They drank. A pause ensued.

"I have really come to congratulate you," said Tidemand. "I have never yet
made a stroke like that last one of yours!"

It was true that Ole had turned a trick lately. But he insisted that there
really was nothing in it that entitled him to any credit; it was just a
bit of luck. And if there was any credit to bestow, then it belonged to
the firm, not to him. The operations in London had succeeded because of
the cleverness of his agent.

The affair was as follows:

An English freight-steamer, the _Concordia_, had left Rio with half a
cargo of coffee; she touched at Bathurst for a deck-load of hides, ran
into the December gales on the north coast of Normandy, and sprung a leak;
then she was towed into Plymouth. The cargo was water-soaked; half of it
was coffee.

This cargo of damaged coffee was washed out and brought to London; it was
put on the market, but could not be sold; the combination of sea-water and
hides had spoiled it. The owner tried all sorts of doctorings: he used
colouring matter--indigo, kurkuma, chrome, copper vitriol--he had it
rolled in hogsheads with leaden bullets. Nothing availed; he had to sell
it at auction. Henriksen's agent bid it in for a song.

Ole went to London; he made tests with this coffee, washed out the
colouring matter, flushed it thoroughly, and dried it again. Finally he
had the entire cargo roasted and packed in hermetically sealed zinc boxes.
These boxes were brought to Norway after a month of storing; they were