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80
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Gem Trader
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nights, and in this way I laboured hard for several years for sixteen hours a day.
There
was one half-day each week, though, Friday afternoon, when I was
excused the usual routine, for then I became the firm's Grand Almoner.
As such it was my duty to draw from the chief cashier fifty gulden in
neatly made-up packages containing silver and copper coins for
distribution at my discretion among the poor wretches, men and women,
who filed past the counter in a stream from two o'clock onwards while
the money lasted. I can still conjure up a vision of that tattered
woebegone army of paupers as it shuffled slowly by with many a covetous
glance at the small change set out before me. I came to know all my
"clients" well by sight, for they were regular customers. I knew all
their hard-luck tales, all their whines and dodges to get an extra
kreutzer out of me. I knew, too, the little habit of some of the women,
who as soon as they had had their turn dodged back to the end of the
queue again. A great babble of arguments used to rise out of such
stratagems, some taking my side and some the side of their companion in
misery. If they talked too loudly, the senior partner on his raised
seat at the far end of the room would shake his head disapprovingly,
and then as often as not I would give in for the sake of peace.
When
I had gone through the counting-house mill, the chief of the
metallurgical department, who had long since had his eye on me, claimed
me for his own. This post of assistant was a responsible one, for the
department not only analysed all samples drawn from metal ores, ashes
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