"I am aware that I must be industrious in order to merit Mr. Schroeter's confidence," was the rather indignant reply. "Truly a virtuous remark; but you'll soon see, my poor lad, what a gulf is fixed between the head of the firm and those who write his letters. No prince on earth stands so far removed above his vassals as this same coffee-lord above his clerks. But do not lay much stress on what I say," added he, more good-naturedly; "the whole house will tell you that I am not quite _compos_. However, I'll give you a piece of good advice. Get an English master, and make some progress before you got rusty. All they teach you here will never make a clever man of you, if you happen to want to be one. Good-night." And, turning upon his heel, he left our Anton somewhat disconcerted. Indeed, he too, in course of time, began to be conscious of the monotony of a business life, but he did not fret about it, having been taught by his parents habits of industry and order. Mr. Jordan took much pains to initiate him into the mysteries of divers wares; and the hours that he first spent in the warehouses, amid the varied produce of different lands, were fraught with a certain poetry of their own, as good, perhaps, as any other. There was a large, gloomy, vaulted room on the ground floor, in which lay stores for the traffic of the day. Tuns, bales, chests, were piled on each other, which every land, every race, had contributed to fill. The floating palace of the East India Company, the swift American brig, the patriarchal ark of the Dutchman, the stout-ribbed whaler, the smoky steamer, the gay Chinese junk, the light canoe of the Malay--all these had battled with winds and waves to furnish this vaulted room. A Hindoo woman had woven that matting; a Chinese had painted that chest; a Congo negro, in the service of a Virginian planter, had looped those canes over the cotton bales; that square block of zebra-wood had grown in the primeval forests of the Brazils, and monkeys and bright-hued parrots had chattered among its branches. Anton would stand long in this ancient hall, after Mr. Jordan's lessons were over, absorbed in wonder and interest, till roof and pillars seemed transferred to broad-leaved palm-trees, and the noise of the streets to the roar of the sea--a sound he only knew in his dreams; and this delight in what was foreign and unfamiliar never wore off, but led him to become, by reading, intimately acquainted with the countries whence all these stores came, and with the men by whom they were collected.