Worse were still to be found only at Sandsgaard, and there those who
wished to do business with the firm had to betake themselves.

Meanwhile a considerable amount of business passed through Morten's
office in the town. This did not altogether please the Consul, but he
felt bound to uphold his son, which was what his father had always done,
and the firm thus became mixed up in many transactions which the father
would never have cared to enter upon.

To the clerks the young Consul was a being of quite another sphere.
Every head was bowed to him whenever he passed through the office, and
each one seemed to feel that the cold blue eyes penetrated everything
and everywhere--books, accounts, and letters, even into their own
private secrets. It was believed that he knew every page in the ledger,
and that he could quote intricate accounts, column by column, and if
there was even the slightest irregularity to be found anywhere, they
would wager that it could not escape the young Consul's eye. The general
conviction was, that if every creditor of the firm, or even the devil
himself, should some day take it into his head to come into the office,
there would not be found even the slightest error in one of the
ponderous and well-bound account books.

There was, however, one account which was a sealed book to them all, and
that was the one of Richard Garman. No mortal eye had ever seen it. Some
thought it might possibly be in the Consul's own red book; others
thought that no such thing existed. True it was undoubtedly, that the
chief carried on personally all the correspondence with his brother;
and, wonderful to relate, these letters were never copied. This was food
for much speculation among the clerks, and at last they came to the
conclusion that the young Consul did not wish any one to know in what
relation Richard Garman stood to the firm.

One thing was plain, and confirmed by long experience, and that was,
that the Consul attached great importance to the letters that came from
his brother. He read them before the rest of the post, and if any one
happened to come in when he was thus engaged, he always covered the
correspondence with a sheet of paper. One of the younger clerks once
asserted that he had seen a bill of exchange in one of the aforesaid
letters, but the statement found but little credence in the office; for
it was a recognized fact that not one single paper existed which bore
Richard Garman's signature. Anothe