse, where I was at once surrounded by a crowd of bankers and brokers, who, no doubt, regarded me as an authority on American affairs and eagerly plied me with questions as to whether the impeachment of President Johnson would lead to revolutionary disturbances. As the Frankfort bourse had been and still was the principal market in Germany for the bonds issued by our Government during and since our Civil War, its worry about the situation in the United States was perfectly natural. I expressed to the throng surrounding me my conviction that whichever way the trial of the President might turn out, there would not be the slightest danger of any revolutionary trouble. My little speech seemed to have a reassuring effect, and “Americans,” which had been “weak” during the morning, at once became “strong.” Mr. Marcuse looked at me with an ironical smile and said: “Well, well, you will never be rich.”
“Why not?” I asked.
“Because you do not watch your chances,” Mr. Marcuse answered. “Did it not occur to you that the news from the United States had made Americans go down, that your talk to the crowd would make them go up again, and that, if you had given me a hint to buy before you spoke, we both might
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