THE HOUSE OF HEINE BROTHERS, IN MUNICH

by Anthony Trollope




The house of Heine Brothers, in Munich, was of good repute at the
time of which I am about to tell,--a time not long ago; and is so
still, I trust. It was of good repute in its own way, seeing that
no man doubted the word or solvency of Heine Brothers; but they did
not possess, as bankers, what would in England be considered a large
or profitable business. The operations of English bankers are
bewildering in their magnitude. Legions of clerks are employed.
The senior book-keepers, though only salaried servants, are
themselves great men; while the real partners are inscrutable,
mysterious, opulent beyond measure, and altogether unknown to their
customers. Take any firm at random,--Brown, Jones, and Cox, let us
say,--the probability is that Jones has been dead these fifty years,
that Brown is a Cabinet Minister, and that Cox is master of a pack
of hounds in Leicestershire. But it was by no means so with the
house of Heine Brothers, of Munich. There they were, the two
elderly men, daily to be seen at their dingy office in the Schrannen
Platz; and if any business was to be transacted requiring the
interchange of more than a word or two, it was the younger brother
with whom the customer was, as a matter of course, brought into
contact. There were three clerks in the establishment; an old man,
namely, who sat with the elder brother and had no personal dealings
with the public; a young Englishman, of whom we shall anon hear
more; and a boy who ran messages, put the wood on to the stoves, and