losses. The armistice found him in England, where he had married the
daughter of a Viennese agent, in London, for the purpose of starting a
vast enterprise of revictualing the belligerent armies. The enormous
profits made by the father-in-law and the son-in-law during that year
determined them to found a banking-house which should have its principal
seat in Vienna and a branch in Berlin. Justus Hafner, a passionate
admirer of Herr von Bismarck, controlled, besides, a newspaper. He tried
to gain the favor of the great statesman, who refused to aid the former
diamond merchant in gratifying political ambitions cherished from an
early age.

It was a bitter disappointment to the persevering man, who, having tried
his luck in Prussia, emigrated definitively to Vienna. The establishment
of the 'Credit Austro-Dalmate,' launched with extraordinary claims,
permitted him at length to realize at least one of his chimeras. His
wealth, while not equaling that of the mighty financiers of the epoch,
increased with a rapidity almost magical to a cipher high enough to
permit him, from 1879, to indulge in the luxurious life which can not be
led by any one with an income short of five hundred thousand francs.
Contrary to the custom of speculators of his genus, Hafner in time
invested his earnings safely. He provided against the coming demolition
of the structure so laboriously built up. The 'Credit Austro-Dalmate'
had suffered in great measure owing to innumerable public and private
disasters and scandals, such as the suicide and murder in the Schroeder
family.

Suits were begun against a number of the founders, among them Justus
Hafner. He was acquitted, but with such damage to his financial
integrity and in the face of such public indignation that he abandoned
Austria for Italy and Vienna for Rome. There, heedless of first rebuffs,