Page:The Reminiscences of Carl Schurz (Volume One).djvu/106

 which caught his fancy and which had the charm of novelty. The building was successfully erected, but it cost far more than had been anticipated. It appeared also that the festive occasions proved too few to make the letting of the amusement hall profitable, and the granary yielded even less. My uncle's grain business soon became highly speculative and he promised himself mountains of gold from it. When he drifted into embarrassment, of course his brothers and brothers-in-law came to the rescue, thus involving themselves also in affairs of which not one of them had any knowledge. My uncle Jacob, the burgomaster of Jülich, had indeed good qualities as a merchant; he was painstaking, orderly and exact, but the quick calculation of chance, the instinct of the trader, he, too, lacked entirely. So with my father; he was far more interested in his scientific books than in his ledger. Often I recall seeing him at his desk with a disorderly pile of papers before him and a helpless, impatient expression on his face. Sometimes he would then rise abruptly, push the papers into the desk, crowd them down with both elbows, and drop the lid upon their wild confusion. The various members of our family came to one another's financial assistance so often that after a little while not one of them knew accurately the condition of his own or of their common affairs. To bring order out of chaos they would occasionally meet at Liblar for the purpose of talking over business matters and “settling up.” But this would have required the saying of many disagreeable things from which each in his amiability and brotherly affection recoiled. By way of beginning they would sit down together to a comfortable repast and recall happy bygone times; gradually the proposed business conference faded out of view; they ate and drank and were so happy together that it would have been a pity to disturb all by alluding to unpleasant