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were dull on ’Change, but the Springsale is pretty well bound to make up for it. Don’t think that there is nothing doing with us. With Busselinck & Waterman things are still duller. A strange world! One experiences a good few things, when one is on the Exchange for some twenty years. Just think! They have tried—Busselinck & Waterman—to get Ludwig Stern away from me. As I don’t know whether you are acquainted with the Exchange, I must first tell you that Stern is one of the foremost firms in coffee in Hamburg, which has always been served by Last & Co. Quite accidentally I came to know it I mean the trickery of Busselinck & Waterman. They promised to drop a quarter per cent. of the rebate—they are scabs, nothing better—and now look what I have done to parry that blow. Another in my place would probably have written to Ludwig Stern that he also would drop something, and that he hoped for consideration in view of the longtime services of Last & Co I have calculated that the firm, during the past more than fifty years, has made £35,000 out of Stern. The connection dates back to the Continental System, when we smuggled colonial imports from Heligoland. Yes, it is difficult to say what things another would have written. But no, I draw the line at being a scab. I went to “Poland,” ordered pen and paper, and wrote:

This is the absolute truth!