In the first place, Ferdinand Brandeis had been a dreamer,
and a potential poet, which is bad equipment for success in
the business of general merchandise. Four times, since her
marriage, Molly Brandeis had packed her household goods,
bade her friends good-by, and with her two children, Fanny
and Theodore, had followed her husband to pastures new. A
heart-breaking business, that, but broadening. She knew
nothing of the art of buying and selling at the time of her
marriage, but as the years went by she learned unconsciously
the things one should not do in business, from watching
Ferdinand Brandeis do them all. She even suggested this
change and that, but to no avail. Ferdinand Brandeis was a
gentle and lovable man at home; a testy, quick-tempered one
in business.

That was because he had been miscast from the first, and yet
had played one part too long, even though unsuccessfully,
ever to learn another. He did not make friends with the
genial traveling salesmen who breezed in, slapped him on
the back, offered him a cigar, inquired after his health,
opened their sample cases and flirted with the girl clerks,
all in a breath. He was a man who talked little, listened
little, learned little. He had never got the trick of
turning his money over quickly--that trick so necessary to
the success of the small-town business.

So it was that, in the year preceding Ferdinand Brandeis'
death, there came often to the store a certain grim visitor.
Herman Walthers, cashier of the First National Bank of