im. He took a seat in the background, picked out
the ugliest and greasiest of the waitresses, and ordered a bulky portion
of sausage and sauerkraut.

He told lascivious anecdotes. When the waitress brought him his food,
she tittered, and said: "He is a jolly good fellow, Bonengel is."

Jordan began to eat rapidly, but soon lost his appetite, pushed his
plate to one side, propped his chin on his hands, and stared at the
immobile clouds of tobacco smoke before him.

He had a feeling that it was no longer possible to keep at this work day
after day, year in and year out. Running from one end of the city to the
other, up and down the same stairs, through the same old streets--he
could not do it. Answering the same questions, making the same
assertions, refuting the same objections, praising the same plan in the
same words, feigning the same interest and quieting the same distrust
day after day--no, he could not do it. Disturbing the same people in
their domestic peace, prodding himself on to new effort every morning,
listening to the same curtain lectures of that monster of monsters, the
insatiate stock market, and standing up under the commands of his chief,
Alfons Diruf--no, he was no longer equal to it. It was all contrary to
the dignity of a man of his years.

He was ashamed of himself; and he was fearfully tired.

He thought of his past life. He recalled how he had risen from poverty,
and worked up to the position of a highly respected merchant. That was
when he was in Ulm. There he had married Agnes, the blond daughter of
the railroad engineer.

But why had he never become rich? Other men who were distinctly inferior
to him in shrewdness, diligence, and polish were now wealthy; he was
poor. Three times he had been threatened with bankruptcy, and three
times friends had come to his rescue. Then a partner joined him,
invested some capital in the firm, and the business was once more on its
feet.

But it turned out that this partner was a stranger to loyalty and quite
without conscience. "Jordan is a drag on the business," he would say to
his customers, "Jordan is stupid, Jordan cannot make a calculation." And
the partner never rested until Jordan was paid a set sum and eased out
of the firm.

He then tried his fortune here and there for eight or nine years. "Don't
worry, Jordan," said Agnes, "everything will come out well." But it did
not. Whatever Jordan took hold of, he took hold of at the wrong end at
the wr