“Y’know, old girl, what we really need is just a couple o’ Jewish banks--that’s all! Before, when I had my little store in the Strumpergasse, then whenever I had to buy abroad I used to go to that hunchbacked Kohn of the Hermesbank, where I had my account, and he says to me, ‘Herr Zwickerl,’ he says, ‘now you’ve got to store up marks, because the mark’s going to go up;’ or he says, ‘The krone is going to be steadier now, so you buy kronen.’ And it always happened the way he said, and I made money not only on my goods, but on the exchange, too. But now--the monkeys what’s in that bank now don’t know nothin’, and I don’t know nothin’ about it either, and everything’s going to pieces, you mark my words!” Herr Zwickerl was one of the many petty business men whom the anti-Jewish law had raised to great heights. With the aid of the now thoroughly Christian Länderbank he, the little small-scale merchant, had succeeded in acquiring the great dry goods store in the Mariahilferstrasse; and his first six months there had been a time of unalloyed happiness. When Herr Zwickerl stood on the balcony of the store and looked down at the throng below, he felt like a petty monarch, becoming quite drunk with the ringing of the cash registers, the rustling of silk, and the confused hum of voices. Every evening, at supper, he drank to the health of Schwertfeger, and repeated over and over again to his wife, (who now wore her kid gloves even into the kitchen): “Now you see, old girl--now we can see how the Jews fleeced us! They had all the big stores, and we Christians had to worry along and work our heads off in dingy little shops. Thank God, that’s over now!” But even the first semi-annual accounting was a terrible disappointment for Herr Zwickerl. In spite of the enormous turnover and the crowded store there was not the shadow of a profit--somehow or other some mistake had always been made in the speculation involved in purchases abroad. And more than once Herr Zwickerl sighed to himself: “If only I had a good Jew what could tell me what to do!” Herr Zwickerl actually had to declare himself bankrupt, the store was closed, and was taken over by a realtor of the Gumpoldskirchen district, who made the great house over into a huge bar.