His capacity for work was enormous and seemed wellnigh inexhaustible. He made a most lavish use of it, especially in the early part of his life, and the personal assistance he required with his work was of the slightest. His greatest aid, indeed, was his marvellous memory, which almost enabled him to do his work without ever referring to the files of letters and documents. He could always recall to his mind every phase of past events, and every detail of all the ships he had built or purchased, and he was never wavering in the opinion he had formed of anyone who had ever crossed his path, because such opinion was founded on facts.
Very gradually only did his fellow-members on the Board of Directors succeed in persuading him to refrain from putting in an appearance at his office on Sundays, and to do such Sunday work as he wanted to do at home. The telegraph and the telephone always kept him busy, both on weekdays and on Sundays. Even on his travels and on his holidays he wanted to be informed of all that was going on, and he could be very annoyed when any important news had been withheld from him, or when he believed that this had been the case, so that his secretariat, to be on the safe side, had gone rather far in forwarding on his correspondence when he was away from town. When I first entered upon my duties with him he had just returned from a rest cure at Kissingen. He pointed at the huge pile of letters that had been forwarded to him on his so-called holiday, adding, in a tone of bitterness: “You see, every expansion of a business becomes a curse to its leader.” Sometimes his absences from Hamburg would amount to as much as eight months per annum, and it was certainly no easy task always to know what to send on and what to hold over until after his return. To do so one had to be well acquainted with all the details of each transaction and to know what was important, especially what was important to him; and if one wished to see his mind at ease it was necessary never to let him think that anything was kept back from him. Any apparent neglect in this respect he was apt to regard as a personal slight. And yet the time which he had at his disposal for attending to current correspondence, both when at the office and when travelling, was but limited.
The waiting-room outside his private office was nearly always crowded with intending visitors. The callers were carefully sifted, and all those who were strangers and those who had come without having an appointment were passed on to someone else as far as this was possible. Great credit is due to his ever faithful personal attendant at home and on his travels, Carl Fischer, for the perfect tact which he showed in the performance of this difficult task.
In spite of all this sifting, however, the time left for getting through a day’s mail was not sufficient. I therefore, shortly after entering the company’s services, made it a point to submit to his notice only those letters which I considered of real importance. According to the mood in which he seemed to be I then acquainted him with the contents of as much of the remainder as I thought it wise to do. I believe I gradually succeeded in acquiring a fair amount of skill in reading his mind, and this facility enabled me to avoid more dangerous rocks than one. I tried to proceed along similar lines when he was away from Hamburg, especially when he was taking a holiday. On such occasions I forwarded on to him only the important letters, taking great care, however, that he was not kept out of touch with any matter of real consequence, so that he should never feel that he was left in the dark about anything. After some time I had the satisfaction of being told by him when he returned from a holiday that that had been “his first real holiday since he had joined the Packetfahrt.”
Once one had learnt to understand his way of reasoning and his individual traits, it was not difficult to know how to treat him. If a mistake had been made, or if some oversight had taken place, the most foolish thing would be not to tell him so at once. To act otherwise would mean the immediate and permanent forfeiture of his confidence, whilst an open admission of the mistake would strengthen his faith enormously. He hated to be shut out from the actual practice of the company’s business by a Chinese wall of bureaucratic control. Whenever such a wall was in process of erection he quickly and inexorably pulled it down, and he always remained in personal contact with every department and with every prominent member of the staff as far as the size of the huge undertaking enabled him to do so. For this reason he but rarely, and only when the pressure of other business was encroaching too much on him, omitted to receive at his private office the captains who came to make their reports to the directors. He knew, of course, every one of them personally, as he had appointed many of them himself years ago. He was no stranger to their various idiosyncrasies, and he knew all their good qualities. He was also personally acquainted with a great many of those unconventional and often somewhat blunt but always good-natured individuals of humble rank who seem to thrive wherever much shipping is going on. He was not too proud to write an appreciative article on the death of one of them, which, since it reflects high credit on his own generosity and kindness of heart, ought not to be allowed to be forgotten altogether. It was published by the Hamburger Fremdenblatt, to the staff of which the subject of his appreciation might, in a sense, be said to have belonged.
KUSKOP.
“It was not until my return from England that I learnt, through reading the Fremdenblatt, the news of the death of Karl Kuskop—news which made me feel very sad indeed. Kuskop ranked high among the few remaining real ‘characters’ of whom he was a type, and as I was not able to pay my last respects to him I feel a desire to do honour to his memory by a few words of personal recollection, although Dr. Obst has already done so by means of an excellent article of his own. For I believe I owe a few words of farewell to a man of whom I have heard nothing but what was good and generous throughout the better part of thirty years.
“Karl Kuskop was a ‘character’ in the best sense of the term. He was as harmless as a big child; and although he could scarcely be said to be prominently gifted for his work, he did, indirectly at least, a great deal of good within his humble sphere. His popularity amongst all sorts and conditions of men connected with shipping was tremendous. My personal acquaintance with him dates back to the early trial trips of our steamers and similar occasions—occasions at which Kuskop was present as the ‘representative’ of the Fremdenblatt. I still have a vivid recollection of a magnificent summer evening when we, a party of about eighty people, left the passenger reception halls by our saloon-steamer Blankensee on our way to Brunshausen where we intended to go on board one of our new boats which was ready for her trial trip. Kuskop, who was wearing his yachting cap and was armed with a pair of huge binoculars, had taken up a position on deck. He stood out very conspicuously, and a port labourer who was working on board an English steamer as soon as he saw him, raised the cry of 'Fremdenblatt.’ This cry was immediately taken up by the people on the quay-sides, on the river-vessels, on the ferry-boats, on the barges, and all other vessels in the neighbourhood, and developed into quite an ovation which was as spontaneous as it was popular. The worthy Kuskop appeared to be visibly gaining in importance; he had taken off his cap, and the tears trickled down his kindly face.
“He well deserved this popularity. For years and years he unfailingly saw to it that the Hamburg steamers, at whatever port of the globe they arrived, found a Fremdenblatt waiting for them, thus providing a valuable and much appreciated link between the crews and the old home. I myself have also reaped the benefit of his attentive care. Years ago when I was making a trip round the world I found the Fremdenblatt waiting for me wherever I went; and after having been so much out of touch with the civilized world for weeks, that even Kuskop’s genius could not discover my whereabouts, I was agreeably surprised to find on arriving at Vancouver all the old copies of the Fremdenblatt that had failed to reach me, carefully piled up in one of the sleeping compartments of the saloon carriage which had been placed at my disposal for the railway journey from the Pacific to the Atlantic seaboard.
“At that time I personally experienced the pleasant sensation—of which our captains and the other officers had often spoken to me—which one feels on reading the back copies of old newspapers, calling up, as it does, vivid recollections of home. In company with my wife, and some German officers who were returning from the scene of unrest in China in order to complete their convalescence at home, I greedily devoured the contents of the old papers from beginning to end, thus passing in a delightful way the time taken by travelling the long distance from Vancouver to Montreal. The idea, which was afterwards made use of by Oskar Blumenthal in a witty article, occurred to me to edit a paper which would publish the news of the day a week after it had been reported, and even then only as much of it as had proved to be true. Such a newspaper would save us a great deal of unnecessary worry, as the contents of this ‘Periodical for the Dissemination of Truthful News’ would be sifted to a minimum.