Albert arrived in Hamburg on a warm day late in June. He was dusty, hungry, tired. Travel by chaise to Hamburg was very fatiguing. And to add to his discomfiture when he reached his uncle’s town he found the shutters closed and the doors boarded, the family having departed for their summer home. Why had not his uncle given him specific instructions how to get to him? He was vexed and stormed at the coachman. A neighbor finally furnished his uncle’s business address. Everybody knew the location of Leopold Zorn’s bank. Albert’s irritation increased at finding Uncle Leopold away. “Was I not expected?” he demanded. The pompous man, whom he addressed, smiled—haughtily, Albert thought—and turned away from him as if he were a tailor’s apprentice delivering a garment. “Aaron, Herr Zorn’s nephew is over there,” the pompous man called—“that boy with the valise at the door—” “That boy with the valise at the door!” Albert felt wroth enough to turn around and go back home with the same chaise. Huh! that boy with the valise at the door. Presently his anger turned to laughter. A short, broad, middle-aged man, with sunken cheeks which were rounded by a growth of a beard streaked with gray, approached him. He seemed to lurch forward, rubbed his right hand against his greenish coat, and extended the usual greetings to him. His was a short, fat little hand, moist and clinging. “Yes, my child,” he addressed Albert patronizingly, though not unrespectfully, smacking his lips after every few words as if feeling the taste of his utterance—“Yes, my child, your esteemed uncle has given me instructions to look after your wants. Ah, that uncle of yours,—a heart of gold!—yes, my child, pure gold, sifted gold—gold, as the Bible says, that comes from Ophir. God grant that we have a few more the likes of him; yes, my child, pure gold without a speck of dross. ‘Aaron,’ says he to me—‘Aaron Hirsch,’ says he, ‘my nephew will drop in one of these days during my absence and I want you to take good care of him and find him respectable lodgings.’ ‘Herr Banquier,’ says I to him, ‘you need not worry on that score, Aaron Hirsch will take good care of his benefactor’s nephew.’ Indeed, my child, I have just the place for you—yes, sir, just the place—the very best place—in fact. The widow Rodbertus on the Grosse Bleichenstrasse has a room overlooking a garden with two large windows. No back-hall bedroom for the nephew of the great banker, says I to myself.” Aaron laughed unctuously. “And it is not far from here either. Just a step as we say in Hamburg. Let me have the valise—it’s too heavy for you. I can carry it with my little finger.” Aaron’s speech grew in fluency as they proceeded on the way to Widow Rodbertus, though “his little finger” had soon grown tired and he was forced to rest his valise on the sidewalk now and then. He plodded on, his speech uninterrupted in spite of the encumbrance.