In pleasant reveries, that dashed the future with much that had delighted me in the past, the hours rolled on till it was time to present myself at Herr Oppovich's. Armed with my letter of introduction, I soon found myself at the door of a large warehouse, over which his name stood in big letters. A narrow wooden stair ascended steeply from the entrance to a long low room, in which fully twenty clerks were busily engaged at their desks. At the end of this, in a smaller room, I was told Herr Ignaz--for he was always so called--held his private office. Before I was well conscious of it, I was standing in this room before a short, thick-set old man, with heavy eyebrows and beard, and whose long coat of coarse cloth reached to his feet. He sat and examined me as he read the note, pausing at times in the reading as if to compare me with the indications before him. “Digby Owen,--is that the name?” asked he. “Yes, sir.” “Native of Ireland, and never before employed in commercial pursuits?” I nodded to this interrogatory. “Ikam not in love with Ireland, nor do I feel a great liking for ignorance, Herr Owen,” said he, slowly; and there was a deep impressiveness in his tone, though the words came with the thick accentuation of the Jew. “My old friend and correspondent should have remembered these prejudices of mine. Herr Jacob Heinfetter should not have sent you here.” I knew not what reply to make to this, and was silent “He should not have sent you here;” and he repeated the words with increased solemnity. “What do you want me to do with you?” said he, sharply, after a brief pause. “Anything that will serve to let me earn my bread,” said I, calmly. “But I can get scores like you, young man, for the wages we give servants here; and would you be content with that?” “I must take what you are pleased to give me.” He rang a little bell beside him, and cried out, “Send Harasch here.” And, at the word, a short, beetle-browed, ill-favored young fellow appeared at the door, pen in hand. “Bring me your ledger,” said the old man. “Look here now,” said he to me, as he turned over the beautifully clean and neatly kept volume: “this is the work of one who earns six hundred florins a year. You began with four, Harasch?” “Three hundred, Herr Ignaz,” said the lad, bowing. “Can you live and wear such clothes as these,” said the old man, touching my tweed coat, “for three hundred florins a year,--paper florins, mind, which in your money would make about twenty-five pounds?” “I will do my best with it,” said I, determined he should not deter me by mere words. “Take him with you, Harasch; let him copy into the waste-book. We shall see in a few days what he's fit for.” At a sign from the youth I followed him out, and soon found myself in the outer room, where a considerable number of the younger clerks were waiting to acknowledge me.